Fox Joins Broadcasters in Blocking Google TV

NBC, CBS and ABC have already said no to Google TV, and now Fox is making it unanimous.
Fox is the last of the broadcast networks to block episodes of its shows from appearing
on Google's video platform. Google's "footprint was too small."

Newsweek & Daily Beast said to resume merger talks after 3-week cooling off period

Big-name principals behind Newsweek and the Daily Beast have resumed merger talks, insiders said late today.

Talks between the online news firm, owned by media mogul Barry Diller and led by Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown, and Newsweek’s new owner, Sidney Harman, broke down Oct. 18 amid reports Harman didn’t want to cede power as an opinion leader.

Sources at the time said Brown had insisted upon full editorial control of the combined newsroom.

Now sources say that after a three-week cooling off period, talks are back on.
Neither Brown nor Harman could be reached for comment at presstime.
Harman, a 92-year-old stereo tycoon, bought the struggling magazine from the Washington Post Co. in August for $1 and the assumption of up to $40 million in liabilities.

Hulu Brings in the Dough: $240M of Revenue in 2010

Hulu is going to make more than $240 million in revenue in 2010, the company’s CEO Jason Kilar revealed at GigaOM’s NewTeeVee Live conference today. Kilar added that Hulu generated $108 million in revenue in 2009. Hulu had 30 million users in October 2010, who watched some 260 million content streams as well as 800 million ad streams during that month. Kilar said that Hulu now has 235 content partners. The company had 352 advertising clients in Q3.

“The leading source of revenue is through advertising,” said Kilar, adding that more than 40 percent of money generated with content in this industry is generated through advertising. This has led Hulu to optimize its ad experience, and Kilar showed a few new features that the company will roll out in the future.

Hulu will introduce personalized advertising, addressing users by name. Kilar said that this type of personalized advertising is getting a 10 percent response rate. The company is also comparing users’ viewing history to develop more exact profiles. For example, it can with a 99 percent certainty tell whether a viewer is male or female just by looking at his video viewing history.

Another feature the company will roll out is the ability to swap out commercials, so that users who don’t want to watch a car commercial can switch to a commercial for dog food instead, for instance. Kilar said that the advertisier of the ad that gets swapped out doesn’t get charged a cent. Kilar said that ads on Hulu are 55 percent more effective than ads displayed on traditional channels.

Kilar didn’t want to comment on plans for an IPO when quizzed by Om Malik during the fireside chat following his keynote speech. Asked why Hulu Plus is showing its users commercials, he reiterated that advertising will always be a core component on Hulu. Om questioned whether more accountability in advertising will lead to a much smaller cake for everyone. Kilar responded that accountability is essential to move ad dollars online. “That’s the way the world should be,” he said.

So what’s Kilar’s take on cord cutting? “To call it today, it’s premature,” he said, adding that this doesn’t mean cord cutting won’t happen in the future. However, he doesn’t believe that Hulu is an enabler of cord cutting, simply because sports and other forms of content are missing. That’s not an accident, Kilar explained: “Hulu, Hulu Plus and Netflix have all been consciously designed… not to be a substitute for pay TV services in the living room.”

CBS, ABC Aim to Stop Online TV Site FilmOn

Reuters reports that CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox are asking a federal court to stop the   Internet video service FilmOn from offering TV channels over the web and on   Apple's iPad for free. "I'm not a  thief," says founder Alki David. "We're a bona   fide business. We're not pirates." ABC's 'Dancing' Attracts Tea Party Viewers.

Quadrangle's Media Pow-Wow Gets Underway

Media moguls and financiers are gathering at New York's Plaza Hotel for Foursquare, the annual invitation-only media conference held by private-equity firm Quadrangle. At Wednesday's "pitch panel," startups will be grilled by old-time media execs

Ads key as publishers move online

Magazine publishers are still trying to figure out how to monetise their digital content. The solutions are still fairly traditional, however. Five years from now, cost-per-thousand impressions will still be the norm, according to 39 per cent of top-level media executives who responded to a survey by Accenture in the first quarter of 2007.

Cost-per-action, or cost-per-transaction, was the second choice, favored by 21 per cent. Cost-per-click, a model that has come under much more scrutiny in 2007 in light of advertisers’ concerns about click fraud on the major search engines, was still anticipated as a viable business model by 12 per cent of respondents.

Exposure time, also known as stickiness, was proposed by nine per cent of the media executives, indicating that they took online content seriously enough to make it the basis of their business model.

When it comes to advertising online, these respondents overwhelmingly chose the mainstream media portals (86 per cent) as one of the top three areas on which they will spend the majority of their digital ad budgets.

The next two choices, user-generated content and social networking sites (41 per cent and 38 per cent, respectively) indicate these executives grasp what it means to be on the internet and that interaction with content is key for visitors.

Emerging platforms such as mobile and video gaming received stronger votes of confidence in this survey than in ones taken in other industries.

Xbox Live to sport ESPN content

ESPN is the latest media company bringing its content to the mostly young male aud of Microsoft's Xbox Live.

Disney-owned sports net is bringing a broad array of sporting events and programming to the service, through which users can download video onto the Xbox 360 vidgame console.

Content going to Xbox Live includes college football and basketball games, Summer X Games, "The World Series of Poker" and videogame reality show "Madden Nation."

All of the programming also is available for download on Apple's iTunes. A small portion of the video, including NCAA games, will be available to download in high definition via Xbox Live, which is the only digital download service with high-def content.

"Establishing this relationship with Microsoft on Xbox 360 provides an innovative way to reach our target demographic," said Matt Murphy, senior veep of digital video distribution for Disney and ESPN Media Networks.

ESPN sibling the Walt Disney Studios started making its movies available for digital rental on Xbox Live this summer. Other media companies on the service include CBS, MTV Networks, New Line, Paramount and Warner Bros.