rickwebb's tumblrmajig

For Whom The Bell Tolls? It Tolls For TV... - Business Insider

spytap:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but TV is in a very precarious position, and will need to completely change their internal expectations, business models, development, and release schedules to survive.

I would bet any person a large, embarrassing, Romneyesque amount of money that this premise is untrue. I’d put concrete numbers on it, that in another four years, TV ad spend will still not have declined to match its percentage of viewership. 

All of these articles inherently carry the same misconceptions: that an eyeball on one platform is the same as an eyeball on another. That the time spend will somehow ever match the money spend, or that it should, or that anyone wants that. That all media platforms are created equal. That all ad money is spent in the same manner. That all goals can be achieved in the same way on any platform for the same money.

Ad money is staying in TV (and remember, it has actually GROWN), not because people are dumb and they don’t realize it yet. It’s because television is still the best way to do brand marketing. It is the most effective. 

Ad money left print  - primarily newspapers - because the products we internet people have made disrupted their industry far more than television. We made products for direct response, retail, commerce and below the line. These same products don’t make good brand advertising. You know what we’ve given brand advertisers? Banners and Pre-roll. What type of ads to people hate the most on the web? Banners and Pre-roll. Do either one of them inspire anyone? No. No. No. 

It boggles my mind that after sitting here listening to people say all the ad money is going to move to the internet for FIFTEEN YEARS or so, they still just say the same thing. Any minute now! Any minute now! At some point you have to stop and wonder if your fundamental premise is true or not. In this case, you have to stop and wonder if the only, or even the most important, metric for why and where ad space is bought is “where the cheapest eyeballs are.” You know what? It’s not. 

I have never, ever, met a single person responsible for buying ad space that said “hmm, I think I will align my ad dollars exactly to the ratio of eyeballs across media segments.” NO ONE EVER SAYS THAT. It doesn’t get sold that way. It never has. It never will. And honestly, it’s REALLY rare I meet anyone who ever says “let’s only buy the cheapest media eyeballs.” When I do meet someone like that, it’s because THEY DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY. So they don’t move the needle.

I realize four years is a long time, and by harping on this constantly, hopefully (please god) people will eventually realize the truth, and then maybe some genius company (like the one I am working at now) can harness this truth and make a product that does brand advertising on the web as well as TV does it AND brand advertisers learn to love it. That would be so, so awesome. I would lose the bet in that case, but so far, aside from Tumblr, I don’t see anything on the web that’s even been close to providing a brand marketer anything that would get them excited. 

rickwebb's tumblrmajig: The Pitch: Ring the Bell

kenyatta:

rickwebb:

Against my better judgement, I watched another episode of The Pitch tonight.

By the first five minutes of this episode, I realized that were I still in the biz, and this was actually how things went down (which it wasn’t, I’m sure - this is reality TV), I would have declined the assignment:

1)…

Wow — do joint briefs actually happen? That seemed so contrived.

I watched an episode a few days ago and was surprised at how rough the production was.

One “conflict” seemed to be made by cutting a scene out of sequence. Another scene used the same reaction shot three times in a row. I found it surprising considering how much AMC is promoting the show. Perhaps production of the other episodes aren’t so bad.

In the 1000 or so briefs I’ve gotten in the last decade, I’d say maybe… 20? Were joint? The vast majority of those were group anonymous conference calls. I can only think of a couple times I had to sit in the room with the competition to receive a brief. Hence why it’s such a big warning.  The conference calls are bad enough, but they can be useful because you can get some insight into what your competition is thinking. I suspect that the joint brief thing on The Pitch is mainly  a dramatic construct by the producers. 

(via kenyatta)

I Tried To Watch Game Of Thrones...

parislemon:

Hollywood’s core piracy “problem” is perfectly captured in this one cartoon by The Oatmeal.

In fact, I’ve had this exact debate with myself. I really want to watch Game of Thrones. But I’m not an HBO subscriber because I’m not a cable subscriber and unfortunately, the two go hand-in-hand, no matter what I’m willing to pay.

Speaking of “willing to pay”, okay fine, I can’t get Game of Thrones on HBO, but I’m willing to pay a quite a bit of money to get it via iTunes. Wait. Nope. Can’t do that either. At least not for a few more months — well over a year after the first season wrapped.

Netflix? Nope. Not streaming or DVD/Blu-ray. Amazon? Nope. HBO.com? Not unless I’m a cable subscriber. 

So my options are…

…

…well, I only have one option. Thanks Hollywood!

[via Yun on Twitter]

I sympathize with this line of thinking, but HBO is not the worst offender at all. HBO is $12 a month. That’s $120 a year. That’s probably a bit steep for a blu ray box set of one show, but it’s perfectly reasonable for 2 season-long blu ray box sets. And for that $12 a month you get HBOGo, which is awesome, and let’s you watch every single HBO show streaming, on demand, whenever you want it, in HD. 

For anyone who claims they would be happy to pay for a show, the price is more than reasonable, provided that HBO keeps making awesome stuff. But, then, of course, if it stops making awesome stuff, and it’s no longer worth it, you can just stop paying. 

Game of Thrones, alone, is 10 hours of film a year. That’s 5 feature films. That would cost you about $50 alone in the theater. 

So if you like Game of Thrones, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, Bil Maher, True Blood and Entourage, you’re paying an effective rate of $2 an hour for anytime, anywhere streaming content. It’s really not that bad. You also get a really great selection of movies.

Of course, to pay HBO that $12 a month, you have to buy basic cable, and that is annoying. I wish they would just let you pay $12 a month to HBO Go. I don’t know why they don’t. Are there licensing issues? Are there concerns it would erode their core subscribership? I can’t see how that would happen. But, yes. It would be nice to be able to just buy HBO Go. It’s annoying that they don’t. But most people in America have cable. If you already have it, the $12 a month are totally worth it. Also, I suspect it won’t be long until they just offer it. 

But regardless, HBO is a really good deal. Yes, it’s about 80% more than Hulu Plus or Netflix, but it’s pretty awesome, and not an unreasonable price. 

All of this, mind you, is available right away, and for a good long time after the show airs. All of The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Band of Brothers are still up there.