Liz Gannes at newteevee, uses a recent Lehman Brother’s report to take a closer look at what we can expect from the displacement of analog with digital.

The take home:

‘So if that all works out, studios would be making $5.8 billion from sales of movies and TV shows in 2015, down from $17.7 billion today.

* It could be that the audience comes away from the studios into more niche, focused content creators. That might be nice.
* It’s hard to make creativity more efficient, so it could lead to dumber, more sure-bet movies and TV shows. That would not be nice.
* But at the same time, ridiculously inflated budgets would be evolved out of the system. That seems like the natural order of things.
* As people find it easier to not pay for content, monetization methods could get more personal. But while personal sometimes means helpful and relevant, much of the time it means invasive and insidious.’

Creativity can be more efficient if it’s branded entertainment as evinced by Eurostar’s funding of Shane Meadows’ Somers Town.

I’m with her on the ‘invasive and insidious’ and would add to it ‘immune to and bored by’, but by employing the creativity she fears may be lost, we’re looking at better brand spend on a higher quality product and goodbye $6m car commercials, hello twisted psycho flick in which our busty heroine drives the latest automobilitron.

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Still covering the Google/MacFarlane story when I came across Eric Berlin’s post over at Online Media Cultist, which pretty much sums it up:

‘The questions over how successful it will be are many of course, but Google and MacFarlane are starting out with sharp assumptions: animation is popular on the web, Family Guy itself is one of the most popular TV shows that people watch online, and MacFarlane himself is a geek’s geek, idolized by the men and young people most likely to watch shows online. The Times goes on to report: “In an interview, he described the installments as ‘animated versions of the one-frame cartoons you might see in The New Yorker, only edgier.’”

If the answer to that question is anywhere close to a yes, then we’re seeing a huge shift right now, right here, in how content will be thought about, produced, and distributed from here on out. ‘

AdSense has the network, but this new area is wide open for further innovation, for example a widget which you embed in your site (which is what AdSense is in effect), you feed the widget some data, say movie’s you like, so when people visit your site they see movie trailers reflective of your preferences together with additional short form content. Who doesn’t like a movie trailer?

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You Tube is 3 years old, but like Miley Cyrus seems much older. But like smiley Miley, should we be asking You Tube to pose near naked for Vanity Fair in order to satisfy I don’t know’s vanity? You Tube should just keep it’s clothes on despite what Annie Leibowtiz might say and stick with singing songs to tweens. I really mashed up the metaphors there, feel free to translate in the comments below.

note: we are unable to re-produce photos of Ms Cyrus for fear Annie will sue us.

The ‘how is You Tube going to make money?’ question is perhaps a little premature and I’d argue irrelevant.

It’s never going to make money, deal with it. UGC just ain’t compelling to advertisers and it’s increasingly Read the rest of this entry »

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Troy Young at AdAge (subscription needed) has more on the Power of Seth:

‘News of a Google-powered Seth MacFarlane content-syndication play hit the The New York Times today. It describes how Google will turn its AdSense display ad units into mini film units that will run MacFarlane-created videos, bringing advertisers that sponsor the content along for the ride.

Syndicating content across the Google Content Network is not news. Media Rights Capital and others have been experimenting with the idea for more than a year. We ran a similar program with Motorola and the Burg across our network more than a year ago. Crackle has been pushing content paired with ads through social nets like Hi5 for a while. What makes this different is Read the rest of this entry »

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I’ve been researching the Google/MacFarlane deal some more and wanted to detail some of the most interesting commentary from the web below:

‘However, while the deal may be groundbreaking, it’s not necessarily going to set a larger model for original online video. MacFarlane’s content is the best indicator that this project will be successful, combining the success of animation online, the bite-size format that does so well with web audiences, the preponderance and attractiveness of MacFarlane’s young male demo, and especially the known track record of Family Guy clips online.

The resulting deal is a revenue split between four separate parties: MacFarlane, Media Rights, Google, and the web site where someone clicks on one of the syndicated videos. What the article doesn’t say is whether or not there will be a central web site that archives the episodes.’

(Liz Gannes - newteevee) Read the rest of this entry »

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Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy has cut a deal with Google to create 50 x 2 minute cartoons, provisionally called ‘Seth MacFarlance’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy’ (clearly to avoid any confusion!).

So far, so crowded comedy market… BUT and it’s a big Family Guy sized butt, the cartoons ‘…will play in the space reserved for Google AdSense ads on a multitude of sites that Google deems the perfect fit for the content.’ (via VentureBeat)

‘MacFarlane will receive a percentage of all ad revenue made off of these clips. And that is where things get more interesting, because in a separate deal with some of the advertisers, MacFarlane is also creating some of the animated ads that will run alongside the show (most likely in preroll form). Read the rest of this entry »