The WGAE’s Digital Media Education Program offers members a range of opportunities to learn about digital media theory, economics, and style, and to develop concrete skills. We were honored to be asked to discuss the topic of branded entertainment in these 3 videos:
Recipients in categories ranging from Branded Entertainment Series to Online Video Personality will be honored during an awards presentation hosted by our friend Alex Albrecht at noon on Wed, Jan. 25 during NATPE 2012 in Miami. The event will also be streamed live at www.natpemarket.com/digilumi.
Read the entire NATPE announcement here.
"Make no mistake my friends, 2011 will be remembered as the year sh*t got real in online video. This year the bastions of web video, no longer satisfied with “digital dollars,” made some of their boldest grabs yet at television’s multi-billion dollar advertising business by emulating the look, feel and business of…television. Welcome to progress."
Read the full post here.
Great to be included in Liz Miller's GigaOm piece with superstars like Tim Shey, Steve Woolf, Phil DeFranco and BlackBoxTV creator Tony Valenzuela.
“I think the ‘web series’ concept has evolved from being a type of entertainment that was ‘platform specific’ to one that’s ‘platform agnostic,’” Cleveland said. “The evolution of digital technology has been the most significant change agent in the evolution of the ‘web series’ simply because the delivery platforms have changed.” Cleveland’s Hiscox-branded comedy Leap Year, for example, was distributed via Hulu Plus, and was thus watchable across all platforms, including television.
We were lucky enough to discuss the topic of branded web series with Wilson Cleveland, a creator whose work in this field is among the most varied and successful.
This week CJP Digital's Wilson Cleveland joined Alloy Digital's Christian Busch, Revision 3 VP of Programming, Ryan Vance and AOL Video VP, Karen Cahn on the "Why is Branded Entertainment 'Brand vs. Entertainment?' panel at DigiDay Video in NYC. Above is the full 40-minute panel moderated by DigiDay's Corey Kronengold.
We were honored to be a part of this year's Variety-sponsored Producers Guild of America "Digital 25: Leaders in Emerging Entertainment" reception, hosted by Illeana Douglas, honoring digital innovators like Alicia Keys, Pixar, Sony, Seth Green, Zooey Deschannel, Funny or Die, Kickstarter and our buddy Felicia Day for her work as creator of The Guild. Congratulations to the honorees!
Here is Variety's coverage of the evening:
Variety: Books are for Schnooks - PGA, Variety Honor Leaders in Emerging Digital Entertainment
Attended the season 3 premiere of the IKEA©-sponsored web comedy: Easy to Assemble last week. Craig Bierko, Julie Warner, Mark Gantt and the 'Leap Year' cast/producers were there. You can watch the new season on My Damn Channel.
Lets just stop calling online shows “web series”- instead go with “original series” on x platform - thoughts?
I found after Tweeting an intial response, I had more to say so here goes:
Short answer: AGREED! Long answer: Whenever possible, I avoid the term ‘web series.’ Sometimes a client will insist upon qualifying whatever we’re producing as such (typically a scripted, longer-form series) and I do my best to convince them we’re better off going with ‘original series’ and here’s why: The average media consumer judges their entertainment by the platform it’s released on. They just do. I’ve always believed one of the more obvious roadblocks online programming faces in achieving mainstream awareness (and mainstream money) lies with how the mainstream perceives the web itself.
I recently asked my 64 years-young mother to email the Hulu link to the trailer for ashow I was working on to 10 of her friends of similar age and introduce it as an “original series.” All 10 watched and responded favorably. Then I asked her to send the exact same link to 10 other friends of similar age, but call it a “web series.” This time, 4 people claimed “the link doesn’t work;” 2 said the “video won’t play;” 1 asked “what channel is this on?;” 1 asked “How do I find this so I know when to watch? Only 2 out of the second 10 watched the trailer without any questions or issues.
Not exactly a scientific study but it made me wonder even more if placing the word “web” in front of “series” or “show,” is hurting our cause at raising the broader awareness we need to grow? Send a link promising a “original series,” it gets opened with no problem; send the same link but call it a “web series” and suddenly the same content becomes confusing and inaccessible. Just something to think about.
I sat down with Wilson Cleveland, the producer and actor in the series (Derek) to get a behind the scenes look at the first season, their partnership with Hiscox, and a sneak peak at what’s to come.
Q: Why Is Hulu for Sale?
A: I’m sure there are many reasons, but I imagine Hulu has paid an enormous amount in licensing fees to NBC, Fox and ABC, not to mention their sister cable networks, movie studios, etc. to distribute their programming which doesn’t leave a lot left over to spend on actually growing or marketing the company (nevermind sustaining it).
To offset those hefty fees Hulu added the subscription-based Hulu Plus service and significantly upped the volume of ads it served (1.3 billion in May alone). The problem with that is, having that many ads takes a bite out of the audience experience. Hulu is distributing Leap Year right now and they’re serving an average of 4 minutes of ads per each 8-9 minute episode (2 minute pre-roll, 2 minute mid-roll). It’s enough to make folks want to watch it on other platforms where we’ve chosen to make it an ad-free viewing experience.
Another issue I imagine is, since the TV networks command higher licensing fees for international distribution, Hulu is geo-blocked everywhere but the U.S. which takes a massive chunk out of your potential audience. More traffic would allow Hulu to raise ad rates but cost them more in international licensing fees.
Lastly, until recently, Hulu didn’t support playback on any mobile devices because 1. The networks wouldn’t license the required additional mobile distribution rights for their programming; and 2. Hulu stood firm on remaining Flash-based so access via iOs (iPhone/iPad) was impossible. Android users couldn’t access it either because again, Hulu didn’t have mobile rights. In the last year Hulu has since paid even more to the networks for mobile rights and allows iOs users (and some Android users) to stream Hulu via its dedicated mobile apps but only if you live in the U.S. and you’re paying $8/month for Hulu Plus. Ironically, Hulu Plus subscribers get served the same amount of ads (mobile rights cost extra) except now they’re also paying (access to a larger library of content is little comfort for Plus subscribers when you know the ad load is the same).
So, why is Hulu for sale? In my opinion, they were forced by their old media owners to pay huge licensing fees (which seems counterintuitive), leaving nothing to run the business. That forced Hulu to serve more ads, which annoyed the users it DID have. Then they killed Hulu’s ability to scale by denying access to the majority of the global online population and anyone with a mobile device but not before bleeding them for more money they didn’t have to cover mobile licensing fees so they could further alienate users by charging them $8 a month to watch the same amount of advertising via a native app that until very recently wasn’t even available for the mobile OS used by the majority of the U.S. population.There was also that little glitch recently that exposed users data when Hulu finally integrated Facebook Connect and shut it down in the first few hours but that’s a whole other problem.
This is why Hulu’s potential buyers are mostly tech companies like Google and not like the old school media companies selling it. Because media companies quickly became threatened by their own creation instead of appreciating the potential it once had to help them.
We're thrilled to announce that out of over one thousand submissions from around the world, TWO web series UNboxd has produced this year have been nominated by an international jury of media/entertainment leaders for prestigious "Interactive Rockies" awards at this year's
in Toronto! And our nominees are:
Best Online Program - Branded Entertainment:
The Webventures of Justin & Alden, "The Last Episode,"
written by Sandeep Parikh and Tony Janning, directed by Sean Becker, co-starring Wilson Cleveland, Felicia Day, Shannen Doherty, Alden Ford, Tony Janning, Matt Knudsen, Justin Tyler, Robin Thorsen and Milo Ventimiglia. Produced in association with Horizon Media for Trident Layers®.
Best Online Program - Drama:
" written by Yuri Baranovsky directed by Mark Gantt, starring Shannen Doherty and Wilson Cleveland. Presented by the Better Sleep Council. Distributed online by Lifetime Networks.
