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Tag: AOL

  • AOL is acquiring video ad platform Adap.tv for $405 mn

    AOL is acquiring video ad platform Adap.tv for $405 mn

    MUMBAI: TechCrunch-owner AOL has announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire video advertising platform Adap.tv in a deal that should be worth a total of $405 million – $322 million in cash and $83 million in AOL common stock.

    AOL is a leader in online video and the combination of AOL and Adap.tv will create the leading video platform in the industry, said AOL chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong in the press release announcing the deal. The Adap.tv founders and team are on a mission to make advertising as easy as e-commerce and the two companies together will aggressively pursue that vision.

    This tops the $315 million that AOL paid for the Huffington Post, making it the companys largest acquisition since Armstrong became CEO in 2009.

    Adap.tv will operate as an independent part of AOLs video organisation, which is led by senior vice president Ran Harnevo, and which itself is part of the broader ad offerings at AOL Networks (where Bob Lord was recently hired as CEO). The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.
    One of Armstrongs big themes this year has been programmatic ad-buying, where ads are bought in an automated way – a couple of weeks ago he announced plans for a programmatic upfront event at Advertising Week. In the release, he says that Adap.tv is at the forefront of both the programmatic trend ad and the shift from traditional TV to online video.

    Adap.tv supported more than 26,000 ad campaigns that ran on 9,500 websites, AOL says.
    The video ad company was founded in 2006 and has raised a total of $48.6 million in funding. Investors include Gemini Israel Funds, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

  • SoftBank Capital raises $51 mn to invest in New York tech startups

    SoftBank Capital raises $51 mn to invest in New York tech startups

    MUMBAI: SoftBank Capital, a venture group affiliated with Japan‘s SoftBank has announced that it raised an additional $51.02 million to invest in early-stage New York State technology startups. The additional capital extends SoftBank Capital‘s position as a complete early-to-late stage investment partner with an ongoing commitment to New York‘s emerging technology scene.

    SoftBank Capital New York partner Jordan Levy will oversee investments, with others including Ron Fisher (Managing Partner), Joe Medved (Partner), Ron Schreiber (NY Partner) and special partners, Eric Hippeau (Lerer Ventures) and Mike Perlis (President and CEO of Forbes Media), also helping to manage the fund. The major investments will focus on the high-growth sectors of social, ecommerce and software.

    This team has previously led a series of investments in New York-based startups for SoftBank Capital. These included investments in companies such as Buddy Media, acquired by Salesforce.com, Huffington Post, acquired by AOL, OMGPOP, acquired by Zynga, and Hyperpublic, acquired by Groupon.

    Levy said, “We were very pleased by some of the big successes with previous New York investments and feel our latest drop-down fund will be equally beneficial in helping to fuel the next generation of promising New York State startups.”

    SoftBank Capital has already made its first investment, leading a $10 million investment round into Work Market with other firms Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital, which follows along SoftBank‘s strategy of investing with the best firms on the eastern seaboard. Work Market provides a marketplace to revolutionise the way businesses work with freelancers, contractors and consultants. The company has also announced that Levy has joined Work Market‘s board of directors.

    Work Market CEO and co-founder Jeff Leventhal said, “We view SoftBank Capital as perfect partner for us in being able to successfully grow our business and reach a key audience of entrepreneurs and businesses, which will create a real advantage for us going forward”.

    The New York State investments are a key component of SoftBank Capital‘s diverse array of investment activities. Already this year, the firm has announced $250 million in funding targeted toward growth-stage, sector-leading technology companies intending to expand their Asian presence and a $20 million investment from Yahoo! Japan intended for early-stage investments for U.S. startups looking to break into the Japanese market.

  • Condé Nast Entertainment announces over 30 new shows for digital video network

    Condé Nast Entertainment announces over 30 new shows for digital video network

    MUMBAI: In its bid to move from being a pure magazine publisher to a creator of online video content Condé Nast Entertainment (CNE) at its Newfront presentation announced the addition of original programming slates inspired by Vogue and Wired to its digital video network.

    Vogue programming will launch on 8 May with Wired following on 15 May. Further, another six new series inspired by Glamour and GQ will be added to those brands‘ previously launched programming slates. In total, CNE announced over 30 new series across the Glamour, GQ, Vogue and Wired channels. Later this year, channels inspired by Vanity Fair, Teen Vogue, Epicurious.com and Style.com will all launch on the network.

    CNE president Dawn Ostroff said, “Only Condé Nast can create a digital video network comprised of over twenty established and iconic brands, offering viewers diverse programming choices for every interest and passion. In the first partial month of our content going live, our channels jumped significantly in the rankings, and we saw incredible engagement and feedback from viewers. New programming inspired by Vogue and Wired will further extend our reach and add new content verticals to our growing digital network.”

    CNE has also announced strategic syndication partnerships with Yahoo!, AOL, Twitter, Dailymotion and Grab Media, which will make the digital video network programming available on even more platforms and devices.

    CNE executive VP chief digital officer Fred Santarpia said, “We are offering advertisers a unique proposition – premium content released daily, broad distribution, and tremendous marketing support.”

    “We‘re thrilled to be working with our new syndication partners, which are some of the biggest names in video and social media, to make it even easier for consumers to discover our programming” he added.

    To create digital series, CNE partnered with production companies Radical Media, Hud:sun Media and Magical Elves. These creative teams are behind shows like ‘Oprah‘s Masterclass‘, ‘Iconoclasts‘ and ‘Project Runway‘.

    The existing Glamour series being renewed include ‘Elevator Makeover‘, ‘Why Do Guys‘ and ‘Fashion Week Ride-Along‘. New Glamour series include:

    Glamour Video Gift of the Week – This is a weekly series featuring the hottest guys in hilarious vignettes that bring every woman‘s viral video fantasies to life.

    Style to Kill – This competition series, developed with Magical Elves features two up-and-coming stylists who compete by making over one lucky Glamour fan per episode. Glamour editors judge the competition and decide who wins the chance to style a Glamour photoshoot.

    The existing renewed GQ series include ‘Fighting Weight‘, ‘10 Essentials‘, ‘Car Collectors‘ and ‘Jogging with James‘. New series include:

    Casualties of the Gridiron – This is a documentary series that looks at the physical and mental effects that football has on NFL players and how they cope with their post -NFL lives.

    GQ How To – From how to tie a tie, to how to make the perfect cocktail, this is the next generation of How To for men looking for answers from the brand that has all of the answers.

  • Discovery in licensing deal with AOL On Network

    Discovery in licensing deal with AOL On Network

    MUMBAI: AOL has announced a strategic partnership with non fiction media company Discovery. The partnership brings short-form videos from Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Investigation Discovery, Science Channel, Military Channel to The AOL On Network’s library of more than 470,000 premium videos.

    Content from Discovery’s networks will be programmed into The AOL On Network’s 14 channels and shared across the AOL On video hub, AOL’s owned and operated properties and publisher partners, bolstering the company’s science, technology, lifestyle and history offerings. Now fans on these sites will be able to enjoy excerpts from their favourite shows and series, like Discovery Channel’s ‘MythBusters’ and annual ‘Shark Week’ to TLC’s ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ and Animal Planet’s ‘River Monsters’ as well as other titles from Discovery’s programming library. Additionally, The AOL On Network and Discovery will offer content from Discovery and Revision3’s recently launched online video series, DNews.

    Discovery senior VP, digital distribution, partnerships Rebecca Glashow said, "Discovery Communications always has been committed to engaging audiences on all consumer distribution platforms, which are supported by a strong business model. This partnership with The AOL Network not only introduces new audiences to our award-winning programming, but allows loyal fans access to clips from all of their favorite shows. It is a terrific complement to our current array of multi-channel video services."

    The AOL On Network senior VP Ran Harnevo said, "We’ve long been advocates of the idea that content providers need to distribute their offerings to multiple platforms in order to maximise exposure and ROI. Over the last few months, we’ve seen this vision rewarded through market traction and recognition, although there’s no better validation than when an industry leader like Discovery turns to us to help distribute their video content around the web."

    Launched in April 2012, The AOL On Network brings AOL’s entire video offering under one umbrella and reaches more than 68 million unique visitors per month. It is one of the top 10 video platforms on the web according to comScore and is number one in content-only categories including TV, Lifestyle, Home, Beauty/Fashion/Style, Food, Education, Travel Information, Autos, Health, Maps, and Technology. The network claims to attract nearly 700 million video streams per month.

  • Newspaper industry shrinks 43% since 2000 due to digital invasion

    Newspaper industry shrinks 43% since 2000 due to digital invasion

    MUMBAI: Newspapers need to develop revenue models for the digital era as they face massive erosion in ad revenues due to migration of advertisers to new media as they target youth audiences. However, they can learn from an encouraging trend: traditional news brands are finding outlets in mobile technology.

    A mounting body of evidence finds that the spread of mobile technology is adding to news consumption, strengthening the appeal of traditional news brands and even boosting reading of long-form journalism.

    But the evidence also shows that technology companies are strengthening their grip on who profits, according to the 2012 State of the News Media report by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

    The study finds that rather than replacing media consumption on digital devices, people who go mobile are getting news on all their devices. They also appear to be getting it more often, and reading for longer periods of time.

    For example, about a third (34 per cent) of desktop/laptop news consumers now also get news on a smartphone. About a quarter (27 per cent) of smartphone news consumers also get news on a tablet.

    These digital news consumers are also a large percentage of the smart phone/tablet population and most of those individuals (78%) still get news on the desktop or laptop as well.

    A PEJ survey of more than 3,000 adults also finds that the reputation or brand of a news organisation, a very traditional idea, is the most important factor in determining where consumers go for news, and that is even truer on mobile devices than on laptops or desktops.

    Despite the explosion in social media use through the likes of Facebook and Twitter, recommendations from friends are not a major factor yet in steering news consumption, the report says.

    The report also notes that there are already signs of closer financial ties between technology giants and news. A case in point is YouTube’s plans to become a producer of original television content by funding Reuters to produce original news shows.

    Yahoo recently signed a content partnership with ABC News for the network to be its near sole provider of news video. AOL, after seeing less than stellar success with its attempts to produce its own original content.

    With the launch of its Social Reader, Facebook has created partnerships with The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and others. In March 2012 Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes purchased the 98-year-old New Republic magazine.

    In 2011, traditional news operations also took new steps to monetise the web in their own right. The Associated Press launched a partnership with more than two dozen news companies to license news content and collect royalties from aggregators.

    About a tenth of surviving U.S. dailies have launched some sort of digital subscription plan or pay wall. However, the research finds that these efforts are still limited and that few news companies have made much progress in some key new digital areas.

    The problems of newspapers also became more acute in 2011 as losses in print advertising dollars outpaced gains in digital revenue by a factor of roughly 10 to 1, a ratio even worse than in 2010. When circulation and advertising revenue are combined, the newspaper industry has shrunk 43 per cent since 2000.

    In sum, the news industry is not much closer to a new revenue model than a year earlier and has lost more ground to rivals in the technology industry. But growing evidence also suggests that news is becoming a more important and pervasive part of people’s lives. That, in the end, could prove a saving factor for the future of journalism, the study concluded.

  • AOL acquires Huffington Post for $315 million

    AOL acquires Huffington Post for $315 million

    MUMBAI: Being on a buying spree, AOL Inc. has completed the acquisition of the online news site The Huffington Post for $315 million

    Pursuing its turnaround plan under chief executive officer Tim Armstrong, AOL is looking at being one of the top players in news, entertainment and other digital content.

    Incidentally, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTCC) has decided that it will not challenge AOL‘s most recent acquisition.

    The Huffington Post, which has more than 27 million monthly US visitors, will be integrated with AOL Media and AOL local properties such as TechCrunch and Engadget in a new division called the Huffington Post Media Group.     
     
    As part of the acquisition, Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington will assume responsibility for a wide range of AOL content as president of The Huffington Post Media Group. He will serve as the unit’s president and editor-in-chief.

    “Through this acquisition, AOL is accelerating its strategy to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, and entertainment produced by thousands of writers, editors, reporters, and videographers around the globe,” AOL said in a statement.

    On its part, the Huffington Post has disclosed the names of six new hires. The company has recruited Yahoo’s! Michael Calderone to be a senior media reporter, the New York Times‘ Trymaine Lee as a senior reporter, the New York Daily News’ Michael McAuliff as a senior congressional reporter and The Daily’s Jon Ward as a senior political reporter. It has also hired Bonnie Kavoussi, who is set to graduate from Harvard, as a business reporter and Lucas Kavner, founding editor of Unigo, as an entertainment reporter.

    With the acquisition, the combined entity will have a user base of 117 million visitors a month in the US and 253 million worldwide.

    Armstrong has already made it clear that there will be layoffs in The Huffington Post.

  • Is Bollywood taking over TV news?

    Is Bollywood taking over TV news?

     As the world’s largest television news bazaar – with over 40 dedicated news channels, unrivalled by any other country – India offers exciting possibilities for broadcast journalism. At the same time, just as elsewhere in the world, television news in India shows a clear trend towards infotainment – soft news, lifestyle and celebrities – and a decline in journalism for the public interest.

    While news outlets have proliferated globally, the growing competition for audiences and, crucially, advertising revenue, has intensified at a time when interest in news is waning. Audiences for network television peak-time news bulletins have declined in the US from 85 per cent in1969 to 29 per cent in 2005 (though in India news audience has grown).

    With the growing commercialisation of television news, the need to make it entertaining has therefore become a priority for broadcasters. They borrow and adapt ideas from entertainment and adopt an informal style with an emphasis on personalities, storytelling and spectacle.


    This has been reinforced by the take-over of news networks by huge media corporations whose primary interest is in the entertainment business: Viacom-Paramount (CBS News); Disney (ABC News); AOL-Time-Warner (CNN) and News Corporation (Fox News/Sky News and Star News Asia). This shift in ownership is reflected in the type of stories – about celebrities from the world of entertainment, for example – that get prominence on news, thus strengthening corporate synergies.

    In the process, symbiotic relationships between the news and new forms of current affairs and factual entertainment genres, such as reality TV have developed, blurring the boundaries between news, documentary and entertainment. Such hybrid programming feeds into and benefits from the 24/7 news cycle: providing a feast of visually arresting, emotionally charged infotainment which sustains ratings and keeps production costs low. The growing global popularity of such infotainment-driven programming indicates the success of this formula.

    Infotainment – a term that emerged in the late 1980s to become a buzzword – refers to an explicit genre-mix of ‘information’ and ‘entertainment’ in news and current affairs programming. This new news cannibalises visual forms and styles borrowed from TV commercials and a MTV-style visual aesthetics, including fast-paced action, in a post-modern studio, computer-animated logos, eye-catching visuals and rhetorical headlines from an, often glamorous, anchor person. This style of presentation, with its origins in the ratings-driven commercial television news culture of the US, is becoming increasingly global, as news channels attempt to reach more viewers and keep their target audiences from switching over.

    As I demonstrate in my new book News as Entertainment: The Rise of Global Infotainment, such type of journalism has been very successful: in Italy, infotainment-driven private television catapulted Silvio Berlusconi from a businessman to the office of the Prime Minister. A study of journalism in post-Soviet Russia found that the media were ‘paying huge attention to the entertainment genre’, while in the Chinese news world, Phoenix channel regularly runs such soft news programmes as ‘Easy Time, Easy News.’

    In the world’s largest democracy, what I have described as – the three Cs – cinema, crime and cricket – encapsulate most of the content on television news. Here global influences are important: As in many other countries, the greatest contributor to infotainment in India has been Rupert Murdoch, whose pan-Asian network Star, launched in 1991, pioneered satellite television in Asia, transforming TV news and entertainment. Murdoch was responsible, among other things, for introducing the first music channel in India (Channel V); the first 24/7 news network (Star News) and the first adaptation of an international game show (Who Wants to be a Millionaire).

    Murdoch was also the first transnational operator to recognise the selling power of Bollywood, its glamour and glitz. The obsession of almost all news channels with Bollywood-centred celebrity culture today dominates coverage. Crime is big too: as the ratings battle has intensified, news networks have moved towards reporting sensational stories, which are becoming progressively gruesome: murder, gore and rape are recurring themes. The paradox is stark: although crime coverage has spiralled, especially on more populist Hindi channels, in the real India the crime rate has in fact fallen dramatically in the last decade.

    A third obsession is to be seen in the coverage of cricket: cricket-related stories appear almost daily on all networks – and not just on sports news. And as Bollywood stars start bidding for cricketers, the ‘Bollywoodisation‘ of news is likely to continue.

    These three Cs are indicative of a television news culture that is increasingly becoming hostage to infotainment. The lack of coverage of rural India, of regular suicides by peasants (more than 170,000, in the last 15 years, according to government figures), and the negligible reporting of health and hygiene, educational and employment equality (India has the world’s largest population of child labour at the same time as having vast pool of unemployed young people), demonstrates that such stories do not translate into ratings for urban, Westernized viewers and are displaced by the diversion of infotainment.

    The lack of concern among television news networks for India’s majority population is ironic in a country that was the first in the world to use satellite television for educational and developmental purposes, through its 1975 SITE (Satellite Instructional Television Experiment) programme. The interest in broader questions of global equality and social justice appear to have been replaced among many journalists by an admiration for charismatic and smooth-talking CEOs and American or Americanized celebrities.

    Should we worry about this perceived dilution and debasing of news? In the early 1980s, years before media globalization and rampant commercialization of the airwaves, Neil Postman, in his influential book Amusing Ourselves to Death, argued that television militated against deeper knowledge and understanding since it promoted ‘incoherence and triviality,’ and spoke in only one persistent voice – ‘the voice of entertainment.’

    A quarter century later, looking at the Bollywoodization of news in India, Postman’s words ring truer than ever.

    (Daya Kishan Thussu is Professor of International Communication at the University of Westminster in London. His latest book is News as Entertainment: The Rise of Global Infotainment – the first book-length study of this phenomenon, published by Sage.)

  • AOL, Charter Communications ink broadband marketing partnership

    AOL, Charter Communications ink broadband marketing partnership

    MUMBAI: Reinforcing its commitment to the global HDTV industry, the Banff World Television Festival in Canada has joined forces with NHK, Japans public broadcaster, to offer up the NHK Presidents Prize for the sixth consecutive year.

    NHK will sponsor the special award, which includes a $25,000 cash prize for the best HDTV programme.

    All HD programmes entered into the 2006 Banff World Television Awards will be eligible for nomination. The winner will be announced at the 2006 Banff World Television Awards ceremony during The 27th Banff World Television Festival, from 11 to14 June 2006.

    Banff World Television Festival CEO Robert Montgomery says, As a public broadcaster, NHK is also a leader in advanced HD technology, which is an incredibly important focus for us. We are delighted at the opportunity to work with NHK again in recognizing HDs true visionaries.

    NHK president Genichi Hashimoto says, “NHK always has a keen eye on the potential of new broadcasting technologies, so we’re delighted to encourage producers and directors who are leading the way in HDTV production. Given the increasing global dominance of HDTV and the Banff World Television Awards’ commitment to recognizing excellence, we look forward to seeing outstanding HD work in the competition”.

    The Banff World Television Awards include 18 categories covering the major program genres andnew this yeara category recognising excellence in interactive television. A Banff Rockie will be awarded to the best entry in each of the 18 categories. Entry forms and the detailed regulations for the 2006 Banff World Television Awards international program competition are available at www.banMUMBAI: AOL and Charter Communications, Inc have inked a partnership to offer consumers the AOL service and Charter’s high-speed internet access.

    The combined offer provides AOL members access to the AOL service’s leading security features and exclusive content via Charter’s true high-speed Internet connection at the price of $25.90 per month.

    Beginning on 6 February, AOL members in the Charter footprint will be able to sign-up for the new combined offering, as well as order a cable modem, making it simple and convenient to upgrade from dial up.

    “With the addition of Charter to AOL’s coast-to-coast broadband network, we’re expanding our footprint so that more AOL members around the country are able to take advantage of a competitively-priced high-speed offering. We’re happy to add this major new cable partner to our network of Internet providers as we are entering this new phase for our company,” said AOL Access Business president Joe Redling.

    Charter executive vice president and chief marketing officer Bob Quigley said, “Through this innovative marketing partnership, we’re targeting new high-speed customers and expanding our customer base. Our robust high-speed product makes all aspects of the Internet experience better, and together with AOL’s popular online service, provides a very compelling offer.”

    Key features of the new offering will include:

    Speed: The high speed of broadband makes all aspects of the Internet experience more valuable.
    Fast and Easy Setup: Makes getting up and running quick and easy.
    Customer Service: Help that’s available 24/7, including help via phone, e-mail or instant message.
    Safety: A comprehensive set of safety and security tools available to keep users safer against viruses, spyware, identify theft, and other online threats for no additional charge.
    Content: AOL exclusive and original programming including commercial free radio, streaming video and additional Charter content offerings through charter.net.
    Storage: Additional benefits like unlimited email and picture storage on AOL.
    ff2006.com.

  • Warner’s revenues for the year rise marginally

    Warner’s revenues for the year rise marginally

    MUMBAI: US media conglomerate Time Warner has announced that its revenues rose four per cent over 2005 to $44.2 billion, reflecting increases at the company’s cable and networks segments.

    Time Warner chairman and CEO Dick Parsons said, “I am delighted that 2006 proved to be a good year for Time Warner. Taken together, our businesses performed well, and we achieved all of our announced financial objectives. We successfully executed on our strategy – enabling us to lead our industry and lay the foundation for creating significant new value. At the same time, we returned billions of dollars directly to our shareholders through dividends and stock repurchases.

    “We expect 2007 to be another superb year for Time Warner. Our businesses are well positioned to generate strong operating and financial performances. On the strategic front, we aim to create substantial incremental value by completing the integration of our recently acquired cable systems, further developing AOL’s online advertising business, and driving digital initiatives across the entire company.

    “In addition, we will continue to allocate our capital effectively, including the expected completion of our current $20 billion stock repurchase programme during the first half of 2007.”

    Fourth-quarter revenues climbed by eight per cent over the same period in 2005 to $12.5 billion, driven by increases at the cable and networks segments. In its networks division which comprises of Turner Broadcasting and HBO revenues for the year rose by seven per cent ($703 million) to $10.3 billion, benefiting from growth in subscription, ad and content revenues, including the consolidation of Court TV ($253 million) from January 1, 2006.

    Subscription revenues climbed nine per cent ($498 million), due to higher rates and, to a lesser extent, increased subscribers at Turner and HBO, as well as the consolidation of Court TV ($84 million). Included in the prior year results was a $22 million benefit from the resolution of certain contractual agreements at Turner. Ad revenues were up four per cent ($111 million), led by a 13 per cent increase at Turner, including Court TV ($164 million), offset primarily by the cessation of The WB Network’s operations in September 2006.

    Content revenues increased seven per cent ($70 million), due mainly to higher sales of HBO’s original programming, including the domestic cable sale of The Sopranos, offset partially by lower syndication sales of Sex and the City and the prior year licensing revenues from Everybody Loves Raymond, which ended its broadcast run in 2005.

    At AOL revenues for the year declined by five per cent ($417 million) to $7.9 billion, due to a 14 per cent decrease ($971 million) in Subscription revenues, offset in part by a 41 per cent increase ($548 million) in ad revenues.

    The lower subscription revenues resulted mainly from a decline in domestic AOL brand subscribers, which related partially to AOL’s strategy, implemented in August 2006, of offering its e-mail, certain software and other products free of charge to Internet users. Ad revenues reflected strong growth in display advertising, advertising run on third-party Web sites generated by Advertising.com and paid-search advertising.

    In the film segment revenues decreased by 11 per cent ($1.3 billion) to $10.6 billion, due to difficult comparisons to the prior year record performance at Warner Bros. In 2005, Warner Bros. finished number one in worldwide theatrical box office, driven by the success of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Batman Begins.

    In addition, a strong theatrical slate contributed to a record performance at Warner Home Video during 2005. These difficult comparisons and the lower performance of the theatrical slate in 2006 led to a decline at Warner Home Video in 2006.