News Bytes: July 29-30

Tivo and Amazon Integration Update
via Cynopsis

Tivo completed a new integration with Amazon last week allowing viewers to purchase items sold on Amazon.com from their broadband connected Tivo. Product Purchase links will be embedded in interactive ads and TV shows that discuss products available on the site. The items will also be accessible via Tivo's Universal Swivel Search feature, allowing users to search for products as they relate to specific shows, movies, actors or directors. So far products related to Oprah Winfrey Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Colbert Report and Burn Notice have been made available.

Industry Moves: MySpace ODs On New Execs; Oberfest Leaves LAT To Join
via paidContent.org

MySpace had a brief flurry of activity this afternoon, when reports came out that it had done some trimming of its staff. Turns out it was a yearly review thing, and some non-performing employees were let go, and new ones are being hired in their place.

Separate from that, the company has announced a slew of new senior execs at the social network, many of them familiar names in our industry:

-- Manu Thapar, SVP of Engineering. He was previously the VP of Engineering for Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), where he was responsible for software infrastructure engineering and ops.
-- Angela Courtin, SVP of Marketing. She was previously at MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA), as VP of Integrated Marketing, responsible for overseeing the West Coast department. At MySpace, she fills in the role that Shawn Gold held until last year.

-- Tish Whitcraft, SVP of Customer Care. Also ex-Yahoo, but her most recent role was VP of Global Customer Experience and Operations at ooma, the consumer Voip start-up.

-- Jason Oberfest, VP of Business Development. Prior to this he was Managing Director of Business Development and Product Management for Los Angeles Times Interactive. Effectively the business head of LATimes.com...will find out who the new head is.

-- Abe Thomas, VP of Online Marketing. Prior to MySpace, Abe was at eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) and PayPal.

@ LATV Festival: 'Content Is King, But Distribution Brings The Bling'
via paidContent.org

"Content is king, but distribution brings the bling," Brian Shin, founder and CEO of Visible Measures, said hesitantly on a panel this morning at the LATV Festival here in Hollywood. Sure it's corny, as he willingly admitted, but it's also a refreshing take on an aged line that nicely summarizes the space content providers – large and small – find themselves operating in today.
Greg Clayman, executive VP of digital distribution and business development at MTV Networks:

"There are audiences out there already that we can bring in, bring the content to and grow the overall pie," he said. As its syndicated more content to more channels its seen its audience grow overall and hopes it can bring many of those viewers back to their content on air. In that aim, MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) has launched new properties like South Park Studios, which puts the entire show's catalog under one roof and enables viewers to embed that content into social networking sites and online video networks. "Over time we've been able to extract the key elements of our player to integrate it better into third-party players." On the retail side, Clayman said iTunes and Xbox are the No. 1 and No. 2 distributors for video purchased online.

"It's something that actually is picking up a lot of steam." But the larger opportunity lies in advertising, he said.
Jonathan Leess, president and GM of CBS (NYSE: CBS) Television Stations' digital media group:

Since 2004, CBS has been transforming each of its 29 owned TV stations into 24/7 digital content providers that play online, mobile and multiple distribution networks. CBS newsrooms produce about 400 hours of news coverage every week from which 500 short video news clips are produced every day. With that content at the ready, CBS has moved it portal strategy into one mostly pegged around syndication on a local basis. "There is a plethora of desire in uploading to these forums," he said. As CBS builds up its content play on multiple channels – many of which it owns – it's put a heavy emphasis on training hundreds of local sales representatives on selling in this medium.

John Fitzpatrick, director of business development at Blip.tv: The NYC-based startup provides video content providers with a series of monetization options that let them determine the type and source of advertising they'd like to use with their video. Pulling from six different ad networks, each day the company will pick the network that has the highest CPM and try to put those ads into its clients' content based on that data. Content providers that wish to plug in their own source of advertising are charged a $5 CPM for administrative costs while ads that are delivered by Blip.tv carry a 50-50 revenue share. "We've determined this concept of total potential audience. It's a false idea to think if you put your show in one place people are going to find it … you have to find your audience wherever they are," Fitzpatrick said. "The dollars are all over the map for web shows right now. It's really all over the map… No one's a millionaire yet as a result of working with Blip.tv."

Vid-Biz: Flixwagon, YouTube, AT&T P2P
via NewTeeVee

Flixwagon Opens Up iPhone Alpha; all users with a first-gen (jailbroken) iPhone running firmware 1.1.4 can now do live vidcasting from the mobile device. (Flixwagon)

YouTube Recalculating May Ad Share; vid site sends emails to content partners explaining that it needs to correct some revenue numbers, the result could mean a bump of up to 5 percent in pay for some partners. (TVWeek)

Wireless P2P File Sharing Forbidden on AT&T; company tells the FCC that it identifies P2P file-sharing apps as something that will cause extreme network capacity issues. (Multichannel News)

Report: Online Viewing Starts to Replace TV
via NewTeeVee

Networks continue to insist that online television viewing is additive, but I for one think there’s no way that will last long term. And for the first time ever in May, a significant portion of U.S.-based online viewers of prime-time episodic television shows failed to watch part of those shows on television as well, according to Integrated Media Measurement. Fifty percent of online viewers consider watching prime-time network shows online a replacement for television viewing, the firm said.

As for the other half, 31.3 percent use streaming episodes as catch-up, while 18.7 percent watch streaming episodes to fill in episodes they missed or re-watch something they’ve already seen on TV. But there’s no demographic difference among the three groups — they all trend towards affluent, well-educated, 25- to 44-year-old Caucasian female professionals.

“The migration of consumption from one platform to another is only a matter of time,” was IMMI’s conclusion.

Up to 20 percent of episodic content viewing occurs online, according to IMMI. They arrived at that number by counting a bit differently than previous reports, which measure which portion of a group of consumers view content online — anywhere from 16 to 43 percent, according to research we’ve collected.

Here’s the PDF of the IMMI report, via paidContent. IMMI studied some 3,000 teens and adults and 14 prime-time shows from two major networks in the fall of 2007 and the spring of 2008.

Vid-Biz: YouTube, Comcast, EXPN
via NewTeeVee
MediaSet Sues YouTube, Google; Italian media company says it found 4,643 copies of its programming on YouTube and is seeking damages of $779 million. (CNET)
Comcast Reports Q2 Results; cable company loses 138,000 basic cable subscribers, adds 320,000 digital subscribers (check out its broadband numbers over at GigaOM). (The Wall Street Journal)

ESPN Rebranding Extreme Sports Site; EXPN to become ESPN Action Sports, will be the hub of the ESPN Action Sports Network sites comprising verticals for surfing, skateboarding and more. (Broadcasting and Cable)