#CES and #NATPE kicked off the year with keen insights into ubiquitous connectivity and content. Awashed in fantastical visions, the theme of imaginative wonder, optimism and excitement permeated the events marking the awakening of a magical many-to-many era. Enter SyFy’s House of Imagination and Alcatel-Lucent’s LTE world - rich, frictionless space for magical personal experiences.  Car as platform, toaster as platform, life as platform, and screens everywhere with everyone participating as producer and consumer.  And because shift happens, we’re reminded to use this downtime to dream it and make it happen for the future is now.

Here are the tweets:

(Progressively posting…stay tuned…)

#NATPE

Kris Soumas, AETN
AETN study found most women join FB to play games, replacing daytime tv watching. It is believed that Zynga is making and spending $50mm/month on Farmville.

Daryl Evans, AT&T
AT&T is providing free texting in Haiti.  Like all major advertisers we have econometric models and understand the ROI of each platform and media choice.  The better measurement gets in one area, the more pressure for accurate measurement and ROI in all areas.  American Idol may have introduced most people to texting, one of the best at product integrations.  We safeguard data and will move mountains to protect consumer privacy.  Calls Michael Kassan Dos Equis, the most interesting man in the world.

Chris Schrembri, AT&T
AT&T already owns a massive distribution network:  85mm handsets, 18mm monthly uniques on the web, 2.5mm Uverse subs.  We spend on upfronts and integrations. Like working with Michael Kassan, Media Link.  The industry needs a multi-platform metric.  Hard to resonate with Boomers, they’re jaded, important target, they spend disposable income.  Another important group is 35-54y.  Development is different.

Jillian Michaels, Biggest Loser, Losing It With Jillian
New show with Curtis Stone, move into house for 7 days, provide 3m support, to get change from within.  If you want to lose weight, count calories.  Women should eat 1200 til goal then 1600. Men should eat 1600 til goal then 2000.  Favorite show:  Six Feet Under.  In this business I have learned there is no such thing as freedom of speech because it is financed by advertisers.  Transfat and HFCS are deadly -but it’s almost like I need to speak in code to the audience because the show is ad-supported.

Andy Cohen, Bravo
Favorite show – Oprah.

David Verklin, Canoe Ventures
Must respect the TV business model, content has to be paid for, 4 ads for 1 hour on Hulu doesn’t cut it.  TV is going online and online on TV, its happening, just need a fair buck to get paid for content.  Addressable ads exist online today in the form of cookies. Interactivity allows for engagement, data, T-commerce potential.  Canoe is a joint venture of the 6 largest cable systems with the goal of making them interoperable.

Curtis Stone, Celebrity Apprentice, Losing It With Jillian..
NBC has been marching this Aussie around many of its properties to build brand.  Food keeps you alive and can kill you.  Many viewers are 3 steps away from McDonalds and 3 steps away from a hospital bed. SWM seeking funny smart hot women.  Reply @bravoandy.

Donald Trump, Celebrity Apprentice..
If it weren’t for Jeff Gaspin, NBC, I wouldn’t be in showbiz, he made me a celebrity.  On casting – We got on TV because we were already good at what we did, me real estate, Jillian fitness, Stone cooking…  Thrilled to have a cameo on Oliver Stone’s Wall Street II.  Favorite show:  Law & Order.  Loves Lady Gaga.  Radio City concert -best ever!  TV business is all about ratings, you could be the most horrible person but if you get good ratings, they’ll be kissing your a**.  Trump was hired for big bucks for Superbowl Oreo commercial.  Joan Rivers at age 76 had more energy than anyone, an inspiration to all.  Fan of Jeff Gaspin, Jeff Zucker, Marc Graboff at NBC.  Wouldn’t want Dennis Rodman running your business but he was a great character for the show.  Owns Blackberry and iPhone but doesn’t use it.  Kids do.  Has a ghost tweeting for him.  On Michael Jackson – he used to call me Trump, we were friends, at the end he lost his confidence, the plastic surgery ruined his face.

Bill Lawrence, Cougar Town, Scrubs
with J Max Robins, Paley Center
Grant Tinker was mentor.  Favorite shows:  Arrested Development, NewsRadio.  Likes to check WGA register just to see how many times the same idea has been pitched.  Advice to young writers – get to LA in your 20s, can’t make it elsewhere, the goal is to get an agent, hit the grind, produce material, write write write, get to know the WGA.  There is no overnight success, must work on shows.  TV is an execution business, must prove you can turn in a $2.5mm episode.  Got fired off of Boy Meets World for not understanding the emotional spine of the show.  Don’t burn bridges during your pitches.  And be inclusive in your vision, let others feel creatively involved.  There should be fewer hoops to get things done.  You can’t do it alone, be open to others who will determine your fate.   Scrubs got greenlit after ABC executive fell asleep during pitch and snored.  They didn’t want a single cam comedy.  Cougar Town got picked up quick because Courtney Cox was attached, same thing for West Wing, because Michael J Fox was attached. On Scrubs Episode 4.17, My Life in Four Cameras, it was a love letter to the multi-camera live audience format of TV yesteryear.  Secretly an I Love Lucy junkie.  There’s a belief that multi-camera only works on CBS but its not true, it works on Disney as well. Today, you package escapist entertainment in 6-7 scenes.  Because NBC got Scrubs from ABC, NBC had no interest in it other than ad revenue, ABC owned it and had the syndication rights.  The 8th year of Scrubs was cheaper than the 1st year on Cougar Town, the price made it easy for ABC to pick up Scrubs. Wife Christa Miller is music supervisor and co-star on Cougar Town.  Cougar Town co-producer Randall Winston, the hooked arm security guard and Death in Scrubs, greeting fans (more pics)

Alex Bogusky, CP+B
Creative director of the decade.

Oren Katzeff, Demand Media
Audience does not equal community.

Alex Albrecht, Diggnation
NASA is now tweeting from outer space!

David Zaslav, Discovery
It’s the Content Stupid – everything else doesn’t work if we’re not engaging people with great content.  On free content: it is not just the younger generation. We started that train. Now there is a pullback of free content.  Can’t afford to make Life without people watching it on TV.  Gating with authentication, Hulu paywall.  Twitter Catch Captains tweeting what they’re doing at sea, Jamie/Adam all over Twitter.  Consumer is the expert and social media is changing the way we market.  Twitter great tool to build fan base.  On Planet Green – we’re not going to be talking about “green” as much. Look for lighter fare.  Most sucessful shows on Discovery in US are most successful worldwide. Survival exploration curiosity is universal, Mythbusters successful everywhere but TLC is not, it’s US centric.  TLC viewer is 42y woman married w kids, brand is about real stories w/ heart, strong women – reason why Jon & Kate was a hit.  International is key to growth, WW is US 10 years ago, growing aggressively, made $100mm in 173 countries, will make 4x that this year.  Discovery is sticking to distinctive brands, if can get a .6 in the demo on brand better than reaching outside for a .7 like History/Ice Road Truckers.  Strong brand = loyal audience, easier to program. However other stations A&E have diluted brand and are still successful.  Oprah ends 5/2011, OWN in 75mm homes, Discovery will launch OWN in 80mm homes, network will be about owning your challenges and opportunities in life and moving forward in a positive way.  Oprah brand (OWN) on Discovery will fill an unfufilled niche.  Oprah has been involved in developing and approving shows.  Oprah giving up her show to develop OWN, identifiable brands.  There will be more info on OWN at upfronts. Discovery can repurpose the 25y Oprah library after 5/2011.  Discovery also acquired howstuffworks.com for DIY viewer.  Tend to be lemmings, networks, watching YouTube for fresh talent.  NBC is struggling now but that’s how this biz works.  HD tier is like the new analog tier, Discovery has 7 channels, excited about launching 3D IMAX – closer to real.  A 20 year library of Discovery content in 3D is fairly compelling.  Sony TV retail, HW/SW, IMAX theatres promote Disc channel, HD cost significant 3y ago, now nothing.  At CES I was struck by the power of 3D gaming. Gaming will be big driver for HD (gaming & sports).  Need to place your bets before tech proves out, movie biz success around 3D is driving interest in home, thank Avatar and gaming.  FN grew 20% after changing recipe – engage with great content, need quality content for growth.  Expecting for good carriage acceptance for Cash Cab  (more)

Albert Cheng, Disney/ABC
Disney’s greatest original web production success, The Dharma Initiative.

Illeana Douglas, Easy to Assemble
It’s time to think beyond celebrity eating a candy bar and time to practice conscious capitalism.  Web is another platform for artists to do things they can’t do in traditional networks like being funny.  If I have to go house to house to entertain – I’ll do it!  Had to create show on web, was being marginalized by Hollywood who shun 40 year old women central characters.  Premise of show are unemployed Hollywood actors showing up to work at IKEA Burbank.

Brent Friedman, Electric Farm
There is a consensus about Nielsen, but it doesn’t make sense, there is no objective reality.  Web content contains layers for audience to explore the experience. (David Bloom:  Narcissistic vampires can’t see themselves in the mirror).

Drew Buckley, Electus
Electus means the chosen in Latin.  Name picked for its global appeal.  Open to all OTT platforms.  (Partnering with Jason Bateman, SNL’s Will Arnett, CollegeHumor and Yahoo! for web productions – see CES coverage below for details)

Justine Bateman, fm78.tv
If old media can’t let go, they will not survive new media.  You have to have more than one skill to survive, i.e. Final Cut Pro.  Looking forward to video clickthroughs to add more subtext of what characters are thinking.

Peter Murrieta, fm78.tv
(Disney’s Wizards of Waverly Place showrunner)  Screenwriters should think in terms of creating worlds rather than just storylines. Working with Warner Premiere on The Clique.

Dana Walden, Fox
When started career at Fox in 1982 drama was dead, it became the year of X Files.  Production company has done Arrested Development too.  Hears hundreds of pitches each year.  Ed’s character grounds the show. Everyone is looking for the next Modern Family but derivative development never works.  Show wasn’t pitched to Fox.  Steve/ Chris needed break from Fox after Back to You was cancelled.  Fox produces for all, gave Glee to Fox.

Laurel Bernard, Fox
Watches live tweets while Glee airs. Glee was last year’s most tweeted about show.

Keith Hindle, Fremantle
Consumer habits are already changing.  It is our job to adapt and find a way to monetize it.  Production costs are coming way down, $3500 for 5 minute pitch.  Idol got 630mm votes, outside the US Fremantle makes more on votes than the show.  Family Feud is huge on mobile.  People love to play games and we’ll see TV evolving more as a platform for interactive gaming.

Ross Levinsohn, Fuse Capital
Missed opportunities:  Boxee.  Didn’t make the investment initially, wish we had. StudioNow just bought by AOL for $36.5mm, Fuse would have put in $1.5mm.

Jordan Levin, Generate
The young creative community relates differently to brands because of how they were raised.  The early adopters 12-34 are important to reach because they are leading the change in how we consume content.  Kids identities are tied up with their favorite brands.

Shishir Mehrota, Google
People are starting to use YouTube as an on demand tv as evidenced by the serach terms they type.  Half of YouTube video views are for videos more than 30 days old.    Tweets are now part of real time search through a partnership Google has with Twitter.

Irwin Gotlieb, Group M
Controls over $84B in media budget, considered so powerful that each year the industry asks Gotlieb where to hold the Superbowl. Winner of the Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Award. Knew Brandon and worked with him, both born 1949, met when they were 26.  In 1981, Brandon was the youngest NBC executive at 31.  We have to understand how technology and creativity converge.  Disruptive technology is challenging economy but content drives everything.  Media is nothing more than content interesting enough to attract large audiences.  If creativity and technology are deployed at the same time, well all prosper.  TV is still the most effective medium.  The more relevant the ad, the less likely it will be skipped or ignored.  Look at magazines, consumers spend more time on ads than editorial.  I would love to see TV budgets increase but there are too many other places to spend, it’s a function of supply-demand.  Upfronts are nothing more than a futures market, split is irrelevant, when scatter is high, money goes to upfronts, the only thing that counts is the total market size.  On CIMM, Nielsen hasn’t always served the interests of the industry.  They pitted one side against the other. On Comcast/NBC – expect to see Verizon get into the game.  Industry needs to welcome new talent.  Looking forward to Apple event, want a 9″ paper thin rollup tablet.  The sports rights fees are out of control.  Likes digital wallets, wants ubiquitous currency.  The big challenge for TV is to stem decline while in a deflationary period.  Without content, media is nothing.  On 3D – active glasses with LCD shutters hurt, why use them unless they add to the narrative, makes sense in gaming and computer rendered animation.

Phil Gurin
Sometimes they option it for 3m – 1y at $5 – 15,000 and don’t make it, not too cool.

Barbara Fisher, Hallmark
Martha Stewart is taking her daytime series The Martha Stewart Show to Hallmark Channel this September. (more)

Nancy Dubuc, History
We are in a business where each year has to be the best year ever.  Development is a numbers game but an imperfect science.   The factors are: 21 primetime slots, one out of four pilots will get a series and one in three will return. So team stays very focused on goal.  History will pilot a show up to two or three times to make sure it’s right before placing an order for more episodes. It’s more important for the show to become a franchise than viewers know they are watching the History Channel with the logo covered up.

Frank Biancuzzo, Hearst
Accepting the Digital Luminaries Award for Leadership.  Hearst now in 20mm households.

Hugh Laurie, House
Just finished directing his first episode of House.  Kept House as American because the iconoclast role didn’t fit a pompous Brit.  Accent is a challenge so he doesn’t strain, takes foot off the gas and lets it come to avoid sounding contrived, doesn’t go in and out, stays in accent all day on set.   It doesn’t ever get any easier.  The American dialect is hard.  Checks every syllable.    Would like to improv but word is respected.  Showrunners pretty strict about sticking to the script.

David Shore & Katie Jacobs, House
House is based on Sherlock Holmes.  Medical mysteries are highly franchisable.  The networks want to know it will run 100 episodes when you pitch.  France loves House.  On hiring women – look for best talent not necessarily diversity.  Her career path – went to NYU, directed shorts, was a PA, then a sales agent. Important to forge ahead with creative insight.  Need agent to get spec script seen.  Killed off Kal Penn at his request, wanted White House job, was very involved with Obama campaign.

George Ruiz, ICM

Judith Sheindlin, Judge Judy
Winner of the Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Award.  Met Brandon Tartikoff 13.5y ago, wonderful visionary, demanded excellence on programming, good faithful friend.  When kids were born you gave this one a stethoscope and said you’ll be the doctor.  Gift of gab destined me to become a judge and have a career on tv.  Every once in awhile, I check out the competition, but I don’t care what others think. When you’ve had a rockem sockem career, you know when it’s time.  Life is supposed to be a happy journey, not a struggle. Deal is up 2013 but CBS’ John Nogaski invited her to the dance anytime.   Will not run for political office, likes a monarchy.  In family court the judge is the ultimate fact finder, there is no jury.  The US is a mess because it is ruled by committee.  Family court never gets old, there are no repeat customers, sees a lot of fraud from the web like the Nigerian prince scam, frustrating seeing these women out of a need to nest hook up with losers, they break up and he’s texting like mad on her bill.  When a judge gets a private bathroom with white towels its the big time, not so in the entertainment business.  Don’t recommend the entertainment business, need a strong ego, even the most talented are subject to constant rejection, go to college and have as your day job a career, don’t just wait tables.  Prepare yourself to be well-rounded, a whole human being. (Book:  Don’t Pee On Me and Tell Me It’s Raining)

Gavin McGarry, Jumpwire Media
PPT deck: http://ow.ly/10Fpr

David E Kelley with Melissa Grego, Broadcasting & Cable
Winner of the Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Award. Brandon believed in storytellers and writers, he loved TV and watched it, gave him LA Law. The road to success is inexact and mostly unfair.  It’s pure folly to tell anyone how to do it, you can only tell them how you did it.  He got his break when a client of his law firm got his script optioned and made.  It was an abysmal film that had his name on it and taught him to doggedly stick to one’s own vision. First job was with Steven Bochco.  Need lottery to win fame and success, rather find what you want to do, not be, and then don’t not do something for fear of failing.  If you don’t have passion then don’t be in this business.  Wife is in the business (Michelle Pfeiffer) but kids who are teens are not heading toward entertainment.  Has been living in Northern California for 5 years. Misses Hollywood.  Shows are chaotic and it’s hard not to be in the nerve center, the eye of the storm.  Those 8 second conversations add up to something.  Film is nomadic, crew comes together for a short while, but TV is a family. Casting is an exhaustive process, time intensive and you must be in the room.  You can’t cast from tape.  Must publish script on first day or everyone starts asking for it, including the grocer.  Writes long-hand, can’t type.   Social media functions like a focus group but in the end it’s not as much about the show as it is the community relating to each other and generating social currency around the show.  I create characters I adore, sometimes I get called on a despicable character.  There has been the death of debate in this country, didn’t use shows as soapboxes in the past but now feel obligated to show dissent , will present both sides both not with equal weight.  News affects our lives.  Prefer cable deals to broadcast nets, there are less restrictions on content and 22 episodes is a bear, 13 is more attractive.  TV today is a richer landscape with the advent of cable.  It’s an industry that is now dominated by writers.  Shows like Braking Bad and Mad Men wouldn’t have been made 10 years ago. Ratings are now more important than 20 years ago, industry is much more focused on numbers.  When there were just 3 networks you were guaranteed 13-22 episodes and audience came by default even if the show was no good.  Harder to cultivate a show these days.  New NBC show is about a disgruntled patent attorney, need to watch a few shows to get it, but NBC is well-positioned to take some risks. Content matters, happy NBC 10 spot is going back to scripted.  Feels good to be going home to NBC.

Kevin Beggs, Lionsgate
Network TV is broken.  How is cable outperforming them with quality shows on lower budgets?

Xavier Kochar, MediaLink
Marketers will pay a premium for metrics that hit, they don’t have dozens of branded entertainment initiatives.  Walmart and P&G talk a lot about mom.

Russ Axelrod, Microsoft
At BEET we work on 25-30 campaigns a year creating great content for brand managers.  We start with the brand.  Created The Guys Manual – living a better life with more nuts. Sits on MSN.   Took risks, Grape Nuts is a conservative brand.  But got a 78% completion rate that watched video.

Steve Levitan with cast of Modern Family
Levitan – Fortunate position to have a hit show the best in the business wants to work on.  It’s been mind-boggling the level of stars who’ve asked to guest star, top talent solicit us at award shows.  We’re writing our lives, that’s why it feels real.  On Just Shoot Me, I loved all 13 time periods we were in over 6y+, it was the little show that could and almost got Seinfeld spot which went to Frasier. 18 shows in a season, shoot 5 days episodes over 8 hour days, one-camera makes it easiest job ever.  Costco was not product placement – unfortunately – they were cooperative but didn’t pay us. Used Apple Keynote software to present pitch to Fox.  Hollywood is 10,000 people running to where lightning just struck.  SophiaVergara – well known in Latin America, fans think its weird that voice is redubbed.  Julie Bowen – on ratings, now a 4.1 is a hit, before it was on life support, a 30 share used to be ok, now it would make the room explode.   Was pregnant during the pilot, reason fo the laundry basket always being front and center.  Thinks she accidentally started rumor that she’s returning to Lost.  Ed O’Neill – After 10y and 260 episodes of Married with Children, didn’t want another 30m sitcom but likes that it’s an ensemble.

Tony DiSanto, MTV
MTV will spend on awards, critical acclaim generates a lot of noise that is priceless.  Linear TV stream is primary but ancillary life is huge bonus.  Spending $400 – $500,000 on pilots.  Looking at 6-8 pilots to make 204 scripted series. Experimenting with Warren The Ape.

Jeff Gaspin, NBCU
Winner of the Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Award. Brandon was a mentor, put him in the NBC management training program.  Brandon was a G-D, a mythical figure.  Opened with – I asked Rick Feldman if we could move this back 30 minutes and it cost me $45mm. Not laughing he continued –  We thought it was a reasonable way to keep both Leno and Conan.  It didn’t work.  I underestimated the emotional impact of the late night move on Conan.  Didn’t realize people tweet as I talk.  It’s important not to second guess decisions, but to learn from mistakes.  Yes, image is tarnishing bottom line but have a robust development slate with Kelley, Bruckheimer, Abrams.  Rebuilding and moving on. NBC will be fine, just need more hits: Thursday night lineup is strong with 4 comedies, Law & Order and Biggest Loser – great, committing to 20 pilots this year, spending on big talent.  Spent $250mm on Olympics, it was worth it, we only have until 3/1 to reboot, cleanse, referesh that 10 spot.  Olympics gives NBC 200mm people to showcase new shows and lineups.  Olympics are important in driving re-transmission fees.  Next time, yes, bidding has to be at the right economics.  Fox knows its audience, they’re doing well letting House launch other shows, always lead with hits.  In the end the best content wins, serialized shows burn hot, episodic has afterlife, NBC didn’t invest in backend, 55% NBC Entertainment/45% third party.  On dissing the upfronts – It was worth it, shook up the market, will continue to talk to advertisers before the upfronts but going back to traditional timing to allow the pilots time to be completed.  There are 60 metered nets, USA is up 14%, one hit can change face of net.  Cable has better margins. (more)

Cameron Death, NBCU
NBCU’s greatest original web production success:  In Gayle We Trust.

Roma Khanna, NBCU
North Americans are very inward looking.  It’s a recent trend for businesses to look outward internationally.

Jonathan Prince, Novel Adventures
The Cleaner showrunner on webisode success.  Novel Adventures production budget was $600,000 for first season/8 episodes on CBS.com sponsored by GM, #1 traffic driver for activations on site.  GM just renewed for $700,000.  Don’t put deleted scenes on web, rather create new mystery, don’t put on rejected A&E pitch, be audacious.  Web branding is additive, budgets are small, its marketing money brand would use for a party, it’s not media buy money.  There’s a difference.

Geoff Stedman, Omneon
Accepting the Digital Luminaries Award.

Shelly Palmer
Social media is a two-way conversation, stop broadcasting.  Home page hits are useless, HITS = how idiots track success.  No more valuable than knowing tv is on.  Homes pages are so last century.  Listen for brand sentiment at oomph.com, use Google Analytics for loyalty, recency and bounce rate.  If bounce rate is at 50% shut down the site.  TV is an art form not a platform, its the beer, the remote, the sofa for 35y+, under 35y its the quad-split first person shooter.  Remotes brought in the era of channel surfing.  Read Nielsen disclaimer on accuracy.  Atomized viewers are findable.  Brands won’t get involved with anything that’s not at scale.  Need to earn your way into the trust circle.  There are only three business models – I pay you, you pay me, someone else pays.  Scarcity creates immense value.  Th 9pm a 30s spot is the best time to get scale because F is payday, because of scarcity it has been most valuable spot to buy.  LTE long term evolution – the analog spectrum the broadcasters just gave up.  @aplusk with his 4mm Twitter fans makes him a broadcaster but mommy with her 100 friends is an influential thought leader in her community.  US experts in one to many storytelling, 30s messaging. Moving to a many to many society.  Packaging attention, easy to create exceptional value in the 21c but the web sucks at translating value into wealth.

Karrie Wolfe, RDF UK
Secret Millionaire has been successful.  Seeking a 360 play.  Food is hot around the world, have done well with popup restaurants.  Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy does well abroad, Bachelor making a come back.

Howard Owens, Reveille
Buried Life and Biggest Loser have big messages, don’t distinguish content from branded content – they share thematic values.  Reveille creates entertaining IP that’s not a schill for the brand.

Elisabeth Murdoch, Shine
Ignoring social networks would be like ignoring the switch from B&W to color.  Those who use two screens at once are the most engaged audiences.  Fans remain the best salesmen of our content, even if that behavior is on the borderline of piracy.  Social networking is nothing less than Web 3.0.  Youths are willing to pay for premium experiences.  FB and Twitter mark a profound paradigm shift.

Hugh Forrest, SXSW
Talking with Brian Cain, Campfire and StevePeters, No Mimes.  Best way to watch 24 on DVR is 20 minutes later to skip commercials.

Dave Howe, SyFy
Dual revenue streams/affiliate fees are important.  Ad sales right now are challenging.  7 to 10 top films each year are sci fi fantasy genre.

Michael Wright, TBS. TNT, TCM
Wouldn’t hesitate to buy syndication rights from another network if its not in its first run, and if it is still running, would crete a window. For fresh talent, likes to hire new showrunners who had some experience as a senior staff writer on someone else’s show.

Felicia Day, The Guild
Thanking Microsoft while accepting the Digital Luminaries Award.  Just inked deal with Netflix, iTunes.

Marc Juris, TruTV
Several hundred hours a year of programming.  Looking for character, context and comic relief.   People don’t pay attention to network brands, they watch great shows.

Brady Brim-DeForest, Tubefilter
Double whatever production budget is to have money for  advertising and marketing of your content.  Own your show, not just 10% of it.

Ryan O’Hara, TV Guide Channel
Now in 84mm households, Curb, Susan Boyle & Ugly Betty now stripped and living in syn on TV Guide Channel.

Chloe Sladden, Twitter
NBC Olympics open API allows for lots of possibilities.  Quirkier shows like Glee doing better because of support from online audience.  There were over 1mm tweets during VMAs.

Bill Kispert, Universal Studios
Just launched House game.

Jesse Redniss, USA
Check out Windex game with Monk spritzing germs on www.characterarcade.com. Hilarious viral ads as well.

Jason Nadler, United Talent Agency

Jeff Wachtel, USA
USA wants to be in the cultural conversation but what’s better:  great ratings and crappy reviews or critical acclaim and no one watches.  International co-productions make it possible to afford mor production value onscreen.  Quincy ME is huge in Europe, Monk too.  Looking at 7-8 day shows per episode.  The biggest challenge is in finding the next big thing.  Trying for something more provocative.

Christian Taylor, Valemont
The heart of a web series is the story.

Michael Eisner, Vuguru
There is a death march of sorts for traditional media now that broadband has gone mainstream.  Broadband is cheap and ubiquitous.  Expect an advertising explosion.  On TV the Simpsons has 520 seconds of commercials at a $30 CPM, same show has 37 seconds on the web at a $60 CPM, it can’t not happen, it’s low hanging fruit.  37% of viewing is on the web but right now only 8% of ad buy is there.  3% of attention is going to newspapers and yet they still have 20% of ad buy.  Vuguru’s properties include Prom Queen, All For Nots, Foreign Body, Back on Topps and The Booth, a very exciting thriller starring Xander Berkeley and his wife, Sarah Clarke who played the unforgettable CTU agents George Mason and Nina Myers from the first season of 24. Might make Prom Queen into a musical.  Has a high output deal with Rogers for 20 shows a year.   Prom Queen was made for $1000/minute, distributed in 45 countries, got license fee from MySpace, 80% of its 20mm views was from MySpace, missed opportunity to developed platform into a media destination.  You can now create 90 second shorts for $3000 with SAG actors.  No production deficits.  Likes that the union recognizes the importance of web video.  SAG gives it legitimacy.  All the actors got paid, points are worthless.  Shot 150 minutes of The Booth in 2w, 20+ 5m+ segments.  Short commitment so top talent likes these projects, spent about 3 hours.  30 minute format will emerge as online standard.  Consumer doesn’t have ADD, they will watch good content for long periods.  Remembers making Movies of the Week with Barry Diller on ABC, 26 original movies for $375-425,000.  Universal was selling there’s to NBC at $800,000 a show.  Secret to success is making shows below the industry average.  Advice:  make great shows, someone will distribute it.  Not sure of the business model yet but great shows win.  YouTube has draconian rev share.  Loves Boxee.

Chris Hardwick, Web Soup, @nerdist
Hilarious as always.  Giving Xbox love at Digital Luminaries Awards.  Chatting up UCB at cocktails.

Gary Vaynerchuk, WineLibraryTV
On finding sponsors, solicit those buying Google keywords.  Said no to $250,000 kitchen from sponsor, holding out for 7 figure deal.  Making $1mm on book, $25,000 on parties.  Put your passion into production.  If your not interested in being the talent in front of the camera, then write.

Pete Thompson, Xbox
Accepting Digital Luminaries Award in New Media for Marc Whitten, Microsoft.

Winners, Best of Schwag
Treasure Hunters Roadshow – Rare Coin Scratchers, Chocolate Coin Treasure Chest
Texas Roadhouse Music Legends – Playing Cards
HISCOX – Director’s Cut Magnifying Glass

Sales
E1 sells Canadian content to Latin America pay-tv networks
MTV sells True Jackson to Mexico, iCarly in Peru, Panama, Bolivia
Toei Animation sold Dragon Ball, Digimon Frontier into Latin America
20c sold Don’t Forget the Lyrics into US synd despite Fox dropping it

Pics
http://www.flickr.com/photos/natpe/

http://twitpic.com/zm7m6

*NATPE has it all on video.  Check it out at: www.natpemarket.com

#CES

Sky Putting 3-D Before VOD; despite a promise to add a true pull-VOD service to its TV options in 2010, Sky gave no progress update for the service, but said it would start launch Europe’s first 3-D channel this spring. (paidContent:UK)

Ooyala Launches Localized Japanese Platform; with the new release, customers will be able to create and manage their video publishing account in Japanese. (press release)

Comcast CEO Not Convinced 3-D Is Future of TV; Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts says the company plans to produce great 3-D content, but isn’t sure the new technology will be the next HD in terms of adoption for 24/7 TV. (Multichannel News)

More Optimism for Big Media and Big Ad Budgets; Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente lifts his 2010 U.S. ad market estimates from no growth to that of 3.5 percent. (MediaMemo)

Digital Movie Label FilmBuff Launches on Babelgum; Cinetic Rights Management’s digital move label has launched a channel on the Babelgum mobile platform, with a series of clips and trailers from previous Sundance Festival hits such as Slacker, Metropolitan and The Order Of Myths. (Screen Daily)

Canoe Ventures Names Redpath SVP and General Counsel; the interactive advertising firm announced Wednesday that it has appointed John Redpath as its SVP and general counsel. (InteractiveTV Today)

Time Warner Cable Inks Deal for Food Network, Great American Country; cable company has entered into a multiyear pact with Scripps Networks Interactive for continued distribution of Food Network and music-oriented service Great American Country. (Multichannel News)

Setanta Sports USA to Go Dark Feb. 28; as expected, Setanta Sports will pull the plug on its premium channel in the U.S. and the Caribbean on Feb. 28, transferring select programming rights to Fox Soccer Channel on March 1. (Multichannel News)

Qik Launches Private Beta for Qik-in-Touch; live streaming firm launches private beta for its desktop video-sharing application. (Qik)

With Midem, Sundance, and Grammy’s, January is still bubbling over with places to go, people to see, but the one stop shop for premium professional content is at the NATPE Market next week at Mandalay Bay on the Las Vegas Strip, where on the floor, in suites, and on panels programming executives, brand managers, and showrunners wheel and deal the good stuff, and mentor indies on sizzle reels and pitch packages. From Michael Eisner and Donald Trump, to Illeana Douglas and Justine Bateman, to the Modern Family cast & crew, Jonathan Prince, etc. there’s never a dull moment.  Here’s the guide to what’s going on:

Sunday, January 24
2-3, Islander I
Selling Telenovelas with The Bold and the Beautiful, Telemundo, Dori Media, Globo
3:30-5, Islander I
Screening:  India – A Love Story
5-7, Border Grill
SXSW Kick-Off Party

Monday, January 25
8-10, Four Seasons, Level 2, Acacia Ballroom
Globo Breakfast Screening:  India – A Love Story
9-10, Islander B
Keynote:  David Zaslav, Discovery
10-10:30, Digital Theatre
Grow Your Audience with Stickam, MTV, CBS Radio
10-6, Show Floor
10:30-12, Islander D
Mentor Round Robin (Unscripted) with Paul Buccieri, ITVS, Andy Stabile, CAA, Bertram van Munster, Earthview, Eric Shotz, LMNO, Philip Gurin, Gurin Co, Douglass Ross, Evolution Media, Stella Stolper, Wikked, Ken Mok, 10×10
10:30-11:30, Islander I
What TV Needs to Know about Social Media with Shelly Palmer
11:30-12, Digital Theatre
Formatting Content for Digital Delivery
11:30-12:30, Islander B
Anatomy of a Hit:  Modern Family with Dana Walden, 20c Fox TV Chair, Steve Levitan, Ed O’Neill, Sofia Vergara (Gloria), Ty Burrell (Phil), Julie Bowen (Claire), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Mitchell),  Eric Stonestreet (Cameron)
11:45-12:45, Tradewinds C
Fans & Brands with Fox, Demand Media, Omelet…
12:15-12:45, Digital Theatre
Twitter TV with Chloe Sladden, Twitter, Daisy Whitney, Beet.tv
12:15-1:45, Islander D
Mentor Round Robin (B &C)
Barbara Fisher, Hallmark, Tom Zappala, Disney/ABC, Jon Helmrich, IBC, John Moczulski, KTLA-TV, Sandra Stern, Lionsgate, Gary Marenzi, MGM, Leslie Chesloff
12-3, Islander I
Pitchfest – The Agency, Lone Star Opera, Vicious Circle
(last year’s winner sold show to History)
12-4, Theatre on the Floor
Reality Food TV – Top Chef Quickfire Competition, Paul Bartolotta, Wynn
1-1:45, Tradewinds C
TV as Branded Business with Brian Seth Hurst, ATAS, Lisa Hsia, Bravo, Kim Niemi, NBC, David Norton, Ladder Up, John Couch, Titanium Sky
1:15-2, Islander I
Digital Spectrum, Revenue Resource with Brandon Burgess, ION…
1-1:45, Digital Theatre
Mobile Monetization on TV with Jim Beddows, MEF, David Kruis, Metranome…
1:30-2:15, Islander B
Keynote with Michael Eisner, The Tornante Company
2-2:45, Digitial Theatre
PGA Toolbox:  Unlocking Mobile Content for Interactive TV with John David Heinsen, Bunnygraph..
2:30-3:15, Islander I
Profit in Recovery with Sean Compton, Tribune, Emerson Coleman, Hearst, Brooke Spectorsky, Gannett, Doug Lowe, Meredith
2:30-4, Islander D
Mentor Round Robin (Digital) with Lori Schwartz, IPG, Curt Marvis, Lionsgate, Anthony Soohoo, CBSi, Keith Richman, Break, Nathan Coyle, CAA, Kevin Yen, YouTube, Jim Louderback, Revision3, Michael Kernan, NuMedia
2:45-3:30, Tradewinds C
Online Advertising with VideoNuze, GroupM, Google
3-3:45, Islander B
Storytelling with Bill Lawrence, Cougar Town, Scrubs
3:15-4, Digital Theatre
Mobile Video with FLM, Babelgum, FLO TV
3:30-4:15, Islander I
Global Entertainment Development with Charles Kenny, World Bank
4-5, Tradewinds C
Lights Camera Lawsuit! with James Lichtman, NBCU, Kirk Schenck, RDF Media
4-6, Theatre on the Floor
Happy Hour Cocktail Competitions, Blind Wine Tastings, Art of the Drink, Network Executive Mixology
4:15-5, Islander B
Cable 360 with Jeff Wachtel, USA, Michael Wright, TBS, Tony DiSanto, MTV, Kevin Beggs, Lionsgate
4:30-5, Digital Theatre
Leveraging GMX (Global Media Exchange)
4:45-5:30, Islander I
Nonfiction Budgeting with Donna Michelle Anderson, Planet DMA
5:15-6, Digital Theatre
NY Video Start-Ups Awards
6-8, South Seas Ballroom F
Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Awards – Jeff Gaspin, NBCU, Irwin Gotlieb, GroupM, David E Kelley & Judge Judy
10-12, House of Blues
Party with El Bambino

Tuesday, January 26
9-9:45, Digital Theatre
Manage Social Media Flow with Jumpwire Media
9-9:30, Islander B
Legacy Talk Back with Judge Judy
9-6, Show Floor
9:35-10:05, Islander B
Legacy Talk Back with David E Kelley
10:10-10:40, Islander B
Legacy Talk Back with Irwin Gotlieb, GroupM
10:45-11:15, Islander B
Legacy Talk Back with Jeff Gaspin, NBCU
11-11:45, Tradewinds C
Syndication with Vivi Zigler, NBCU, Albert Cheng, Disney ABC..
11-11:30, Digital Theatre
Cool Ads with Alex Bogusky and Sarah Szalavitz
11:30-12:30, Islander I
Keynote with Esther Lee, Brand Marketing & Advertising, ATT
11:45-12:30, Digital Theatre
IAWTV with Tubefilter, ICM, Digitas
11:45-12:45, Islander B
Donald Trump, Celebrity Apprentice, Jillian Michaels, Biggest Loser, Andy Cohen, Bravo..
12-4, Theatre on the Floor
Celebrity Chef Competitions
12:15-1, Tradewinds C
Daisy Whitney interviews Ross Levinsohn, Fuse Capital
12:45-1:30, Islander I
Drew Buckley, Electus, Keith Hindle, Fremantle, David Verklin, Canoe, John Ross, IPG
1-1:30, Digital Theatre
From Disney to fm78.tv with Peter Murrieta
1:15-2:15, Islander B
Reality Blockbusters with Jonathan Murray, Bunim/Murray, Lisa Berger, E!, 51 Minds, World Race, Atlas Media
1:15-2:45, Islander D
Mentor Round Robin (Scripted) – Neal Baer, Law & Order SVU, Kim Moses & Ian Sander, Ghost Whisperer, Ted Miller, CAA
1:30-2:15, Tradewinds C
Cross-Media Planning with comScore, Havas, MPG
1:45-2:30, Digital Theatre
Anatomy of a Hit Web Series:  Illeana Douglas, Justine Bateman, Brent Friedman, Electric Farm…
2-2:45, Islander I
Branded Content with Jordan Levin, Generate, Howard Owens, Reveille, Russ Axelrod, Microsoft…
*2:45-3:30, Digital Theatre
NexGen Showrunner:  Jonathan Prince
2:45-3:45, Islander B
Sizzle Reel Secrets with RDF, LMNO…
2:45-4, Tradewinds C
Tribal Leadership with USC
3:15-4, Islander I
Private Equity with Michael Kassan, PwC, Michael Lang, Fox, Ed Wilson, Tribune…
*4-5, Islander B
Cable Superstars with Nancy Dubic, AETN/History, Dave Howe, Syfy/NBCU. Marc Juris, truTV, Ryan O’Hara, TVGuide.com
*4-5:30, Islander D
Mentor Round Robin (Brands) – Michael Herst, EA, Chad Stubbs, Pepsi, Niko Chauls, Bing, Steve Amato, Omelet
4-6, Theatre on the Floor
Happy Hour Cocktails
4:15-5, Tradewinds C
Relevant Ratings in a Distributed Content Ecosystem w Tubefilter, blip.tv, Digitas…
5-6, Digital Theatre
SXSW Transmedia Storytelling
*6-7:30, Show Floor
Digital Luminary Awards Reception honoring Felicia Day, The Guild, Marc Whitten, Xbox LIVE, Frank Biancuzzo, Hearst, Geoff Stedman, Omneon

Wednesday, January 27
*8-8:45, Islander I
Coffee with Roma Khanna, NBCU
*9-10, Islander B
Keynote with Elisabeth Murdoch, Shine
*9:15-10, Digital Theatre
Games with John Roberts, Lucasfilm, Jesse Rednis, USA, Kris Soumas, AETN, Bill Kispert, Universal Pictures Partnerships
9-6, Show Floor
10-10:30, Islander I
Keynote with Andy Duncan, UK Channel 4
*10:30-11:15, Islander B
International Co-Production with John Morayniss, E1, Tandem, Reveille, Fox
10:30-11:15, Digital Theatre
Online Video Ad Inventory with Tim Street, Brett Wilson, TubeMogul…
11:15-11:45, Islander I
Biometrics with NBCU – Telemundo
*11:30-12:15, Digital Theatre
Alex Albrecht, Diggnation interviews Gary Vaynerchuk, Crush It
11:45-12:30, Islander B
Latin Content with beTV, Fox, MarVista…
12-4, Theatre on the Floor
Celebrity Kitchen
*12:30-1:15, Digital Theatre
Packaging for the Pitch with George Ruiz, ICM, Omid AShtari, CAA, Jason Nadler, UTA, Brandon Martinez, Abrams Artists, David Tochterman, Innovative Artists, Barrett Garese, Spytap
12:30-1:15, Islander I
Latino Programming Trends with Warner Artist Management, Fox…
*1-1:45, Islander B
International Format with Philip Gurin, Karrie Wolfe, RDF..
*1:30-2:15, Islander I
Slashing Your Sizzle Reel Budget with DMA..
1:30-2:15, Digital Theatre
3D with Steve Schklair, 3ality
*2-3, Islander B
Making Money with FT, Oglivy, Nokia, NBCU, CAA
3:30-5, Islander D
Mentor Round Robin ($$$) with Greycroft, matrixx, MESA

NBC (s GE) announced a deal with Microsoft (s MSFT) today to implement technology that will make selling broadcast and cable TV commercial time more akin to selling online ads, The Wall Street Journal reports. This is the second such ad deal for the NBC, which also has an agreement with Google (s GOOG). But the battle to bring targeted ads to TV is just warming up, and other heavyweights are ready to jump in.

The NBC/Microsoft deal will use technology from Navic Networks, which Microsoft acquired last year, to analyze set-top box data from multiservice operators as well as other data such as consumer purchasing habits and location. Using this information, Microsoft will be able to look at where an advertiser currently places ads, make recommendations for other shows that would reach similar audiences and sell the ad time on those recommended programs.

This deal doesn’t impact the arrangement NBC has with Google, and does not use the auction model Google implements. Networks have concerns that auctions for selling TV ad space lower the value of commercial time. eBay’s (s EBAY) early attempt to use auctions for TV ad buying failed and Google has struggled to find traction for its TV Ads service, though it has struck deals with NBC (for cable outlets), Hallmark, Bloomberg and satellite provider Dish Network (s dish). In March, Google connected its TV Ads service with YouTube to streamline the process of selling ads across old and newteevee.

The notion of delivering more highly targeted ads to TV audiences is an enticing one, and activity in the space is kicking into high gear. Yesterday, DirecTV (s DTV) announced that it will be using INVIDI Technologies to deliver targeted ads to its subscribers by 2011. And Canoe Ventures, the consortium of cable companies including Comcast (s CMSCA), Cablevision (s CVC) and Time Warner (s TWC), was built from the ground up to fend off the likes of Google with better targeted and interactive TV advertising.

UPDATE: Whoops. Looks like we spoke too soon when it comes to Canoe. Multichannel News reports this morning that the the company is scrapping its Community Addressable Messaging (CAM) product that would have let advertisers run different spots in high-income cable zones nationwide. Evidently, there were problems:

Specifically, Canoe determined CAM spots would have needed to be booked 11 days before air date; the insertion could only occur following the local break; and an unknown number of Motorola receivers in the Canoe footprint would have required an upgrade to properly display alternate spots to individual zones.

The Diffusion Group analyst Colin Dixon offers an indictment of Canoe Ventures in a new report about PayTV and online video. He says Canoe — which has a reported $150 million from its cable company parents to create an addressable TV advertising platform — is going at it all wrong by setting itself up in opposition to the Internet.

David Verklin, Canoe’s CEO, recently said that by using new solutions such as Canoe
and Tru2way, cable will be able to “…give the Internet a run for our money.” While a
decent sound bite, this is entirely the wrong way to view the Internet. The Internet is not
an enemy to be defeated; it is a technology to be leveraged. By setting Canoe
against the Internet, Verklin is putting the cable industry at a huge disadvantage.

Dixon says rather than retrofit cable systems to act like the web, they should just use the web. Canoe’s products — voting, e-commerce, interactive ads — would be simpler and better if delivered via a web browser, he writes. Then he pulls off his mask and reveals himself as Boxee CEO Avner Ronen. OK, not really, but here are his core arguments:

• Existing set-top boxes don’t have the computing power to truly support Canoe-like applications.
• The Tru2way platform, which Canoe will use, is new, untested and not yet widely deployed.
• Because Tru2way and the older EBIF format are proprietary, Canoe won’t be as nimble as applications released on the web.
• Being proprietary will also make it hard to port anything from the Canoe experience onto the web and onto other devices.
• And it will also complicate integrating social web stuff like Flickr, Twitter and Facebook, which Dixon thinks users will soon come to expect from their TVs.
• The web already has voting, polling, request for information, e-commerce, and interactive advertising.

If you want to watch for yourself David Verklin’s pitch to Internet folk about why Canoe Ventures is the future, check out the video archive of his call to arms at our NewTeeVee Live conference last November.

Each division has had its own skill set, and unique way of measuring results so that apples could never be compared with apples.

After many attempts by people a lot smarter than myself to find a universal way to measure the value of marketing across media, we have shrugged our shoulders and learnt to accept that we are dealing with fruit salad, and not apples.

But as technology continues to advance, those mediums that we had once accepted as mass, or above the line, are changing, and fast.

Basically, all forms of media are becoming direct.

Why?

Because marketers have always wanted more accountability, and less wastage, and now we have technology that can deliver that capability.

So the question really is:

When all media becomes direct what does it mean for the marketing industry?

It means the line does not exist, and we can fire up the blender on this fruit salad.

It means it is time for direct marketers to stand up, grab the industry by the balls, and drag it into the future.

Let’s take a look at a few traditional above the line mediums are changing

TV

Scared sh!tless by Google’s TV Ads, the major cable companies in the US have bound together to form Canoe Ventures. Canoe promises to be able to deliver marketers with the ability to address TV advertising direct to a defined consumers’ set top box, or in other words the ability to advertise tires only to people who own cars.

Canoe Ventures - Direct TV Advertising

This is a big step in the right direction, but if a direct marketer was in charge of this project what would happen?

Do you remember the 2006 Silver Cannes Lion winning ‘Ave a word‘ campaign by Glue London for the Mini Cooper S?

Refresh your memory before reading on.

What if you could pre-populate the variables of the ad and deliver it direct to a targeted consumers’ television?

“Hello Christopher, have a butchers at this, it’s the new Mini Cooper S”

Mini Cooper S 'Ave a word' Campaign

Hard to ignore? You betcha.

Deadly effective? Right again.

Sure there will be permission and privacy issues we will have to overcome, but you can’t stop progress.

In Australia, we have Foxtel’s red button to deliver more direct TV engagement, which has come a long way now that people have become accustomed to it.

Foxtel Red Button

Following the US lead, it is only a matter of time before Foxtel, Tivo and others start to deliver addressable TV advertising capabilities in Australia 

Radio

Digital radio plus is nearly here!

Digital Radio Plus

According to the website this will “facilitate additional advertising information on demand…and the new technology can take radio advertisements to a new level using images and text,”

Bring it on!

Putting my direct marketing hat on, this would be really cool if you plugged it into GPS, so I can target an ad from the local McDonalds as you are nearing on the highway.

Outdoor

Direct outdoor is also gaining pace, and the most exciting example I have seen lately is the bus shelter ad from Fitness First in the Netherlands.

Fitness First Bus Shelter Scale

The seat measures the weight of the commuter and displays it on a digital screen, Biggest Loser style! As a personal trainer, I am so proud, but I am also a masochist so go figure.   

If this is not PC enough for you, you could always use Pigeons with built in GPS for your direct outdoor.

Mobile

Not only do we have SMS and Bluetooth for direct in the mobile space, Yahoo have recently announced they will be bringing online behavioural targeting to mobile.

Mobile Behavioural Targeting

Behavioural targeting is claimed to double the average ROI of traditional banner ads with click-through rates up to three times higher.

Multi Channel Direct

To try and make sense of this brave new world, we have formed a new ADMA Multi-Channel Acquisition Council, where we will be discussing a lot of the implications of all mediums becoming direct.

In summary, WATCH THIS SPACE!

I give full credit for my interest in technology and media to my father. He was a self-taught electronics engineer. That’s right self-taught. He had an amazing capacity as well as the courage to take anything apart to understand how it works. He could also put it back together. This was particularly true about televisions. It was the age of vacuum tubes, resisters and rectifiers powering gigantic cathode-ray tubes.

His reputation for this talent quickly got around and when someone’s TV went on the fritz they would call my dad. I would frequently tag along with him as he went to someone’s home and loaded the set onto the station wagon. From there it would go into his workshop, a magical room with oscilloscopes, meters, soldering guns, old TVs, spare parts and a file cabinet of schematics. The schematic was the map of the electronics inside. What we would today call code. It used a special language of symbols to communicate functionality, flow and the interface of these crude devices.

Electronic Schematic for Television

In those days there were only 3 television networks; ABC, NBC and CBS, and maybe 10 stations. My current Comcast channel lineup has 215 choices! There’s a station for every thing you could imagine and it’s on 24 hours a day. I watch only about 5 of those 215 stations during any given week, but because of the current business model, I pay for all of them.

The main reason for having that box, sorry, flat screen, in your home is to sell you something. It’s called commercial television for good reason. Yes I know, there’s the DVR that allows you to fast forward through all those commercials, but no matter how hard you try, you cannot fully escape the dreaded “spot.” Damn those agencies and their clients.

Forrester Panel Discussion (left to right) - Card, Clayman, Verklin, Lyles

At the end of the first day of the recent Forrester Marketing Forum in Orlando, a panel discussion was held entitled The Future of Media. It was moderated by Forrester’s David Card (VP, Principal Analyst) and included a TV exec, Greg Clayman (EVP-MTV Networks), a media advertising businessman, David Verklin (CEO, Canoe Ventures), and a consumer product goods VP, Annis Lyles (Coca-Cola, North America). I had the good fortune to have lunch with Mr. Clayman earlier that day and we engaged in an interesting discussion on television, entertainment and distribution. I found him to be gracious and smart, while very much open to my thoughts and opinions. He is remarkably grounded in the basics of his business while at the same time looking out over the horizon in search of the next model. He has a massive job that spans all kinds of content and opportunity. I was impressed with his clarity and how he is carefully charting a course for the proper confluence of TV, online and mobile as a successful way forward.

The panel began and Mr. Card was determined to find out how effective TV advertising is becoming. The discussion was dominated by Mr. Verklin who was forceful and excited, proclaiming that “TV is getting back in the game!” He sounded like a cross between Steven Ballmer of Microsoft and George Castanza. “I’m back baby, I’m back.” I appreciated his energy, but he’s focus is on transforming the advertising experience on TV, not the content. Mr. Verklin wants to turn TV into a technology platform with a decision engine where marketers can target, measure and execute inside that platform to reach the right audience. The example he used over and over was if you have a dog in the house you should see an ad for dog food, not cat food. He calls it Community Addressable Messaging and outlines three components.

• Interactive advertising
• Addressable advertising
• Data overlay

So the promise once again is that TV will be a trackable, measurable platform. I’m skeptical. I work in financial services. We know a little something about  the complexity of third party data overlays on top of dozens of consumer segments across databases with billions and billions of rows. It’s not unheard of for FI’s to score their entire database of customers several times per day and when one of them logs into the website or calls the service center customers are identified in sub-milliseconds and a decision is made on what to show them at run time.

Mr. Verklin talks about targeting the 51st state. The 18% of households that make over $100,000. As a marketer I would love to reach that demographic, but how much TV are they even watching? Isn’t the bigger opportunity with the perpetual intermediate of the TV audience, middle America? What about tracking across channels and stacking your message the way online ad networks can do?

Mr. Clayman was much more on point with his comments. MTV is balancing broadcast, online, retail and mobile distribution for the greatest profit. As a content owner/publisher, his view must be different. For him content is king and careful stewardship is critical. He is fully aware of how he makes money, so of course he will be interested in these new platform ideas as a way to increase ad revenues.

Ms.Lyles, on the product side, has become a content producer from time to time in order to distinguish her brand and bring it appropriately to a particular medium. Pushing Coke is paramount and she seemed determined to leverage all media to achieve success. Her firm has brought traditional and digital media buying together.

Mr. Verklin says that online is making TV raise it’s game. Really? Well I’m glad something is helping at least lift the bar off the ground. Network TV programming, and with it advertising, has been in a downward spiral for years, driven by decades of inertia. A personal note here. I don’t despise television programming. On the contrary, I think there’s lots of good stuff out there, and I realize I am no longer the target.

It was a healthy discussion and I was quickly transported back to 1976 and the film Network where Howard Beale, a lunatic news anchor had this to say about television.

We deal in illusion, man! None of it’s true. But you people sit there—all of you—day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We’re all you know. You’re beginning to believe this illusion we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God’s name you people are the real thing! We’re the illusions. So turn off this goddam set! Turn it off right now. Turn it off and leave it off. Turn it off right now, right in the middle of this sentence I’m speaking now…

I plan on following Howard Beale’s advice, but will watch the progress of Canoe Ventures closely.

Photo: Steve A Furman. Quote from Paddy Chayefsky’s screenplay Network

During a hearing Thursday on Internet privacy issues, lawmakers from the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet signalled that they will be closely scrutinizing the consumer-privacy implications of the US cable industry’s plans to launch a common platform for interactive and addressable advertising (note: those plans are being implemented by a cable industry-backed company called Canoe Ventures). As [itvt] was not able to be in Washington, DC to attend the hearing, we are referring our readers to the Associated Press’s write-up.

(http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h1evfzGsdv8T_xKJworW0Wrmd21AD97OCMKO3)

Sony Pictures Pulls Content from Joost; studio is putting stuff on Hulu and YouTube, but has not renewed its agreement with the once-hot web TV service. (CNET)

Cisco Partners with Avail Media for IPTV Service; the “soup-to-nuts” service processes TV programming, distributes it to telcos and their IPTV customers. (Multichannel News)

FLO TV Signs Amanda Congdon’s Series; Sometimes Daily moves to the mobile platform. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Ian Brotherston Tapped as New Dailymotion CEO; move to replace former CEO Mark Zeleski had been anticipated; Brotherston previously worked at AT&T and BT. (TVWeek)

House to Discuss Canoe Ventures; Democrats on the House Communications, Technology & Internet Subcommittee expected to bring up the cable consortium’s ad targeting service during a hearing on online privacy and targeted marketing. (Broadcasting & Cable)

AT&T U-Verse Added 284,000 Net Subs in Q1; growth is almost double what it was in Q1 2008. (Business Insider)

Adjectives sound familiar?
Two years ago former Carat CEO David Verklin left the media agency to become CEO of Canoe Ventures, a company that has a sole focus of making television advertising addressable, engaging and interactive.

Canoe has been working with MSO’s around the country and Cable Labs , the non-profit research and development consortium of cable operators that is dedicated to pursuing new  technologies for  MSO’s, to establish what you may call the framework for the evolution of television advertising’s potential.

Benefits and functionality sound familiar?
The new framework provides format standards, increased availability and usage of metadata, measurement & reporting, and interoperability across different systems.

Convergence here we come, finally.

The Official Word
From the press release today: the new “Advanced Advertising 1.0 Specification” comprises a set of component specification and standards that, individually, allow cable companies to provide more innovative types of advanced ads, such as interactive advertising, Video on Demand advertising within existing VOD platforms, and advanced forms of addressable advertising. Taken together, the Advanced Advertising specification allows multi-system operators (MSOs) to offer such products with consistent technologies, metrics and interfaces across a national footprint. The Advanced Advertising 1.0 spec was developed and will be maintained by a CableLabs Working Group composed of MSO, Canoe and CableLabs technical leads, with selective input from the vendor community.

For the techie geeks like me, the current version of the spec includes the following component pieces:

1. Specifications:
   1. ETV – A CableLabs specification for interactivity that can be implemented on millions of digital set-top boxes deployed by cable operators. ETV, based on the Enhanced Television Binary Interchange Format or “EBIF,” is part of the OCAP specification so advertising applications written for ETV can run on OCAP (OpenCable Applications Platform) specification, intended to enable developers of interactive television services and applications to design products so that they can run successfully on any cable television system in North America.
   2. VOD Metadata 2.0 – A CableLabs specification for descriptive data associated with a package of VOD content, whether a movie or a long-form advertisement. This metadata is used in MSO and programmer VOD systems today, but in the future will assist in the delivery of prospective ad products for the VOD space, or in adding greater addressability to different types of ads.
2. Interfaces: There are currently four interfaces for advanced advertising, targeting EBIF, that are in the early draft phase but will be added to the 1.0 spec
   1. Service Measurement Summary Interface (SMSI) – enables MSOs to export information about the execution of a campaign.
   2. Interactive Fulfillment Summary Interface (IAF) – provides a means for messaging generated by an interactive application to be exposed to an external entity.
   3. Interactive Application Messaging Platform (IAM) – provides a critical interface between interoperable applications (apps distributed to more than one MSO) and MSO systems, defining the common form of messages instantiated by interoperable apps and how MSO systems decode them.
   4. Campaign Information Package Interface (CIP) – provides information to the MSOs on the configuration of application messaging processing, such as identifiers relevant to the messages.
3. Standards: Relevant SCTE standards that the CableLabs Working Group has decided should be supported as part of the Advanced Advertising 1.0 spec
   1. SCTE 35 – enables measurement, enhanced applications and ad placement on linear and on-demand content – includes related support from SCTE 30 / 67 / 104.
   2. SCTE 130 – separates new addressable ad delivery systems from ad decision systems that allow for dynamic ad selection for interactive, linear and on-demand content.

What Does This All Mean?
Canoe has propelled the industry forward, and the first step of creating the standards and framework for a national roll-out was the biggest step. Within the next few weeks the first pilot programs will deliver custom creative to consumers in different geographic locations across a national campaign. The anticipation is to next move addressability to a household level.  Later this year we’ll see what has been a drab implementation of VOD pushed into the iTV promise that we have all been waiting for – where a consumer can interact directly with ads and click into more engaging experiences.

On top of all of this, the new framework also sets the stage for the eventuality of centralized ad delivery, and direct set-top box-level research. It’s a bright day for the TV industry.

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Looking to nab bigger advertisers, Google (s GOOG) is working to connect its TV Ads business with YouTube and other video sites, The Wall Street Journal reports today.

Dubbed Google TV Ads Online, Google hopes that by streamlining the process of advertising across television and online video, marketers will be enticed to spend more money with the company in this down economy. The service is being tested right now and is expected to launch in the coming months.

The ad buying process isn’t the only thing Google is trying to streamline. The company announced yesterday that it would be laying off 200 people in sales and marketing.

Google has yet to translate the success it found in advertising online into other media. The company shuttered its print and radio ad programs, and while its TV Ads has scored some small victories with Hallmark, Bloomberg, and NBC cable channels, it has yet to gain widespread adoption.

YouTube hasn’t fared too well on the ad front either, hampered by content with which many advertisers don’t want to be associated. The Journal points out that in order for this to work, YouTube needs to get more longer-form content, during which audiences are more tolerant of commercials. YouTube was on a bit of a premium content tear last year, but efforts in that arena have since petered out.

If Google wants to be a player in the TV ad space, it’s got to act quickly. Canoe Ventures, a joint project of the cable companies to deliver targeted advertising, is making product announcements in the next 5-6 weeks. And as cable companies like Comcast (s CMCSA), which is a Canoe backer, move more into online video, there’s no reason to think Canoe wouldn’t connect those dots as well.

TV.com Launches iPhone App; beats Hulu to the mobile punch as the battle between the two premium content portals heats up. (Contentinople)

Oscar.com Serves up 26.3 million Videos Since Jan. 22 Launch; 18 million of those came from the short-form content made available on the day of and following the event. (emailed release)

Professional Content Accounted for 41.6 Billion Views in 2008; study from Accustream iMedia Research found that pro content grew 25 percent last year, and that 30 percent of professionally produced online video was for kids. (eMarketer)

Heroes Prepares Fourth Web Series; despite the TV show’s ups and (mostly) downs, the superhero franchise is set to release another web series spinoff. (Tubefilter)

Koldcast TV Adds Six New Shows; broadband network adds a mix of comedy, drama and travel series. (release)

Canoe Ventures to Provide Programmers with Detailed Specs for ITV Applications; cable ad company finished up technical trial of a viewer-voting app late last year across several MSOs. (Multichannel News)

Concept TV Does Both Standard and Widescreen; odd concept design does away with those black bars. (Gizmodo)

In this recorded episode of [itvt]’s talk radio show, “The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow,” Howard Fiderer, VP of product line management at Invidi Technologies, provides an overview of the company’s newly launched ADS4EBIF addressable advertising system for ETV/EBIF, as well as an overview of its flagship Advatar addressable advertising platform; outlines the challenges of working with ETV/EBIF and the challenges facing the addressable advertising industry in general; discusses Invidi’s roadmap for the Advatar platform; and much more.

To listen to the show, click here.

Show Transcripts

[itvt] is now offering transcripts of our radio shows. If you would like to order a transcript of this show or of one of our previous shows (listed below), please email your request to: transcripts@itvt.com. Price: $55.00 each.

Archived Broadcasts

[itvt] is making past broadcasts of the show available on the show’s homepage.

Broadcast #63 : Steve Hawley, principal analyst at [itvt]’s new IPTV and interactive TV research and analysis service, IIP, discusses the service’s various offerings, which include research papers, consulting, access to industry databases, and marketing benefits. In addition to pitching the new service, Hawley, who is best known as the principal of IPTV research firm, tvstrategies, provides an overview of the current state of the IPTV industry and outlines the IPTV trends he expects to see unfolding over the course of this year.

Broadcast #62 : A panel of experts–industry analyst, Leslie Ellis (author of the column, “Translation Please“); Seth Haberman, CEO of Visible World; Steve Hawley, principal at tvstrategies and at [itvt]’s new research arm, IIP; Will Kreth, director of product management for interactive TV at Time Warner Cable; and industry analyst, Bill Niemeyer–present their picks for the most important interactive TV stories of 2008, as well as their interactive TV predictions for 2009.

Broadcast #61 : Vibha Ristagi, president and CEO of itaas, an Atlanta-based company that provides a range of development, integration and testing services for interactive TV, discusses itaas’s istart ETV Developer Program, which recently added four new members: Alcatel-Lucent, iCueTV, Integra5, and Tellytopia (note: the program is billed as providing members with tools, documentation, software upgrades and support for the TVWorks ETV platform, and as allowing developers to leverage the company’s application-lifecycle expertise for assistance from initial concept and architecture design to development, testing and post-deployment support). Topics covered by Rustagi in the interview include the technological and market challenges facing ETV/EBIF and OCAP/tru2way developers; what she sees as itaas’s differentiators in the interactive TV market; and the ways in which she expects the interactive TV space to develop over the next 18 months or so.

–itaas’s Vibha Rustagi Discusses the Program with [itvt]

itaas, an Atlanta-based company that provides a range of development, integration and testing services for interactive TV, says it has added four new members to its istart Enhanced TV (ETV) Developer Program: Alcatel-Lucent, iCueTV, Integra5, and Tellytopia, all of which are, of course, developing applications based on the US cable industry’s ETV/EBIF standard. According to itaas, the istart ETV Developer Program provides members with tools, documentation, software upgrades and support for the TVWorks ETV platform (note: TVWorks is a joint venture between Comcast and Cox); and allows developers to leverage the company’s application-lifecycle expertise for assistance from initial concept and architecture design to development, testing and post-deployment support. In addition, the company says, its istart programs give members the ability to write applications to either tru2way or ETV platforms; and include software development kits and support for Time Warner Cable’s Mystro Digital Navigator (MDN) and OCAP Digital Navigator (ODN), as well as Scientific-Atlantic Resident Application (SARA)/PowerTV.

In this recorded episode of [itvt]’s talk radio show, “The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow,” itaas president and CEO, Vibha Rustagi, discusses the istart ETV Developer Program and itaas’s other products and services; outlines the technological and market challenges facing ETV/EBIF and OCAP/tru2way developers; describes what she sees as itaas’s differentiators in the interactive TV market; explains how she expects the interactive TV space to develop over the next 18 months or so; and much more.

To listen to the show, click here.

[itvt]’s Tracy Swedlow caught up with David Verklin, CEO of Canoe Ventures–the company that is implementing Project Canoe, the US cable industry’s initiative to create a national unified platform for interactive and addressable advertising–at the NewTeeVee Conference in San Francisco last week. Audio of the interview is below, followed by an unedited transcript of the interview, as well as some key quotes from a presentation Verklin had given to conference attendees just prior to the interview.

In the interview, Verklin discusses the recent appointment of Arthur Orduna as Canoe Ventures’ CTO; how the press has missed the significance to Project Canoe of NCC, the national cable spot sales company; why he believes that the challenges facing Canoe Ventures have more to do with marketing and communications than with technology; whether Canoe Ventures should become a consumer-facing brand; why he envisions possible collaborations between Canoe Ventures and the satellite and telco TV industries; and much, much more.

To listen to the interview, click here:

Swedlow: Speaking to David Verklin, CEO of Canoe Ventures. And Arthur? Arthur Orduna–he’s working with you?

Verklin: He’s terrific. Arthur is our CTO. Arthur, I believe, is the guy who will go down in history as the guy who really turned the TV set into a platform–the television platform.

Swedlow: He’s very smart.

Verklin: He’s a really talented guy. And what’s most exciting about Arthur is that he’s universally supported by the big six cable CTO’s. One of the things we did when we started Canoe was that we reached out to the CTO’s of the six big MSO’s and said, “Who do you want to work with? Let’s choose a CTO for Canoe that all six of you support.” And they all turned to me and said, “You hire Arthur Orduna: we’ll support you.” He is a massive talent and he will go down, in my opinion, as a famous and historical figure in the history of advanced television.

Swedlow: That’s quite a big compliment. He’s a nice person.

Verklin: Well, he’s a great guy and this is his passion.

Swedlow: And a sharp dresser!

Verklin: He is! He wears that bow tie every day.

Swedlow: Well, you have your pocket square….Everyone’s asking questions…and because this has been so secret for so long and only if you had signed your NDA’s did they understand what was going on. Perhaps they don’t even understand? No one seemed to get the whole picture. What is the technology you’re using or are you going to re-engineer Navic Admira, or are you going to do something on your own?

Verklin: Technologically, everything I’ve talked about today has been deployed. Everything I talked about today.

Swedlow: What’s it made of?

Verklin: If you think about RFI, if you think about telescoping…every one of those has been tested or deployed in some kind of test by one or more of the MSO’s. Canoe’s big idea is its “nationalness.” Right…it’s not…I keep telling people that Canoe is not a technological breakthrough. Don’t get me wrong: connecting up six MSO footprints is a challenge. But, the real challenge in my mind for Canoe is a marketing, is a marketplace and a communications challenge. It’s about bringing en entire eco-system kind of along, right? The buyers right now wouldn’t know how to buy advanced advertising, the sellers wouldn’t know how to sell it, the measurement and the systems like Nielsen don’t know how to measure it, and the MSO’s don’t know how to scale it. So technologically, we can use cable’s existing two-way infrastructure. Think about what I talked about with RFI, right? That’s fundamentally a generational small step. RFI is a small step above video-on-demand. You’re pushing a button, you’re going back into the headend and the headend is sending you back some information. It is not a technological breakthrough. The challenge, of course, is weaving all this together and being able to do it with scale.

Swedlow: It sounds like the challenge is the collaboration of all the MSO’s and setting up the business systems and the alliances.

Verklin: Yes, but also bringing the marketplace along. That is certainly part of it, but think about the ecosystem, right? Let’s use the programming networks. In some cases, the programming networks have one foot in the future (NBC or Fox and then Hulu, and they’re looking at multiplatform distribution at ABC). So on one hand, they’ve got a foot in the future and on the other hand they’ve got a foot in the past. There’s a bit of a love affair with the linear television commercial. It’s simple. It’s nice. It’s easy. But, on the other hand, the world has spoken. The platform is changing and we need to bring new functionality to the 30-second commercial to get back in the game.

Swedlow: We communicate to our audience (MSO’s and everybody else) and we also have a large developer base that wants to know what to expect and they don’t know if it’s BIAP, they don’t know if it’s Navic, they don’t know if it’s Vidiom or EnableTV…all the guys. Nobody knows.

Verklin: We’ll have to set a set of standards within some of it, but I think there’s room for a lot of suppliers. Just think about some of the people you named. BIAP make applications. If you think about the interactive applications I’m talking about…voting and polling, RFI, tcommerce or telescoping…there is room for a lot of players to click into the platform that we intend to create. Middleware is an issue. We’ll use middleware, but we have to be very careful. The key first step is EBIF deployment. And we’re on target. We’re delivering. EBIF has set-top boxes right now.

Swedlow: Yes. Mark Hess said at CTAM–was it yesterday or the day before?–that millions of EBIF boxes are in the market by 2008. But they also said something like that two years ago at CES, so…

Verklin: We’re looking to light up…I quoted a number here today: I said that we’re talking about a number between 15 and 20 million households with an interactive application by this time next year. That’s the same thing as saying 15 to 20 million households with EBIF-type deployment. So we’re making it happen and EBIF is a key enabler. It’s going across the platform very rapidly. Remember: you have to have a digital set-top box. There are 32 million households with a digital set-top box and it’s growing very, very rapidly. I mean, 10 to 15 million or 15 to 20 million–you’re talking about two thirds of all set-top boxes with EBIF. To me, that’s moving…all-of-a-sudden moving pretty rapidly.

Swedlow: EBIF has definitely gained some serious traction. We see a lot of development. The OEDN people are working on things and Java.net. We’ve announced all the Verizon projects and Time Warner’s launches. But, from what I understand, you have trials out there. You have put something into the market–you just haven’t announced it publicly.

Verklin: Well, we’ve done a couple of things. I mean there’s a couple of trials going on that I hope you’re paying attention to. You’ve got the Cablevision trial in Brooklyn that’s testing interactivity through Visible World…not interactivity, addressability…through Visible World. Really good guys. We love Visible World. And that looks like it’s going to expand to a larger piece of their footprint–maybe a million households very soon. It’s addressability. That’s the Holy Grail right there! Comcast is about to deploy in Baltimore an addressable test using Invidi technology. That’s also going full steam. And then, yes, we’ve announced a product that I announced here today, using existing cable zone technology to bring what I would call a rudimentary form of addressability to the marketplace in 100 days. February.

Swedlow: What is that?

Verklin: Think about this: It uses existing zone technology, which is the same technology the MSO’s use for their local advertising insertion. So think about Chicago, right? Chicago has 32 cable zones in it, which was originally designed so you could run a different car dealer ad in each of those zones in a market like Chicago. We’ve overlaid a demographic map from Experian on top of the geographic locations of the cable zones in a converted geography to demography. What that means is…by February (I’ll use Citibank as an example), by February Citibank will be able to buy one ad on AMC, and in households above $125,000 in household income run a brokerage ad; in households from $50,000 to $125,000 run a home equity loan ad; and in households under $50,000 run a free checking ad. And I’m telling you, Tracy, we can get that up in 60 million households in 60 days.

Swedlow: Do you have a team in place that’s working on building the systems that fill these local avails?

Verklin: The key that you guys haven’t been paying attention to…

Swedlow: What? I want to know!

Verklin: NCC. NCC is a jewel. None of you guys are paying attention to it. NCC is the company that the four big MSO’s (Cox, Brighthouse, Comcast and Time Warner) formed to create…it’s the national rep firm for local cable TV. Run by Greg Schaefer. The COO is a wonderful guy named Ken Little. The company has been in business for 25 years. It manages all of the local…it’s the local rep firm for cable TV. I mean NCC has the platform. What people don’t understand is…the fundamental NCC platform is a multi-MSO platform. It allows an advertiser to buy spot cable, local cable and insert anywhere in the United States on a market-by-market basis or on a regional basis. Comcast Spotlight, right, sells local. NCC sells regional across all the MSO’s. They’re already hooked up to the cable plant. In the headends, it’s already there! What we need to do is to bring some functionality to that, but we need to now connect the NCC platform into the national ad-insertion capability. And don’t forget: we’re also going to bring this capability to the broadcast networks. If you learned about NCC–I mean it’s a jewel. I came to the marketplace and saw it and it is an accelerant and it has been there in front of our eyes the whole time.

Swedlow: As far as the broadcasters are concerned, they’ve definitely kept their distance for quite a while. They want the cable guys to give them something. They’re afraid of losing their revenue because the cable guys have wanted to make all the money from advertising through any distributed interactive apps. What will be the new relationship with the broadcasters and the advertisers? Will you allow them to make…

Verklin: The most important thing to pay attention to with Canoe…to remember…is the distribution channel for Canoe’s products (interactivity and addressability) will be through the existing program networks’ sales forces (e.g. through ABC’s sales force, through ESPN’s sales force, through Joe Abruzzese’s team at Discovery). Every programming network has a team of people calling media buyers out there every day. We’re going to train and enable them to sell Canoe products–the programming network sales forces. We also have a team that will help create tools and educate the buyers how to buy, and we intend to educate the sellers how to sell these products. But this is where it’s a whole new relationship. There’s no channel conflict! NBC is going to sell these products, not Canoe, not the cable industry. We’re not going to talk to the customer. If they want us to go on a sales call, it will be up to them.

Swedlow: When they sell a product to the advertisers, how are they marketing it? “Hi. We have this interactive capability. We have this relationship with Canoe. We have these tools that can do this or that”?

Verklin: We’ll train them. The key thing is that we’re going to bring these products into the market in a disciplined, metered, organized fashion. Just as I said: the marketplace isn’t ready for some of this stuff. The Internet had an advantage, right? It built a battleship. It started small. It created a platform. It wasn’t owned by anyone, right? Think about where the Internet was when it first started and where it is today in terms of the sophistication of the ad sales process.

Swedlow: I used it in the early 90’s. It was a black-and-white menu system.

Verklin: TV is different. We have an existing platform. We need to be careful of an existing ecosystem and bring change to it in a digestible series of steps and jumps. So, yeah, we’ll train AMC and Turner and MTV and E! and ESPN to sell RFI. We’ll give them that capability. We’ll enable just a few spots every hour in the beginning and they’ll call on it and they’ll call on their clients. And we’ll help create presentations and help execute. And we’ll begin in a very deliberate and organized fashion to bring the capability to specific clients. The clients…I can’t tell you…I think I said in my speech at CTAM that the interest in Canoe has gone from amazing to ridiculous, right? We’re getting meetings from clients that are demanding to meet Canoe. See, the world wants a successful TV platform. P&G wants TV to be successful, you know! And as I said in my speech today, we’re not convinced that the Internet display advertising is some kind of killer application. I mean, what does display have? It brings in a perception of targeting and it brings a perception of ROI. If you look at it closely, targeting by cookies isn’t really that spectacular. And the ROI really isn’t that spectacular because the transaction isn’t taking place on the platform. So, we’re just enormously interested in the ecosystem for a successful, energized television platform.

Swedlow: As a central organization, will you be managing the alliances, the technology alliances for the MSO’s or will they?

Verklin: Yes.

Swedlow: So, they won’t be making the deals on their own. They’ll all be communicating through the…

Verklin: We have an agreement. Canoe is the new, centralized, simple-to-call-on face of the cable TV industry in America.

Swedlow: So when the sales forces of broadcasters say, “We want to sell something,” are they selling it as a Canoe service or are they branding it, or they’re saying, “We’re working with Canoe to offer these services”?

Verklin: Good question. We just have to meet with…we really don’t care. That’s a good question. I don’t think we’ve really gone that far, so whether it will be white-labeled or not, it really depends. We haven’t made the decision that Canoe needs to be a consumer-facing brand. Canoe has already gotten so much publicity that I think the Canoe brand…When you go to a client and you say, “Hey, this is a Canoe enablement. This interactivity is using the Canoe platform,” that brings credibility to the sale, to the pitch by broadcast networks.

Swedlow: To some extent, by being at this conference and welcoming the potential onslaught of all these broadband TV companies to come to you, I think you’re positioning your company as an exciting company to work with.

Verklin: Exactly.

Swedlow: And you don’t want to hide and you want them to work with you. So, the Canoe brand is going to…

Verklin: Correct.

Swedlow: …be elevated.

Verklin: No question.

Swedlow: I’m not sure that’s what the MSO’s were expecting. People are going to want to know more about you.

Verklin: Correct. I’m just saying that I don’t know how NBC will sell it. You’re right. To this community and the community out here, absolutely…I flew all the way out here for 20 minutes to reach out to people and say: “You know what? We’re getting back into the game. We want to work with you. We want you to root for us.”

Swedlow: What do you expect for the broadband TV community to help you do? They’re ready to launch widgets; they’re ready to launch Facebook and Twitter on TV, and all of these other apps…

Verklin: I think some of those are relevant to what we’re doing. Do you think there should be a YouTube On Demand channel?

Swedlow: Yeah.

Verklin: Do you think that there couldn’t be some of these developers to help us figure out how to enable a polling and voting application into the content, right?

Swedlow: Absolutely. I’m all for it, believe me!

Verklin: So there are some great ideas out here. The vision we have of the platform…and we may surprise you…we want other people to be able to click into our platform and make money, right? We intend to make some money out of this and we intend to collect our share of the toll. But, remember what I said today: “The vision of Canoe is to turn the television set into a platform called ‘television.’” There’s pieces of that that a lot of people, we think, can profit from. Think about something like Spot Runner, right, that makes TV ads. I think that addressability is going to create the need for lots more advertising content. That’s not a business that we’re going to be in, but we think that our platform can help drive and create that and they can click into the platform.

Swedlow: Are you working with Liquidus?

Verklin: We have. We just saw Liquidus the other day. We think they’re very interesting.

Swedlow: Very interesting. I think they could be a lot bigger by now than they actually are. They should be much more consumer-facing than they are.

Verklin: We can help drive success for companies like Liquidus and a host of others. Just think about what we can bring to the data business.

Swedlow: What are you doing with the other cable companies out there? The other smaller ones–the ones that aren’t on the bandwagon yet?

Verklin: Pay attention to what we did with Elections ‘08, right? We launched a national…Canoe’s first product was a national product called Elections ‘08. Come to the office and I’ll show it to you. That wasn’t a joint effort by the top six MSO’s, that was the top 10. I’ve already reached out to the MSO’s. They all want to be part of Canoe. The satellite guys want to be part of Canoe, and I think they’ll be part of Canoe, too.

Swedlow: IPTV? Telcos?

Verklin: Sure! We’ll talk to them, too. This is a whole new cable industry. This is a whole new idea!

Swedlow: How are the satellite guys going to be involved?

Verklin: I think they have to be involved. I’d like to be able to start with data, right? I mean we have set-top box data on 70% of America. They’ve got set-top box data on 30% of America. Form a joint venture, perhaps, and we’ll bring all that data in the United States, and now you have set-top box data on the entire platform. That’s just one idea.

Swedlow: The cable industry is definitely good at allowing other people to make money off of money they’re making when it’s the right deal, but it’s not common. But, to allow the satellite guys to make money off of cable business…They’ll take money…

Verklin: I know. It’s hard for you to believe, but think about it…

Swedlow: It’s a new world.

Verklin: It is a new world. We can’t be myopic. We do represent 70% of all TV households, right? We do represent 70% of TV viewing. Remember where I came from: I came from the media planning and mind business. But when you come and call on me at my old job at Procter & Gamble…when I ran Procter & Gamble’s business, right…and you say to me, “Hey look. I can reach 70% of America”…I’ll look at you and say, “What about the other 30%?” So, if we’re going to be able to bring products to the entire marketplace, we need to put away old animosities and look to reaching out. There are places where satellite and cable are in alignment. Hey, look at privacy, right? Privacy issues in Washington D.C. Who testified on the privacy issue? Telephone companies and cable companies. There are places where we are competitors and there are places where our interests are very much aligned.

Swedlow: Actually, at our [TV of Tomorrow Show] conference held in San Francisco in March every year, we work hard to bring together multiplatform interactive television players. The key goal is to get these people to collaborate. My goal has always been to break these barriers down. On a panel, we’ll put the satellite guys with the cable guys with the broadcasters, etc.

I have one more question.

Verklin: Yes?

Swedlow: With the Digital Transition coming up in February, and all the manufacturers are getting into the [interactive television] business with integrated television sets, are you going to do business with them, too? Intel wants to do business, Panasonic, Samsung…? There are all those new consumer electronics boxes coming on to the marketplace like Sezmi…there are so many of them…ZeeVee…

Verklin: One of the interesting things about Canoe…there’s a thing you’ll hear me say in the future when we talk about “above the line” and “below the line”…it’s an invisible line, but what I mean when I say that is that there are certain things that are below the line, which we would say have to do with individual MSO infrastructure. Canoe needs to work, obviously, with the MSO’s below the line because some of our products have issues to the existing cable plant. Some interactive applications require new storage technology. They need servers. When we think about the idea of bringing advanced advertising products to the broadcast networks, they don’t have the insertion gear, right? Right now, we can’t even insert on a broadcast network so we don’t get the two minutes an hour! We’re going to have to invest some money. It’s not big money, but we’ll have to bring new SeaChange gear to be able to do ad insertion. That stuff with some of some other stuff is probably more below the line about working with these next-generation, new-generation…with the Digital Transition. My only point is that we need a set-top box to be able to deliver advanced advertising applications in most cases. Now, remember I talked to you about creative versioning where I used Citibank as an example. This has nothing to do with a set-top box. That’s headend-based. That’s pretty exciting. That’s a technology that has nothing to do with…

Swedlow: …because they’re putting the technology into the televisions themselves.

Verklin: Correct! And that’s good for us because, in the long run, although it opens up the platform, we need that technology embedded into consumer electronics so we can deliver interactive applications or addressable applications. So, that’s what I get excited about. Digital set-top box installation, as you know, is soaring, right? Because of the triple play, because of HDTV, and because of flat-screen technology. I mean, I think I mentioned that we’re in 32 million households on the Canoe platform out of 60 million that Canoe represents. I think you’re going to see us in–what, two years?–you’re going to see us in close to 50 million households with a set-top box. So, we’re feeling good about it. You know, you gotta have a set-top box. You gotta have a set-top box to be able to deliver interactive applications.

Key Quotes from David Verklin’s Presentation

“Believe me, we get it. We get it. We’re not sitting idly by. We’re not Neanderthals and we’re not Luddites. We intend to turn the television set into a platform called ‘television.’ And we intend to give display advertising on the Internet, for one, a run for its money or maybe it’s a run for our money. As we say in television, ‘Stay tuned.’

“Canoe represents two thirds of cable households today. That’s pretty big, don’t you think? Over half of cable subscribers have a digital set-top box. Canoe has a digital set-top box in over 32 million households as I speak to you today and it’s growing rapidly. Canoe is also the ISP of over 35% of all American households, so Canoe represents over a third of all Internet users and also represents the third of America that has a digital cable set-top box in their households.”

“Two new features are coming to your television set: interactivity and addressability. And no, it’s not just about the ads, it’s also about the programming, too. Interactivity will come in four flavors: voting and polling, requests for information, tcommerce and telescoping. And addressability, number five, is the ultimate promise of the new platform, television.”

“We’ve tested this functionality in Orlandoand in many cases, we’ve seen over 15% of the people watching the television programming using the functionality. In England, where the voting and polling function has been around for four years on BSkyB, we’re seeing up to 30% of all TV viewers click A, B, or C as part of a poll.”

“The third product, which is a really exciting product that we intend to bring to the television set, is tcommerce. Gee, here’s a feature that many of you will like. You’re watching an infomercial and a slate will come up and say: “Would you like to purchase this product? Click A.” Depending on the purchase price, you’ll enter a PIN code and you’ll either be charged on your cable TV bill or you’ll be charged to an electronic wallet to PayPal or a credit card account that you’ll set up just once. No more getting up to go to the phone, which you never do, or no more going to the Web to buy a product you saw on TV, which you never do, to buy that CD collection or that Abdominizer, that BowFlex, or that chamois cloth you see on TV that absorbs all the water in your swimming pool.”

“By the way, don’t think that the Internet is a killer application in direct response advertising and electronic commerce. Keep in mind that all those screens and data fields that need to be filled out for Internet transactions have led to a 60% bailout rate. Did you know that? 60% of the time, as I stand here today, 60% of people bail out of a shopping cart transaction because they find the checkout process to be onerous 60% of the time. Meanwhile, the process on the new platform called TV will be fundamentally the same as that used to order a movie on video-on-demand. One click and a PIN code. Remember: we’re your cable TV company. We already know your address and we do business together every month.”

“Let’s be honest: Google’s done a wonderful job describing the benefits of search to the entire Internet platform. Search is, no doubt, a killer application. But display advertising on the Internet, however, is not, and clients are starting to notice. Cookies are actually a very imprecise way to target. Ads displayed are small and cluttered and virtually no one clicks on them. Keep in mind that transactions are mostly done on bricks and mortar. So there’s not really accurate ROI data on display, if we’re really honest with each other. And as for online video, the many of you that are focused on it at this conference, pre-roll doesn’t get anyone that excited at the moment and YouTube is continuing to look for ways to turn a rising audience into a ringing cash register.”

“‘When’s all this going to happen? Dave, you’re part of the cable companies. They’re slow and they never make anything happen. When’s this new platform going to start?’ Faster than you think. Canoe believes that we can bring an interactive application to 15 to 20 million households by this time next year. Probably RFI first, with voting and polling coming very shortly thereafter. As for addressability, Canoe hopes to bring a very basic version of it, called network addressability or national addressability, into the marketplace in 100 days. 100 days. Watch.”

A new lawsuit filed against NebuAd brought behavioral targeting into the spotlight again, while talk of a national CTO under Obama gave us hope for some formalized regulation in the years to come. Here’s a round-up of stories we’ve been following this week:

A group of Web users filed a lawsuit against the ad targeting enterprise and the six ISPs that utilized the company’s technology without user consent, leading to speculation that the death of behavioral targeting may be near.

Within the year, cable companies are going to invade your privacy Google style. Canoe Ventures outlined its strategy today at the NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco, where David Verklin, the CEO, outlined the cable industry’s answer to the competition from online video. The vision wraps compelling features for consumers around a hidden advertising and data gathering agenda. Within 100 days, better targeted advertising will be rolled out in some markets, and within the year consumers will see new features.

Canoe Ventures is a joint venture between the top six cable providers and Verklin took to the stage to tell us cable’s vision of television as a platform. “I came 3,000 miles to deliver one simple message. Don’t count out the television business,” Verklin said.

He pointed out that cable companies are in 70 million of the 101 million video-subscribing households.  Canoe represents about 60 million of those households and is the Internet service provider for 35 percent of the country. Verklin says the cable guys invested in Canoe because the video content creation and consumption business is changing right before the industry’s eyes.

To answer this change, Canoe wants to bring more features to television from your remote control, focused on interactivity and addressablity. Verklin says, this isn’t just about the ads but about the programming. For example, he said, Canoe is going to add voting and polling where consumers can vote on their favorite player during a football game or on American Idol. Cable also wants to add a feature called request for information, that allows you to watch Emeril Live and click a button to get a recipe via email or text or perhaps get a catalogue via mail after seeing it on TV.

The third product is “t-commerce,” where you can buy from the television and be charged on your cable bill  or credit card. It’s easier than phone calls or filling out forms online, according to Verklin. Fourth is telescoping, where you can click through on a movie and and see a whole trailer, or click through on a video game ad and see a demo. The final product is addressibility — ads targeted to you. No more dog food ads if you don’t own a dog. But a question consumers need to ask is, “Do I really want my cable company knowing that much about me?“

“Data is the new creative,” Verklin said. He said Canoe thinks the key to that data is the set-top box that’s already hooked up to the televison. That box can tell advertisers exactly how many people are watching an ad. But Verlkin says they’ll keep personally identifiable information anonymous (just like Google.) “We can bring at last one of the interactive applications to 15 to 20 million households by this time next year,” Verklin says. He added that the cable guys are working on limited network addressiblity within the next 100 days. That’s our countdown to privacy loss.

Baidu Invests $15M in UiTV; takes a 8.3 percent stake in the Internet TV platform, which will power the Chinese search engine’s authorized movie and TV distribution. (release)

ON Networks to Charge for Distribution; company has brought together some 100 million viewers across distribution platforms and will distribute any third-party programming on a pay-per-guaranteed-view basis. (release)

Canoe Ventures Is “Rudimentary” But Could be Promising; cable companies’ united front on measurable TV ads might not go far enough for some ad agencies and their clients. (Advertising Week)

Telecom Italia Picks Cisco and Adobe for Live TV Streaming; its Yalp! portal is the first customer for Cisco’s new content delivery platform. (release)

Spot Runner and MultiVu Power Press Release Video; the two companies will help provide integrated video for customers’ news announcements. (release)

25% of U.S. Car Dealers Use Online Video; dealerships and automakers seeing value of cheap online video spots, whether wacky or informative. (Advertising Age)

When I give talks on the best CEOs and their career strategies, I pass on this advice: Think of your career not as a ladder but as a jungle gym. Particularly in today’s tumultuous and unpredictable environment, who knows where the best opportunities will lie a year from now–or even next week? If you navigate your career as if you’re on a jungle gym, you use your peripheral vision and you can swing to opportunities that are lateral or even downward–which may be wise if you’re aiming to broaden your experience base and enhance your resume.

This idea resonated on Friday when I was having lunch with Jim Citrin, the hotshot headhunter who recruits media and technology CEOs for Spencer Stuart. I’ve known Citrin for at least a decade, as he’s done top-level searches for Fortune 500 companies like Motorola (MOT), Viacom (VIA.B) and Yahoo (YHOO) as well as written a steady stream of career strategy books. (The standout: You’re in Charge–Now What?, which he wrote with his longtime mentor, Spencer Stuart’s Tom Neff.) After catching up on a slew of CEOs in motion and companies in trouble, I asked Citrin if there’s anything odd or surprising about the high-level job market lately. He paused for a few seconds and said: “Yeah, even though there’s doom and gloom in the overall economy, there’s so much vibrancy in the area of new ventures.”

By new ventures, Citrin means startups, spinoffs and combinations of existing companies. So far this year he’s recruited CBS Sports vet Tony Petitti to be CEO of the MLB Network (the 24-hour baseball channel due to launch next January 1) and Mauro Montanero, a senior Nokia (NOK) exec, to be chief of Jamba, which is a mobile-entertainment joint venture between Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWS) and Verisign. Citrin also lured David Verklin, who ran media-buying giant Aegis Group, to be the CEO of Canoe Ventures, which is a conglomeration of six cable companies including Comcast and Time Warner Cable that’s all about developing advanced ad-targeting technology to better compete with Google.

“Every one of these businesses is a fundamentally new venture,” Citrin noted. So these searches he’s doing are for positions you wouldn’t have known about just a few months ago. Right now he’s hunting for a president of Bloomberg’s new multimedia division and for someone to head a spinoff of RealNetwork’s casual-games business. Also on his to-do list: Find a CEO for OWN, Oprah Winfrey’s cable-TV network due to launch next year. OWN is Oprah’s joint venture with Discovery Communications.

Citrin’s parting advice to CEO wannabes: “Just as companies are looking for new ways to exploit their assets to generate growth, if you’re a senior executive, look for new ways to apply your experiences.”

P.S. Former Viacom CEO Tom Freston, under the radar ever since he unceremoniously got the boot from chairman Sumner Redstone two year ago, is working as a consultant on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network. As for Susan Lyne possibly becoming OWN’s CEO–rumors I helped spread–it’s not going to happen. Oprah is basing OWN in Los Angeles. Lyne, who quit her CEO post at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) two months ago, lives in New York. Watch for her to do her next big thing close to home.