by Joshua Cohen on May 4th, 2011
Ad dollars may be shifting from traditional to new media, but that doesn’t mean the two entertainment paradigms can’t work with one another. For a second year in a row, YouTube is teaming up with NBC’s ode to vaudeville America’s Got Talent. The world’s largest video sharing site has been charged with finding that special someone who can do something special and show it to the world on YouTube-centric installments of the television series.
Interested individuals have from today until June 9 to submit their audition videos to America’s Got Talent’s YouTube channel. YouTube will gather all the submissions, a “panel of NBC representatives” will review those submissions and select their 20 favorites to display, YouTubers will vote on their favorites of the 20 between June 28 and July 9, and the winner will be crowned America’s Got Talent’s YouTube Poeple’s Choice Winner. He or she will do the thing she does on live television with an opportunity to take home $1 million for his or her efforts.
Visit youtube.com/agt for all the rules and regulations.
by Drew Baldwin on May 4th, 2011
Comedy Central Digital has teamed up with Axe Shower to tap comedian Rob Riggle as the host of a new “reality style” (their words, not ours) series Axe Dirtcathlon, in which coed teams compete to see which can create the biggest mess in 90 seconds.
In an attempt to prove “The Cleaner You Are, The Dirtier You Get,” the four-part series pits couples against one another in a bunch of crazy challenges like the “Taxi Dash,” during which contestants try to change into as many weird clothes possible in the back seat of a taxi racing an autocross track by a stunt driver. Yeah. I had to rewind it a few times to understand what the hell was going on. The two other episodes, “Art Smear” and “Toga Party,” are equally bizarre, and I love it.
“As a guy, I can appreciate the fun in getting a little dirty. As a comedian, watching others get dirty and making fun of them while doing it provides all the enjoyment I need!” said Riggle. “You’ve got guys and girls competing in challenges where they start out clean and end up pretty dirty. Plus, I am there to add my incredibly poignant commentary – what more could you want out of the internet!?”
Owen Benjamin co-hosts, providing a colorful play-by-play complementing Riggle’s roast of the contestants—who I’m told are competing for a trip to Spain to participate in La Tomatina, an enormous tomato food fight in
by Joshua Cohen on May 4th, 2011
BrightRoll is a San Francisco-based video advertising network that started operations in 2005. It’s now, according to comScore, the fourth largest property in America in terms of video ads viewed.
In March 2011, BrightRoll delivered over 387 million video ads, hitting 22.8% of the total US population. That means a little more than 1 out of every 5 people living in this country view at least one video ad delivered by BrithtRoll every month. Pretty impressive! You’d think a company with that kind of reach would know a thing or two about the state of online video advertising. It does.
Brightroll conducts an annual agency survey called the Online Video Advertising Report. Every year, the company polls the advertising agency executives and media buyers it works with to get a sense of their spending on, feelings about, and understanding of online video advertising. The third iteration of the report came out this week. Here are some key takeaways:
28% of buyers revealed that they expect to see the greatest increase in ad spending in the online video category for 2011, followed by mobile video (27%) and social media (25%)
86% of respondents are shifting at least part of their display dollars over to video, while 64% plan to shift TV dollars to video; budgets are also migrating from search, social media and direct response, though in slightly more modest numbers at 28%, 27% and 26%, respectively
Nearly two-thirds of respondents indicated that online video is equally as effective, if not more effective, than television advertising
41% of media buyers view targeting as online video advertising’s greatest attribute, representing an increase of nine percentage points from 2010
For the third year in a row, buying directly from online publishers was reported as the dominant means of purchasing inventory (52%), followed by ad networks (31%), broadcasters (10%), portals (6%) and ad exchanges (2%)
96% of respondents indicated that research into the efficacy of online video helps drive value for advertisers, though just 35% are conducting research of their own
It’s important to note our sources. BrightRoll is most likely polling individuals and agencies it already works with, so of course those individuals and agencies are going to be more likely to see the benefits of online video advertising and allocate their ad buys accordingly. But still, those numbers above are overwhelmingly positive for the online video industry.
by Marc Hustvedt on May 3rd, 2011
Companion web series of hit TV shows are usually passable affairs, relegated to second-tier characters from second-tier writers rooms. GLEE on the other hand hit the goose in the gullet with its choice of Brittany S. Pierce (Heather Morris) to host her own web show—Fondue for Two. Personally, she’s one of the only consistent gut busters for me in the hour-long musical comedy.
Fondue is a simple setup, an internet talk show shot from Brittany’s bedroom, where the deadpan bombshell dishes up some hot gossip over some actual hot fondue. The first episode stars fellow gleeks Mercedes (Amber Riley) and Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz)—and her portly feline Lord Tubbington.
by Marc Hustvedt on May 3rd, 2011
We write about quite a few deals on Tubefilter, web series that inked pickups from BET or Hulu or MSN, but we got to thinking that there’s more to the story of online video than just the weddings. Why not see peek into the more colorful dating life of these projects?
Luckily, we were able to talk the guys behind one of our favorite series of last year, White Collar Brawler, into sharing their one-sheet pitch for Season 2. Part of the deal was complete candor, with everything from view counts to production budgets. The goal here is to share with readers what WCB is out on the market pitching with, and see how it works out for them.
It’s never as easy as a just having good logline, but those help. “Fight Club meets MTV’s Made” is what they are leading with.
For background, the docu-reality web series launched last September, following two former office workers in San Francisco—Kai Hasson and Nate Houghteling—on a three-month journey to document their indoctrination into amateur boxing. “The blood, sweat, tears you’ll see are real. The punches to the jaw are real. This is really happening,” they reminded us as they prepared to face off against each other in one final boxing match.
by Drew Baldwin on May 3rd, 2011
Yesterday KoldCast TV launched Bros, an original comedy about four recently graduated fraternity brothers who try to make it in the professional world and screw up at almost every chance they get. From the show page: Max, Al, Luke, and John fratted hard in college. Now it’s time to move on and actually pay their own [...]
by Drew Baldwin on May 2nd, 2011
With YouTube’s big announcement last month, it seems “live” is on everyone’s mind these days. And as more attention is placed on appointment viewing and entertainment events, live producers are betting the money is sure to follow.
theStream.tv sure thinks so. Brian Gramo, who founded the interactive web television studio and network that has produced over 1,300 live broadcasts, announced a new, bigger home for theStream.tv in Hollywood: theStream.tv 4.0 HD Studio, which boasts 4,000 square feet of space with a control room, offices, and make-up room.
The studio plans to open its doors in June 2011, inviting live shows to take advantage of its 25 Megabit upload speeds and state of the art live HD streaming equipment.
The good news comes nearly a year after Gramo’s announcement that theStream.tv lost its only sponsor, which forced Gramo to lay off his two full-time employees and eventually put the studio on hold.
Gramo quietly released a pre-construction video tour on his own YouTube channel in
by Marc Hustvedt on May 2nd, 2011
YouTube announced the winners of its first ever NextUp Creators contest to identify 25 video creators to make up the network’s inaugural NextUp class. Each of the winning creators will receive $35,000 to help fund future video production as well as attend a 4-day YouTube Creator Camp (also a first) in New York City for “personalized training and mentoring to build their brands and improve their content.”
This is the first major initiative out of the team that came over from the company’s acquisition of NY-based Next New Networks in March. Next New Networks was known to have a 70-page handbook on mastering YouTube that it shared with its creators, though its likely to have some updates now that they have some hands on time with the inner workings of the platform.
Amongst the winning creators are some names Tubefilter readers will recognize like Peter Bragiel (aka pdrop) who created the travel web series In Transit and pitched it at a Tubefilter pitch camp last fall, Josh Sundquist (joshsundquist) who has been on the rise lately, Travis Betz (thereceptionist) who also won Kia’s branded talent search last September, and Matt Koval (mattkoval) creator of Shelby’s Rant.
