by Jenni Powell on March 8th, 2010
During last night’s Oscar telecast, trailers for a branded reality-based web series following Rocco DiSpirito, Marisa Tomei, and Dan Cortese as they travel through Italy exploring the unique passions of Italian cuisine were nestled between the iPad and Coca-Cola adverts (one of which featured Safety Geeks: SVI’s Tom Konkle). In addition to Dr. Horrible himself opening the show and the LXD teaming up with Debbie Allen for the Best Score performance piece, the web space was fairly well represented.
Sponsored by Italian food product company Bertolli and made specifically to help promote their new line of Italian frozen dinners, Into the Heart of Italy marks the company’s largest marketing investment ever according to an interview with Gaston Vaneri, a marketing director who oversees Unilever’s U.S. frozen foods business (Unilever owns Bertolli). Being described as “Amazing Race meets Top Chef”, the show seeks to promote its product by celebrating a country known for it’s love of all things culinary.
It will be interesting to see if the huge investment in this series; from it being completely produced in Italy, to the use of celebrities, to the chunk of change required to advertise during the Academy Awards; will have a payoff not only in views for the series itself, but the obviously larger goal of driving up sales for Bertolli products. This will be one of keep an eye on, with the first episode of the series launching March 14th.
by Marc Hustvedt on December 16th, 2009
Next New Networks officially announced their “Next New Creators” program today, which works with upstart indie web series and brings them into the NNN mix in a slightly less formal way than some of the network’s originally developed shows. The 4 year-old online TV network—which is really a family of channels like Barely Political, Threadbanger, Indy Mogul, and Channel Frederator—had been working with a select group of shows over the past year in non-exclusive fashion.
Auto-Tune the News, the breakout musical satire series from the Gregory Brothers, is probably the most notable of the early crop of shows to come out of the program, grossing over 35 million views on YouTube and other sites. Other web series like those that were tapped for NNN’s new foodie site, Hungry Nation, were also in the program including Daniel Delaney’s street food escapes on Vendr.TV and Max and Rebecca Lando’s Working Class Foodies and LushLife NY’s 12 Second Cocktails. Grace Randolph’s Beyond the Trailer (above), the company chose to roll into their established Indy Mogul channel which averages a reported 3 million views a month. From the partnership, the show itself surpassed 500,000 views a month according to NNN’s numbers.
Essentially the program lets shows that are getting a footing on their own take the next step by plugging into the company’s vast distribution and marketing apparatus. Key partnerships like featured placements on YouTube and Yahoo can help fasttrack undiscovered shows into broader audiences. The have an open submission for on the site for creators to apply for the program, which they say is a non-exclusive partnership. “Next New Creators’ brings creator-owned content into our online TV networks with simple, creator-friendly deal structures,” they wrote on site.
We asked Kathleen Grace of Next New Networks what kind of shows their were looking for. Grace herself is an indie web creator having crafted hipster comedy The Burg and indie rock tale The All-For-Nots with her Dinosaur Diorama partner Thom Woodley.
by Marc Hustvedt on November 9th, 2009
Yahoo took a sheet from its own playbook in launching its newest original series today, What’s So Funny? Having already found success with its crop of short TV recap series like its incredibly popular tentpole Primetime in No Time and its sister version Daytime in No Time, it seems only natural that there was more juice to be squeezed from this fruit.
Where the others breezed through the hot reality shows and soaps, What’s So Funny recaps selected comedy clips from the night before. Tapped for the hosting spots are comedian Mike Bachman, a former writer on Primetime in No Time, and Shira Lazar.
Sponsoring the series for Yahoo is ConAgra Foods, with episodes featuring post-roll video and display ads and for a rotation of its brands like Marie Callendar’s and Healthy Choice. Even within each 4-minute episode is a slightly forced, but bearable, “ingredients for good comedy” segment which breezes through some of the pair’s favorite comedy clips. There’s also the He Said-She Said face off to each episode, where each host picks their favorite comedy clip from the night before and makes the case for which is funnier. In the debut episode (above), Lazar backed an ‘underrated’ Taylor Swift clip from her SNL appearance which Bachman went with Larry David’s lemonade stand melee from the latest Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Online personality Shira Lazar is no stranger to hosted web series. For years now she’s been a venerable journeywoman of the internet, with a slew of semi-regular hosting gigs on shows like This Week in YouTube, TechStyle, LX.TV, and Reelz Channel’s What it Takes. But lately Lazar has signed on with two major media brands—CBS News and Yahoo!—giving her a much needed home for the budding media empress.
Catching up with Lazar, it’s almost exhausting trying to piece together the myriad of projects she has brewing. She is now perhaps the Ryan Seacrest of web TV. The new position has her shooting six days a week, typically from around 6 to 9 PM in the studio, not counting TV watching time from the night before. This is all of course after she spends much of her days creating content for her CBSNews.com blog, On The Scene with Shira, shooting video segments for Mo Rocca’s The Tomorrow Show, working as an ambassador for GeekChicDaily or even contributing to the Huffington Post.
by Marc Hustvedt on November 3rd, 2009
With the news that WPP’s GroupM agency and Yahoo are teaming up to create some new brand-backed original web series, we were intrigued and wanted to find out a little more about the deal. GroupM after all is the parent of Mindshare Entertainment which produced the noted comedy web series turned TV pickup by ABC, In The Motherhood. That series itself was a brand-backed from the onset, with Sprint and Unilever’s Suave on board even before ABC came calling. Could this signal the start of Yahoo getting into scripted web series?
The deal itself is an ongoing one, where GroupM and Yahoo will jointly take series proposals, often just in rough synopsis form, and pitch those directly to brands to see if there’s a fit. Some of the early ideas being throw around include a 50-state reality series looking at job hunting across the country (Now Hiring: The Great American Job Search), a series about a band on tour dubbed Rock N’ Roll Jet Plane and a mom-themed scripted comedy series Tales From the Carpool Lane.
We caught up with Yahoo VP Erika Nardini, who is heading up the GroupM partnership. While most of the series are still in development, she mentioned that no new series will get greenlit for production without commitment from a brand sponsor.
Tubefilter: What can we expect from this new set of web series? We’ve heard The Rock ‘N Roll Jet Plane!, Now Hiring: The Great American Job Search are in the works.
Nardini: We are in discussions around several concepts, including Rock N’ Roll Jet Plane and Now Hiring, but will not launch a new series until we’ve partnered with a brand partner, who will play an important role in the development process.
by Marc Hustvedt on September 14th, 2009
NFL season finally got under way this past weekend and as I checked my lineups and last-minute injury reports to make sure my fantasy football squad was good to go, I couldn’t help but wonder why aren’t there any web series about this national obsession?
This market is huge, with an estimated 27.7 million Americans playing at least one fantasy sport, it’s said to be a $1.5 billion market and growing. It even has its own trade association now. Just for comparison, the much-lauded so-called “World of Warcraft market” has about 11.5 million monthly subscribers. Arguably the most popular scripted web series to date, The Guild, has a large part of its success to owe to that audience which it so playfully depicts.
So with a high-value audience, accustomed to shelling out cash for premium content, it only further begs the question of where are the web series for this crowd?
As luck would have it, I happened to pop open my email inbox to serendipitously find that question answered with a fresh tip of a new web series dubbed The League. It’s too early to try to make any direct comparisons between The Guild and The League, but it did catch our eye. Even the URL they chose, watchtheleague.com is conveniently close to watchtheguild.com.
by Julie Wolfson on May 22nd, 2009
With their hugely popular series Primetime in No Time, Yahoo! offers a daily recap of everything you missed last night on TV. Hosted by comedian Frank Nicotero entire evenings of sitcoms, dramas, and reality shows are distilled into a fast paced laugh fest. Frank pokes fun at our favorite shows and the ones that make us cringe. The Yahoo! audience eats it up. Last month Primetime in No Time flew past 208 million views mark.
With the racapping phenomenon of cable shows like The Soup, The Dish, and Best Week Ever and the web series like This Week in YouTube, Primetime in No Time offers a pop culture crash course in quick episodes. Catching up the most outrageous things that happened on TV can often be more fun that watching the shows themselves. Thankfully we have Frank and the staff at Yahoo! to do it for us.
by Julie Wolfson on May 21st, 2009
The children of celebrities have been photographed, fawned over, and even called celebuspawn. From Gwen and Kingston to Angelina and Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox and Vivienne, celebrity moms and their kids are among the most popular topics on Yahoo’s omg!.
Yahoo’s new series Spotlight to Nightlight hosted by the ultimate hot mom, Ali Landry, explores this world of celebrity parenting. This bi-weekly original web series, sponsored by State Farm, is an extension of omg!’s hugely popular “Goddess” blog, which focuses on news, photos, and perspectives from the world of famous mothers.
by Pat Miller on February 25th, 2009
And yet, that’s exactly what’s happening. Yahoo! Buzz is the search engine giant’s answer to Digg—essentially, a social bookmarking service run from Yahoo’s portal that opened for business early last year. Part of Digg’s appeal was its associated weekly web series, Diggnation, which had former The Screen Savers hosts Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht review beer, act like fools, and present the top ten news items of the week with plenty of, ah, additional color. So, naturally, Yahoo wants to do a show of its own, aptly titled Yahoo! Buzz, and with industry giant 20th Television’s help they’re aiming to get it on the air.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported last month that the show is aiming to start syndication Fall 2009, and apparently Ananda Lewis of MTV fame has been tapped as a potential co-host.
