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» Events
As many of you know, I’ve been woking with my friend, Television Academy Governor (and #6 on the Hollywood Reporter’s Digital Top 50) Brian Hurst for some time. We have formalized this and I’m happy to announce that I’m now with Brian’s team as SVP of Cross Media Strategy. Broadcast and Cable has it here; C21 Media has it here. NAM clients will be supported as before but we’ll be looking to bring both teams to bear whenever appropriate, which should be often as the skill sets are complementary.
Posted: February 5th, 2007 under » Events.
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Tony Perkins’ (former owner of the Red Herring) Always On conference started last night in NY and goes through COB tomorrow. As always, Tony streams his events live, so you can watch them on the web as they occur. I love that - it tells you that his priorities are straight… dealmakers are not paying for panels, they’re paying for access. Way to go. Check it out if you have time.
Posted: January 30th, 2007 under » Events.
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Apparently it was too crowded this year - but what wasn’t? That’s the nature of a boom. We had a party at CES at the Palms with Tim Chang of Gabriel Ventures… Chad Hurley and Steve Chen came by - both very nice guys as far as I can see. As they did at Sun Valley, YouTube were the young bucks of the World Economic Forum ? and a big improvement over the previous year’s buzz story, Angelina Jolie. Good to see people who do this stuff on the international stage. That’s crunk. Video of Chad’s panel at Davos (with Gates) here; his comments about it here.
Posted: January 28th, 2007 under » Events.
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The launch event Redford spoke at is Chicago 10, a mixed media take on the 60s counterculture Yippies and their 1969 trial. The group included Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, as well as former Fonda spouse Tom Hayden, who attended the event. Reviews are mixed.
This year’s first breakout appears to be Laura Linney/Philip Seymour Hoffman starrer The Savages from Fox Searchlight, directed by Tamara Jenkins of Slums of Beverly Hills fame.
Posted: January 19th, 2007 under » Events.
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We were lucky to be coming in directly from NATPE - Vegas to Salt Lake was easy; lots of other folks are delayed in airports today. We didn’t get into our place in Upper Deer Valley till 3AM (cab driver dropped us at the wrong place) but we are here and it’s beautiful. Redford’s took a swipe at Bush during the opening remarks yesterday, relative to the value of documentary. Off to lunch, more later.
Posted: January 19th, 2007 under » Events.
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As anticipated, focus of this show has been deal structure and alliances for digital. Simon Assaad of Heavy and Greg Spiradellis of JibJab had some interesting thoughts about the nature of advertising and brand identity on their respective sites - audio is available here, courtesy of the moderator our friend Rafat Ali. Broad themes of that panel and the show are that the length of ads - 5 sec, 10s, 30s or 2 min - is still completely up for grabs. Whatever feels organic and unobtrusive is good and ads matched to specific content are obviously ideal. On the rights side, buyers are backing off on exclusivity - multiple deals across multiple platforms and partners are becoming the norm, which is better for everyone. It’s a big world, for now, and we should play together as nicely as we can. The nasty kids will eventually be found out and be removed from the sandbox. But we learn by doing so let’s do.
Posted: January 18th, 2007 under » Events.
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Back in Vegas. It grows on you; I get how people get sucked into it. I used to have a girlfriend from here and it creeped me out how there were no shadows during the day… the archetypal desert you could never cover up. But now I get it. Vegas is simple. Everyone is just passing through, like life.
NATPE is the Natl Association of Programming Execs and it’s OK so far. Much smaller than CES obviously, which is a mercy. Peter Guber and Peter Bart had a very good panel with Harry Sloan and Jon Feltheimer but I missed most of it cause I was having lunch with my friend Lori Schwartz. I had two Manhattans and we had a swell time.
Posted: January 16th, 2007 under » Events.
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1:30 AM and back to Vegas we go for NATPE, the TV Programming Exec show. Usually I’m not a huge fan but this one should be good. The proliferation of variables in TV deals in the past year is unprecedented… VOD, DVR, ITunes, other download services, YouTube, all with exclusivity and rev share decisions… the deal matrix gets prettty thick for a business that’s been boilerplate for a generation. And to quote Mr. Goldman, no one knows anything. All bets are off as everyone looks for the right combination of elements in pricing, UI, rev share, branding, windowing etc. May you live in interesting times!
Posted: January 16th, 2007 under » Events.
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To explore the below for yourself, watch Gates’ keynote here and Jobs’ IPhone sermon here. Steve as eminence grise and Bill as dated adolescent. And watch the palettes on the two, Microsoft’s Motel 6 colors and out-of-touch casting choices. Amazing.
Posted: January 14th, 2007 under » Editorial, » Events.
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Back home for a day before NATPE. The big event of this year’s CES came from far away at the church of the faithful… the day after Gates’s mediocre keynote in Vegas, Jobs announced the iPhone at Macworld and seized conrol of the media, the market and the over 100,000 milling through the Convention Center. While Gates lolled on about RFID tags on flour bags Apple revealed an integrated phone/iPod/email/net device, and a business model with all of the upside of an MVNO and none of the down. Carrier Cingular will cede branding to Apple and provide coverage via their Edge network. Questions about action by Cisco, who may own the iPhone name, persist.
Posted: January 14th, 2007 under » Events.
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