Peter Kafka interviewed Mike yesterday. Here’s the video.

Announced on the heals [...]]]> Tremor Media, the largest video ad network in the US, today announced that it has raised $40 million in funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund with participation from DFJ and Triangle Peak Partners. Existing investors including Canaan Partners, Meritech Capital Partners, and SAP Ventures also participated significantly in this financing.

Announced on the heals of Reckitt Benckiser’s record breaking $40 Million video buy – which is not confirmed to have included Tremor – Jason Glickman, CEO, Tremor Media commented, “The next 12-18 months are critical for online video’s growth as massive advertising budgets shift to online video and consumption of online video rises.”

Tremor had previously raised a total of $40 million over three rounds of financing.

For those of you unfamiliar with their offering, FreeWheel’s [...]]]> Video monetization technology company FreeWheel today announced it has closed $16.8 million in strategic institutional funding. New investor Steamboat Ventures, a venture capital firm affiliated with The Walt Disney Company, joined existing investors Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., Battery Ventures, and Foundation Capital to complete the round.

For those of you unfamiliar with their offering, FreeWheel’s technology enables content distributors to manage ad sales rights, produce accurate inventory forecasts for live or on demand content, deliver a yield-optimized set of ads, and analyze video business performance. Their Monetization Rights Management (MRM) platform provides capabilities developed to address TV Everywhere initiatives, including advanced commercial break pattern management.

Some of Freewheel’s notable clients include Turner, VEVO, MLB.com, Revision3 and Discovery Communications.

Interactive agency, Deep Focus, has launched a practice specifically focusing on location based marketing, dubbed GEOFocus. GEOFocus will be led by Vanessa Montes, Senior Director, Strategy, and will be responsible [...]]]> For those of you who are busy ‘checking in’ and earning your ‘badges,’ get ready for a more engaging, more impactful experience using location based technology.

Interactive agency, Deep Focus, has launched a practice specifically focusing on location based marketing, dubbed GEOFocus. GEOFocus will be led by Vanessa Montes, Senior Director, Strategy, and will be responsible for helping marketers bridge ‘virtuaphysical’ gaps that prevent them from leveraging the geographical information and content that consumers are increasingly sharing with each other.

Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer commented on his blog, “We also believe that the way to make it all work for brands at scale is to apply a mix of creatively applied technology, locally relevant media planning & buying, value-adding brand integration, socially-aware communications, and real-world activation through web, mobile, and other device platforms.”

Congrats to Ian and the rest of the Deep and GEOFocus team on the new initiative.

The joint venture between CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc is sure to piss off the most vocal consumers [...]]]> In a fairly ballsy move, CW Network said it would begin testing consumer tolerance of ad loads next month, hoping to raise the number of ads to 20 :30-second spots per hour, the same as on TV.

The joint venture between CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc is sure to piss off the most vocal consumers of CW content, but is making a smart move in simplifying measurement and buying of media across both platforms. Not exactly a popular reason for the masses, but an excellent experiment is business model survival.

While most people rally for fewer ads online, I personally have been testing the waters about the price / premium users should pay for convenience and the appropriate contribution to the value exchange.

The price and currency is set on TV already, and the DVR has enabled people to skirt their half of the value exchange, contributing no attention or time to the ad supported, yet ad skipable, medium. Ad supported TV at this point is looking like a lost cause. Bleeding more money online seems like an even dumber move.

Shouldn’t online viewers of content have to contribute the same amount of currency to the value exchange as they do in other mediums? A reduced ad load might be more aligned with the levels of advertising that TV viewers are currently exposed to when using a DVR – but shouldn’t there be some form of “premium” that is paid by the user in exchange for the convenience of watching where, when, and on whatever device they choose?

Surely this will be an unpopular argument with every day viewers, but I’m certainly curious what industry people think about the premium being placed on the platform and convenience rather than on the content.

Weigh in. I can take it.

Tonight and tomorrow, March 12th and 13th, The Drive By Truckers will be live streaming two nights from Atlanta’s Variety Playhouse, courtesy of [...]]]> Since I can’t get enough concerts streaming to my living room since last week’s Trey Anastasio stream, I’m adding more concerts to my Weekend Pick and Pick of the Week for next week.

Tonight and tomorrow, March 12th and 13th, The Drive By Truckers will be live streaming two nights from Atlanta’s Variety Playhouse, courtesy of iClips.net. The concerts are being streamed to drive interest in their new album, “The Big To-Do,” which will be released on Tuesday, March 16th. Prices for the live broadcast are $6.99 per show or $9.99 for both. For those that purchase the live broadcast can also purchase their new album, The Big To-Do for $7.00 as a digital download at a later date from the Drive-By Truckers website. All pre-orders will receive an immediate Premium DRM-free 320kbps MP3, FLAC, or Apple Lossless download of the songs “Birthday Boy” and “Working This Job”.

For the less alt-country, more traditional southern rock fans, The Allman Brothers have returned for their New York City residency, this time at the United Palace Theater (instead of the usual Beacon Theater). Last year, The Allmans launched Moogis, their own live streaming service, powered by OrchardTV.

In what could be a hint towards web VOD pricing models, the Allmans are offering a subscription to the live streams of their 11-show run in NYC for $150, which also includes access to tons of their archived footage, including 50+ archived shows. That boils down to slightly less than $10 per live show, which beats the shit out of their $60, $100, and $150 priced seats to be at the venue. I’d like to see the ability to buy one show, rather than the whole run, though. Regardless, there’s a market for live VOD for bands of all sizes, and I’m looking forward to seeing some up and comers charging $1 for a show, or a weeks worth of shows, since the economics work out just fine. (NOTE: if you are an up and coming band and want help with the economics and production, please contact Ben or I for an intro and options through OVW Consulting.)

Either way, streaming from home means not looking over your shoulder for that pesky security guard. Party On!

While ABC initially cut off access to Cablevision during their dispute (access was restored at approximately 8:45PM EST, disgruntled viewers are turning to the web for their OSCAR content. In [...]]]> On the heals of Livestream’s open letter to the industry about piracy of live streamed content, it wasn’t long before a quinticential example pops up.

While ABC initially cut off access to Cablevision during their dispute (access was restored at approximately 8:45PM EST, disgruntled viewers are turning to the web for their OSCAR content. In addition to the legal pre-award show content being offered, as predicted, Justin.TV is hosting multiple streams of the show. Even better, there’s a Cablevision ad running as an overlay on top of the pirated content.

Oh, how ’bout that. Guess what’s on Ch.7? The OSCARS. I’m going back to watching on real TV instead of the pirated stream.

oscar irony

The months long public battle between ABC and Cablevision over retransmission rights fees came to a head today when ABC pulled the plug [...]]]> UPDATED: Disney and ABC have apparently reached an agreement “in principle.” Access to ABC was restored on the Cablevision network at approximately 8:45 PM EST approximately 30 minutes into the Oscars broadcast.

The months long public battle between ABC and Cablevision over retransmission rights fees came to a head today when ABC pulled the plug on the cable operator and removed the channel from 3 million Cablevision households ahead of Sunday’s Oscars telecast. In an e-mail to customers Cablevision directed viewers to the web for live coverage on E!, Livestream and the LA Times Gold Derby blog.

We have seen a number of disputes like this come down to the Wire but it’s rare that it results in a service disruption – by pulling the plug on the eve of a high profile event like the Oscars ABC is making a very public statement. Whether it will work out for ABC, and if the network broadcast model itself is still viable are still very open quesyions.

Cablevision charges ABC with demanding unreasonably high fees to carry the network, a message on the Cablevision homepage claims ABC is demanding $40 million more on top of the $200 million it receives. According to Reuters “Disney executives have privately disputed those numbers.”

The latest is that the companies have agreed to binding arbitration. Eventually Cablevision will give ABC a little more money and the network will be back in Cabvlevision homes. But the bigger question is whether the broadcast network model can be profitable when competing with thousands of specific cable channels and millions of specific online video channels.