Archive for January 16th, 2008

Users of the social networking site Bebo received a shock when Kate Modern, the iconic star of a groundbreaking web drama series, was killed off.

The story of a fictional teenage London student, revealed over 155 bite-sized online dramas, Kate Modern attracted 27 million views following its launch last August.

Bebo, the online community scoured daily by millions of teenagers, funded the show through product placement deals with partners including Microsoft and Disney.

Season one ended with a cliff-hanger when Kate (Alexandra Weaver) disappeared as a result of a suspected kidnapping by mysterious brotherhood, The Order.

The mystery was finally revealed yesterday when the audience discovered today (weds) that she has been brutally murdered. The new series will develop into a “whodunit”, with the characters and audience working together to solve the mystery of “Who Killed Kate?” There will be a further 120 epsiodes running daily, lasting from one to four minutes each.

Kate Modern was created by LG15, the company behind LonelyGirl15, a fictional web series, which became a phenomenon on YouTube.

The Bebo series claims to be the internet’s most popular television show, averaging 1.5 million weekly views. Guest appearances by stars including Jamie Bell, the Billy Elliot actor, helped build audiences.

Kate Modern is also seen as a model for broadcasting’s digital future as television shows migrate to the net. Sponsors including Procter & Gamble, Paramount and Orange paid up to £250,000 each for their products to appear within the show.

With production costs of around £6,000 an episode, Bebo was comfortably in profit. Product placement may become commonplace when rules are relaxed for commercial television broadcasters later this year.

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THE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS ASSOCIATION JUST concluded its 41st annual trade show in Las Vegas last week. With more than 2,700 exhibitors and 140,000 plus attendees, the CES has turned into one of the most recognized trade shows in North America. The show has also evolved into much more than just an electronics showcase. With media and technology intersecting more and more each day, the CES has become a cross-section of product, technology and media dealings and announcements related to all things digital. Consequently, companies like Yahoo and CNET are exhibiting and using the forum for relevant announcements. Coverage of the show seemed to center around general disappointment regarding future developments and notable announcements. However, during Bill Gates’ keynote, there was one announcement that I found very interesting. Gates addressed the NBC/Microsoft partnership for online video technology and distribution for the upcoming Olympics. For those who missed it, this new partnership (which makes sense considering both parties own MSNBC) is centered on the utilization of Microsoft’s Silverlight online video technology by NBC, along with MSN gaining the rights to serve as a secondary digital distribution platform for the games. With more than 3,000 expected hours of coverage and 30 simultaneous feeds, the upcoming Olympics promises to be a watershed mark in digital coverage of a live event.

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APPLE INC. CHIEF EXECUTIVE STEVE Jobs announced during the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco an alliance with the six major movie studios that will enable the company to offer first-run movie rentals online.

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The Oscars will go on, but maybe not in the usual form.Amid the pervasive uncertainty created by the WGA strike, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is forging ahead with plans for the Feb. 24 Oscar ceremony. But the Academy is also planning two different shows — the usual kudocast and an alternative event if the scribes are still out.

Oscarcast producer Gil Cates supplied few details as to what form the alternative show would take, simply saying at a meeting at Acad headquarters that they’d have to “play it by ear,” according to one attendee.

But it’s likely that the alternative show would rely on industry heavyweights penning their own speeches and presenting the awards.

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NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Enough about your media brand, advertising sellers. It’s what you know about a marketer’s brand that really counts. That’s according to more than 2,000 media decision makers surveyed by Advertiser Perceptions. Not only that, the respondents named those companies whose reps were doing the best job.

Major brand marketers in sectors ranging from consumer packaged goods to automotives weighed in on what they’re looking for from media sellers, and knowledge about an advertiser’s brand and products came out on top.

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NEW YORK Microsoft is expanding its reach into emerging digital channels with a deal to show grocery store customers video ads tied to their past shopping history and location in the store.

Microsoft has begun a pilot program with MediaCart Holdings, a maker of shopping cart computers, and Wakefern ShopRite to show point-of-purchase ads in 220 grocery stores in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Delaware. The pilot will run nine months.
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NEW YORK Unilever today confirmed that it has awarded its global creative duties on its Magnum ice cream brand to Lowe after a review in which DDB and McCann Erickson were the other finalists.McCann was the incumbent on the business. Adweek.com reported the shift on Jan. 11.

At the same time, Unilever has gone further to reassign the rest of its ice cream brands—now divided among three core shops—with Lowe and DDB becoming the company’s sole ice cream agencies globally. As a result, current Unilever roster shops McCann, Campbell Mithun and Nitro will be stripped of their ice cream business, said sources.

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ROME — Marco Mueller has been officially reappointed Venice Film Festival topper for four additional years in a move that will give the Lido stability and bolster its status as it undergoes an infrastructural makeover.Mueller now has a solid mandate from Venice Biennale president Paolo Baratta, who in a statement on Wednesday praised the Lido’s artistic director for boosting the fest’s international profile since taking charge in 2004.

Baratta replaced Davide Croff as Biennale prexy in November.

Under the terms of his second mandate, Mueller is believed to have gained more of a free hand in terms of management control, besides artistic decisions. There was no immediate comment from Mueller, who is not in Italy at present.

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LONDON — The United Nations is backing a $100 million film fund aimed at combating stereotypes in films.The creation of the fund was announced at the Alliance of Civilizations forum in Madrid Tuesday in the presence of co-founder Queen Noor of Jordan.

Participant Productions, Summit Entertainment, ICM and YouTube are all thought to have signed on as partners to the fund, which already has an investment of $10 million.

British maven Richard Branson is on the board of advisors and has also pledged his support to the fund.

“For a lifetime it seems, I have agonized over the way stereotypes, reinforced by popular culture and the media, can set the emotional and political stage for policies that result in chronic misunderstanding,” said Queen Noor, the U.S.-born daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan. “Yet the media has the power to humanize, as well as polarize.”

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CBS Corp. will assume control of all international television distribution for the CSI franchise. CBS Television Distribution has sold the domestic syndication rights for the CSI franchise within the U.S. since the original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation series went on the air in October 2000.

International syndication rights for the CSI franchise had been handled by GS Capital Partners-owned Alliance Atlantis Productions, which co-produces the three CSI series in association with CBS Paramount Network Television and Jerry Bruckheimer Television.

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