All Things Digital

“We feel that we have recreated the mass media.” That’s how Google’s Kim Malone Scott, in a moment of Zuckerbergian modesty, described the company’s video syndication service that will debut this fall and, shortly thereafter, transform online content distribution.

Working with Seth MacFarlane, creator of the “Family Guy” animated series, Google (GOOG) will in September begin distributing “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy,” a series of digital shorts
to be embedded on Web sites as free, ad-supported streams.
About two minutes in length, the shorts–which MacFarlane describes as “animated versions of the one-frame cartoons you might see in The New Yorker, only edgier”–will be syndicated through Google’s AdSense advertising system, which will target them at MacFarlane-friendly segments of the Web. Some will be accompanied by standard pre- or post-roll ads, some by “brought to you by” tags, and others by original commercials created by MacFarlane.

The shorts are essentially like little Assisted Ad Delivery Devices, intelligently targeting advertisements at those receptive to viewing them. “We believe the revenue could be formidable,” said Karl Austen, a lawyer who worked on the deal. “What is exciting is that this is a way to monetize the Internet immediately. Instead of creating a Web site and hoping Seth’s fans find it, we are going to push the content to where people are already at.”

RIAA Sues Radio Stations for Giving Away Free Music

–Headline from satirical newspaper The Onion, Oct. 2, 2002

Talk about life imitating The Onion …

Apparently the recording industry’s institutional memory is about as solid as its crumbling business model. As recently as 2007, it was paying radio stations to play its music. Today, it’s accusing them of pirating it. Yersterday, the ironically named recording industry group musicFIRST demanded that broadcasters pay royalties for the music they play over the radio, dismissing as a red herring their claims that radio airplay is a form of free promotion.

And to illustrate that point, the group sent the National Association of Broadcasters a can of herring and a dictionary. Some clever folks over there at musicFIRST.

“[AM-FM broadcasting is] a form of piracy, if you will, but not in the classic sense as we think of it,” Martin Machowsky, a musicFirst spokesman told Wired. “Today we gifted them a can of herring, about their argument that they provide promotional value. We think that’s a red herring. Nobody listens to the radio for the commercials.”

Well, he got that much right. Nobody does listen to the radio for the commercials. They listen for the music. And there was a time when record labels paid broadcasters to play it. They even coined a word for the practice: payola.

I’m not so sure that the whole issue really is one of commercial avoidance. It really is a matter of convenience–so you don’t miss your favorite show. And quite frankly, we’re just training a new generation of viewers to skip commercials because they can. I’m not sure that the driving reason to get a DVR in the first place is just to skip commercials. I don’t fundamentally believe that. People can understand in order to have convenience and on-demand [options], that you can’t skip commercials.”

–ABC President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw, July 2006

Leave it to ABC to devise a service that offers all the convenience of video-on-demand with all the annoyance and vapidity of broadcast TV in one joyless package. This morning the network and its affiliates announced fast-forward-disabled video on demand, which prevents viewers from bypassing commercials.

Designed to combat the now nearly ubiquitous DVR, the service offers viewers the chance to watch ABC shows like “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” for free, at any time they choose, as long as they’re willing to suffer through the advertisements that accompany them. And just to make sure that they do, participating affiliates will disable their video-on-demand services’ fast-forwarding capability. “This does counter the DVR,” Anne Sweeney, the president of the Disney-ABC television group (DIS), told the New York Times. “You don’t need TiVo if you have fast-forward-disabled video on demand. It gives you the same opportunity to catch up to your favorite shows.”

And your not-so-favorite commercials. Which would seem to make it about as uncompelling a proposition as … well, as over-the-air broadcast TV. But ABC, which has been testing the service with Cox Communications in Orange County, Calif., insists it’s got an audience. The company says 93% of users it surveyed said they would be willing to give up the fast-forwarding option and watch the commercials if they were given VOD programming for free.

So perhaps the 30-second TV ad has a few more years left in it still. But only a few. According to a study by the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research, 62% of marketers believe TV advertising has become less effective in the past few years. And 87% said they plan to increase their online ad spending this year, while many said they will cut their TV ad buys substantially when DVR penetration tops 50%.