The Ten Spot: Nov 5, 2009
Chart: U.S. Virtual Goods Revenue Ready To Explode | SAI
The virtual goods market in the U.S. is ready to take off. Right now, the U.S. only has 28% of the total market. By 2013, the U.S. will make up 41% of the market with $2.5 billion in sales, according to research from Piper Jaffray.
The Decade of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple | Fortune
He’s a visionary, but he’s grounded in reality too, closely monitoring Apple’s various operational and market metrics. He isn’t motivated by money, says friend Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500). The financial results have been nothing short of astounding — for Apple and for Jobs. The company was worth about $5 billion in 2000, just before Jobs unleashed Apple’s groundbreaking “digital lifestyle” strategy, understood at the time by few critics. Today, at about $170 billion, Apple is slightly more valuable than Google.
CollegeHumor May Go to Ben Silverman Venture | Advertising Age
The deal would have Connected Ventures, parent of CollegeHumor and just-launched TV-production arm Notional, folded into Electus. [...] Connected Ventures is at the core of those content efforts, but Mr. Diller is said to lack confidence that the group can effectively monetize the properties it creates. Last week, Mr. Diller said investment in original content would account for “less than 10%” of the $1.8 billion the company will have in cash over the next few years.
One of the biggest questions in the TV biz has been when, and even if, Oprah Winfrey would give up her daytime syndicated talk show to focus on OWN, her long delayed Oprah Winfrey Network in 70 million homes that was supposed to launch in place of the Discovery Health Channel as a joint venture between Winfrey and Discovery Communications. Read more >>
The Ten Spot: Nov 4, 2009
[Ari Emanuel slipped this 1970 Life magazine to his agents recently. Per Patrick Goldstein:] Don’t overreact to the current studio cost-cutting frenzy. As this story makes all too clear, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Studios always think they can make the movie business into a more rational enterprise, but that’s a bean-counter fantasy. Making movies will always require a leap of faith.
Just as today’s studio chiefs think that they can now make “Transformers” and “Hangover”-style hits without movie stars, Bluhdorn was convinced that high-priced talent was superfluous. “You get from these big stars a document of conditions of how many hours they’ll work, what they’ll do and won’t do…. Well, who needs them? With today’s young audiences, names won’t sell a picture anymore. A great script and a devoted director — that’s what makes things happen. Substitute “special effects” for ”script” and you could easily slip those words into any of today’s studio bosses’ mouths.
via YouTube’s Content Head Jordan Hoffner Leaving To Join Ben Silverman’s New Venture | paidContent.
Jordan Hoffner, the head of content partnerships for YouTube, is leaving the company, and joining Ben Silverman’s new content venture at IAC (NSDQ: IACI), we have learned. The move from YouTube was announced internally today. This is the second senior digital exec to join Silverman’s venture, after we first reported on Drew Buckley also joining it last month.
via But Who’ll Break Up The Fistfights? – Deadline.com.
James Murdoch, Howard Stringer, Les Moonves, David Zaslav, and, interestingly, Comcast’s Brian Roberts and GE’s Jeff Immelt back to back, will be speaking at the annual hush-hush Quadrangle confab being held Wednesday and Thursday in NYC. [...] Speakers — Emilio Azcárraga, Grupo Televisa; Dennis Crowley, Foursquare; Barry Diller, Iac; Brian Dunn, Best Buy; Charles Forman & Dan Porter, Omgpop; Reed Hastings, Netflix; Reid Hoffman, Linkedin. More after the jump… Read more >>
The Ten Spot: Oct 27, 2009
It’s Diller-Day in terms of a quarterly IAC earnings. His creative collective with Ben Silverman (formerly of NBC and Reveille is “Electus” – cool ‘Digitas’ type newco name), updates from Dreamworks Animation, Hulu, Circle of 8 on Myspace, 3D TV penetration, TV Everywhere … and the trailer premiere of “The Green Zone” (Matt Damon’s more authentic Jason Bourne war-thriller film), will be interesting to see how it avoids the stop-loss effect of Gulf war films. AND we’re planning thetenspot.com launch in December – looking for user-generated logos – send to logos@newmedici.com!
via IAC Reports 3Q Profit But Ad Revenue Down | Huffington Post
Counting one-time events such as a large gain on a stock sale and the sale of Match’s European operations, IAC earned $21.7 million, or 16 cents per share, on $337 million in revenue. In the same period a year ago it lost $14.8 million, or 11 cents per share. IAC did not give a substantive update on its new media venture with former NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman, other than to say it will be called “Electus.” The venture was announced in July and will let advertisers have a say in the development process for TV shows and Web videos. Read more >>