CBS To Acquire CNET For $1.8 Billion
“The core businesses of CNET Networks and CBS Interactive represent near perfect category symmetry in premium online content,”
Quincy Smith, President, CBS Interactive.
And that symmetry is apparently worth about $1.8 billion, which is what CBS just agreed to pay for CNET. The deals values CNET at $11.50/share, and puts a 45% premium on stock from their closing price yesterday. CBS, which is worth a little over $16 billion, is down just over 3% on the news as of 7:45 am PST.
The deal is about increasing CBS’s reach, as noted in the press release: The acquisition will make CBS one of the 10 most popular Internet companies in the United States, with a combined 54 million unique users per month, and approximately 200 million users worldwide.
The deal also likely ends the months-long fight between CNET and the activist investor group led by Jana Partners. Jana had accused CNET’s board and management of “presiding over massive value destructionâ€
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CBS Testing HD Streaming
CBS released a high definition player today in the labs area of their site, along with a few clips. They are currently streaming (not progressive download) in H.264/AVC format at 480p, with 720p and 1080p coming soon, they say.
Hulu and others are also beginning to test high definition streaming. Some shows on Hulu, for example, are optionally available in 480p format. They also have a few clips available in 720p.
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Women’s Online Video Preferences Are Tamer Than Men’s
New figures from Nielsen’s new VideoCensus product reveal that women prefer mainstream media video content online, where as men prefer user generated content.
According to Ars Technica, the figures show women aged 18 to 34 were twice as likely as men of the same age group to watch network TV shows streamed from sites such as CBS.com or Hulu, where as men aged 18 to 34 were over twice as likely to check out user-generated video sites as women (YouTube and others.) The figures relate only to streamed content, and therefore excludes iTunes and downloaded content from P2P services such as BitTorrent.
Even if we discount the figures fully (Ars suggests men are more comfortable with BitTorrent therefore MSM content is not counted correctly) its a strange anomaly. Why would women prefer professional content and men preferred user content? and is it possible to obtain an answer without being completely sexist in a conclusion?
No doubt Nielsen and competing services will test the theory in the coming months. If it’s proven to be true, it may well affect the focus of sites in both spaces, and will most definitely affect the types of advertisers these sites attract.
(image credit: icanhascheezburger)
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Goodbye, 30-Second Song Clips. Last.fm Offers Limited Full-Track Streaming and Moves Towards Subscriptions
It is good to see some creative licensing finally taking hold in the music industry. Today, CBS-owned Last.fm announced that you can now stream the full track of any song up to three times for free, in addition to its regular music-discovery service which streams related songs you might like in a random order. This is also the first step towards a future subscription service, which will allow an unlimited number of plays. After the third time you listen to a song, listeners will see a promotion for the upcoming service.
Last.fm has signed deals with all four major record labels and most independents to stream their tracks in the U.S., UK, and Germany, with other countries coming soon. Instead of paying one-time fees per song that don’t make economic sense on the Web, artists and music labels will receive ongoing royalties based on how many times each song is listened to. The details of how much Last.fm is paying per song were not revealed, but moving towards a pay-for-performance model is good for both online music services and the music industry.
Music needs to be sampled before most people want to buy it. The current Web industry norm of the 30-second clip just won’t cut it anymore. Perhaps Last.fm will help to set a new precedent here with limited full-track streams. It might be difficult for iTunes or Amazon to abandon the 30-second preview, however, because neither one has an ongoing revenue stream from advertising or subscriptions with which to pay an ongoing royalty. At least, not yet.
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AccuScore’s BCS Alternative
An L.A.-area company and ESPN offer college football fans the chance to create their own national championship playoffs online if they're not thrilled with the bowls
Web 2.0 Startups Find Europe Fertile Ground
Serial entrepreneurs, lots of broadband, and multilingual style blend to raise a bumper crop of search engines, video sites and other Net companies
Mounting Peer-to-Peer Pressure for Comcast
Comcast's traffic-filtering efforts are the subject of FCC complaints and a lawsuit. At issue: ISPs right to control the flow of data over their networks
Bebo’s Big Push Into Video
Bebo is taking on YouTube (and Hulu). Today, it opened up its social network to video partners who want access to its captive audience. Launch partners include CBS, MTV Networks, ESPN, the BBC, Channel Four, BSkyB—Bebo is very popular in the UK—Next New Networks, Crackle, Ustream, Last.fm and JibJab. The partners can keep all advertising dollars from the videos (and from music too). Bebo gets to keep its members on its site.
Members will be able to create and share their own video and music playlists. And media companies will get their own profile pages. (Note that this announcement is separate from Bebo’s participation in Google’s OpenSocial platform).
There is no doubt that media needs to go wherever the audience happens to be hanging out, and if it is not going to cost the media companies anything, why not sign up with Bebo? As for Bebo, maybe the free vids will help keep its growth from slowing down. Or it may not. The video push was not enough to keep at least one key Bebo executive, who left the company this past weekend.
If you look at Bebo’s traffic, as of September (the last month for which worldwide figures are available), comScore showed it leveling off at about 20 million visitors a month. (Bebo claims 40 million members). Here is the Compete chart for U.S. traffic, which also shows a dip.
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Combating Piracy: Earth To Big TV
Big TV is close to clueless when it comes to combating piracy. There has been some steps in the right direction. Hulu looks like it might actually end up with some limited appeal, and CBS and ABC are heading in the right direction with their respective online offerings (HD shut down aside). However big TV still really doesn’t get it: BitTorrent continues to thrive like it never has before, dishing up the latest and greatest of American television to an ever increasing audience. Here’s a few tips the American television networks need to absorb
1: It’s all about choice
NBC and Fox, Hulu may have opened with reasonable reviews but it’s still a train wreck when it comes to combating piracy. Where do we start? No downloads for one. People want to take their media with them, and be able to play it on devices such as the iPod. Apple may not have been paying you what you wanted NBC, but its a lot more than the hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of folks downloading your shows off BitTorrent are paying you, some of who were previously paying iTunes customers. Big TV needs to provide their shows in a variety of formats to suit as many people as possible..which really isn’t that hard.
2. Imposed geographic restrictions no longer work
If Hulu is in part about combating privacy by providing a legal, ad supported alternative, why does it block anyone from outside of the United States (and possibly Canada) from playing the content? It’s all about international distribution deals, the crappy deals that mean that viewers in Europe and Australasia can sometimes wait 2-3 years to view content broadcast in the United States. This delay is the reason 59% of the French watch television on their computers. You want to dramatically reduce piracy? Then open up your content to the world. The international content partners will not be happy with this, but pay them a cut of the advertising, in the same way Fox is already doing with affiliate stations within the United States. Like NBC and iTunes, the opportunity cost of not providing this service is zero revenue in an international context with direct views, and declining revenue over the longer term as non-American audiences watch less and less American television via FTA or cable. Take what you can and provide a legal alternative to your international viewers. People are willing to deal with advertising for a legal alternative when the legal alternative is available and it is easy to access..particularly when it’s easier than illegal alternatives.
3. Always On, Always Available
New episodes on Hulu will be available to view for 5 weeks, and not a day more. WTF? What if a consumer hears positive word of mouth 6 weeks after a series has started and wants to watch from the beginning. In NBC’s case no iTunes, no Hulu but yes, it will be on BitTorrent. Memo to big TV: let your consumers decide how long TV shows should be available as opposed to imposing arbitrary restrictions. You’re selling advertising based on views, what difference does it make if the show is available for 6 months instead of 6 weeks, aside from your DVD DRM infested show season sales…which is really what this is about.
4. Stop treating your audience as if it were stupid
Your audience is increasingly turning to alternatives because of your restrictive practices, and because of the quality of what you are producing. What’s the latest shows in development: Law & Order Special Parking Infringement Unit and CSI: Timbuktu? People are downloading more and more international content because of the complete garbage you now make. If you seriously want to win the hearts and minds of the switched on generation, you need to follow the first three points above, then start producing some decent content as well.
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Hulu: Premium Content Only
NBC Universal and News Corp.'s joint-venture video site begins testing, but not as a user-generated-content rival to YouTube