It’s hard to get excited about a new streaming service that promises to compete with Netflix. Product announcements hit the news every month promising better picture quality, bigger content libraries and lower prices. Amazon, Hulu, and Dish/Blockbuster have all launched supposed Netflix killers, but the only company that seems to be able to do real damage to Netflix is Netflix itself (Qwickster, anyone?).

Comcast announced Tuesday that they’ve entered the fray with their new streaming service, Xfinity Streampix. Like Netflix, Xfinity Streampix will stream TV and movies on TV sets and wireless-enabled devices. There’s some potential here, as media giant Comcast has already announced content partnerships with Disney, Warner Bros, and Sony. And in case you missed the last season of 30 Rock, Comcast bought NBC Universal, giving the cable company unfettered access to a huge library of highly desirable content.

But here’s the rub. To get Xfinity Streampix, you have to be a Comcast subscriber, which means you have to live in a Comcast zone and pay for cable TV through the company. If you’re a “triple play” subscriber (meaning you have internet, land-line phone (!?) and cable through Comcast), the service is free.  If you just have cable, Streampix is $5. But what if you don’t have Comcast or you don’t live in a Comcast zone?  Then you’re out of luck, because Streampix won’t be available at all to non-subscribers, and Comcast has no plans to expand the service beyond the reach of its cable footprint.

So what’s the real reason Comcast developed Streampix? It’s likely that Xfinity Streampix was actually designed as a stopgap measure, meant to deter potential cord-cutters and reward loyal customers. It’s also possible that Comcast is trying to increase demand for its cable service in regions where it competes with satellite providers like Dish and DirecTV, or phone giants AT&T and Verizon.

Ultimately, while Streampix might tempt a few satellite cable subscribers to switch to Comcast, it probably won’t convince those who’ve already cut the cord to reconsider cable, and it definitely won’t dethrone Netflix. If you’re looking for a real Netflix competitor, you’ll have to wait until later this year when Verizon and Redbox plan to debut their co-branded streaming service.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Comcast, Featured, Industry, Netflix, News by Nayla Wren
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British star Martin Freeman is the latest addition to the comedy feature adaptation of YouTube UK cult hit web series Svengali.

Production begins in London next week, Variety reports.

Svengali features real life rock stars and music biz personalities who play themselves. British stars Vicky McClure and Michael Smiley join Freeman, known for his roles as Tim Canterbury from the BBC’s The Office and Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit.

“A friend of mine told me about Svengali after about the third episode,” Freeman said. “When he’d described it I was actually annoyed that I hadn’t been asked to do it. I went home, watched the lot, and knew I was right to be annoyed. It was charming, sussed, and very funny.”

Other cast notables include Roger Evans, Alan Mcgee, Sally Phillips, Ciaran Griffith, Michelle Gomez, Sean Harris, Colin Tiernan, Jodie Whittaker, Boy George, Maggot, Bonehead, and Carl Barat.

The feature will be directed by music video director John Hardwick, who has worked with a host of major industry figures including Blur, the Arctic Monkeys, New Order, Travis, and the Manic Street Preachers.

Writer and actor Jonny Owen will again play the reading role of Svengali. He and co-writer Dean Cavanagh created the nine-episode semi-improvised web series that debuted on YouTube in 2011.

“The web has changed everything,” Owen said. “Svengali was originally an experiment to see if people wanted stories. It seems they did. To be making a movie now shows that anything is possible.”

Filed under: Articles, Comedy, Featured, Industry, News, Web Series, YouTube by Drew Baldwin
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I told you 2012 was going to be a big year for the online video industry. And if you need more evidence than I supplied in my self-aware, semi-grandiose predictions piece, here it is: AOL, Hulu, Google/YouTube, Microsoft Advertising, and Yahoo! are joining forces to create the first-large scale, digital content, two-week-long television-style upfront.

It’s called the Digital Content NewFronts, and it’s orchestrated by Digitas and the advertising agency’s branded content division Third Act, whose own NewFront has been an annual dog-and-pony informationfest for four years and running, featuring celebrity content creators pitching themselves and digital properties to Digitas clients.

Of course, Tubefilter readers already knew all this. We wrote about the event last week. But what the public didn’t know until recently was the schedule. Here it is below. Be sure to mark your calendars accordingly.

• April 19th – Hulu
• April 24th – Microsoft Advertising’s Digital Showcase
• April 24th – AOL
• April 25th – Yahoo!
• April 26th – Digitas NewFront
• May 2nd – Google/YouTube

More details and logistics are up on the official website, where additional events and programs are expected to be announced leading up to mid-April as they’re approved by the Digital Content NewFront Steering Committee.

And what’s the Digital Content NewFront Steering Committee? It’s the small body comprised of one member of each founding partner of the Digital Content NewFronts that “will determine scheduling of additional DCNF events and programming,” as well as “set the strategic evolution” of the event in years to come. The individuals on said committee include:

• AOL: Janet Balis—SVP, Head of Sales Strategy, Marketing and Partnerships, AOL
• Digitas: Mark Beeching—Chief Global Creative and Strategy Director, Digitas (+ Founder of Digitas NewFront and The Third Act)
• Google/YouTube: Suzie Reider—Global Head of Industry Development, Google/YouTube
• Hulu: Bryan Thoensen— Director of Integrated Marketing, Hulu
• IAB: Seneca Mudd — Director, Digital Video Committee, IAB
• Microsoft Advertising: Rick Song—General Manager, Eastern US, Microsoft Advertising
• Yahoo!: Mickie Rosen—Senior Vice President, Yahoo! Media Network

The above names and the companies and organizations they represent hope the fourteen-day calendar of invitation-only events will attract an audience of high-profile brands and advertisers in command of large advertising accounts. They also hope a television-style upfront for the new media industry will gain enough confidence of those brands and advertisers to make them feel comfortable with (and excited about) spending a larger portion of their budgets on or against digital programming.

If anyone’s confident about the event, it’s CEO of Digitas North American, Colin Kisella. I asked him over e-mail why he thought 2012 was the year for online video and why the Digital Content NewFronts are happening now.

Tubefilter: Why 2012? Why haven’t these industry leaders gotten together in previous years for a television-style upfront?

Colin Kisella: According to eMarketer, online ad spend in the United States is expected to grow by 23.3% to $39.5 billion in 2012. Money is flowing aggressively into the Digital space. This is not new information, but one worth reinforcing. Second, and perhaps more important, U.S. Online VIDEO AD spending grew by 52.1% in 2011. eMarketer also estimates that by 2015, video ad spending will reach $7.1 billion, up from $2.16 billion in 2011.

And for good reason.

Consumers on average spend 32 hours per month online (equivalent to almost one full work week per month), according to a Comscore study of monthly average hours spent online per U.S. visitor in 2010. Of this time spent, a quarter is spent in social media. This information is not surprising, however it does point to an aggressive trend. With more time spent online, aggressive trajectory of online video ad spend growth and time spent, punctuated by the prolific adoption of smart phones and other mobile devices, it is clear that consumers across all age groups are increasingly attracted to and value online digital content.The time to leverage this trend on an industry level platform is NOW. The Digital Content NewFronts answer this call for brands, agencies and their target consumers.

Stay tuned to Tubefilter for more news about the DCNF and find out more details about the event at DigitalContentNewFronts.com.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, Hulu, Industry, NewFronts, News, Yahoo!, YouTube by Joshua Cohen
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Zombies get a bad rap. Sure, they’re dim-witted, undead, flesh-eating, brain-fiends, but they’re also really savvy transmedia story tellers. For proof, just check out the many iterations of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead (and the series’ growing number of accolades).

While Telltale Games’ adaptation of the popular series (which Kirkman claims will be more charter-driven than its action-oriented genre predecessors) is slowly lurching toward major gaming platforms, fans eager for a peek at the title set to release sometime in mid-2012 can checkout Telltale’s behind-the-scenes web series, Playing Dead.

In the first installment of the nine-part series, actor AJ LoCascio talks to the designers, who emphasize their commitment to authenticity in the look, feel and storyline of the game. Players will lead a new group of survivors through the first days of the undead apocalypse in zombie-plagued Atlanta. Fans can expect run-ins with familiar characters, like Hershel and Glenn, and scenarios that intersect with plot points from the comic and television show.

The first episode of Playing Dead includes screen shots of the game, which pay homage to the comic’s original artwork. Fans can expect more screenshots in upcoming episodes, which will also feature in-depth interviews with comic creator Robert Kirkman and story consultant Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli).

Filed under: AMC, Articles, Companion, Featured, News by Nayla Wren
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Brian Brushwood is the spikey haired lovechild of David Blaine and Mystery (that’s not Criss Angel) who first gained notoriety in 2000 when he took his Bizarre Magic Show on a full-time college tour, wowing fratacular audiences with crowd-pleasing escapes and mind-reading tricks.

Since then, the American magician has showcased spectacles on The Tonight Show and Life Beyond Limits, authored three books (Cheats, Cons, Swindles & Tricks: 57 Ways to Scam a Free Drink, Pack the House: The Ultimate, Ever-Growing Guide to Increasing Attendance to YOUR Campus Events, and Professional’s Guide to Fire Eating) with a fourth one in the works (Scam School: Volume 1 is scheduled to debut March 14), and logged at least 205 episodes of his Revision3 original web series Scam School.

The program first debuted in April 2008 and was one of the then uber-tech-centric online video network’s first forays into the kind of show that neither Alex Albrecht nor Kevin Rose could’ve hosted. It features Brushwood frequenting bars (sometimes with fellow magicians) to wow and amaze mild-mannered passers-by with seeming unbelievable tricks, which he then teaches those mild-mannered passers-by exactly how to perform.

Nearly four years after its premiere, Scam School is still releasing installments. It’s a pretty good show, too! And Bruswhood’s career seems to be doing well! But most every successful career was struggling at some point, as was Brushwood’s before he received some much needed inspiration.

In October of 1995, Buswhood e-mailed one of his heroes for magical career advice. The next morning, Teller wrote back. Here’s an excerpt:

I should be a film editor. I’m a magician. And if I’m good, it’s because I should be a film editor.  Bach should have written opera or plays.  But instead, he worked in eighteenth-century counterpoint. That’s why his counterpoints have so much more point than other contrapuntalists.  They have passion and plot. Shakespeare, on the other hand, should have been a musician, writing counterpoint. That’s why his plays stand out from the others through their plot and music.

Bruswhood published the correspondence in 2009, but if I just discovered it (via a Teller’s Twitter), I figured you may be in need of discovering it, too. It’s a fantastic exchange, and one you can most certainly enjoy and learn from even if you’re not and/or have no desire to be a member of the Magic Castle. Check it out in its entirety at Brushwood’s blog. And, if you like it, be sure to read more letters of note here.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Revision3, Web Series by Joshua Cohen
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Today YouTube announced the launch of YouTube Next Cause, the latest edition to the Next Creator family designed for nonprofits.

As we have seen, YouTube is a great platform to grow awareness, interest, funds, volunteers, and global engagement for nonprofits—remember Project For Awesome?

YouTube Next Cause is designed to help innovative organizations better use online video to drive action, open to all nonprofit organizations in the YouTube Nonprofit Program.

After Google acquired Next New Networks last year, YouTube launched the YouTube NextUp initiative to jumpstart the next generation of YouTube stars, and then followed up with YouTube Next Chef and YouTube Next Trainer for cooking and fitness channels.

For Next Cause, YouTube us planning a one-day summit in San Francisco on April 2, 2012, where selected channels will get training in YouTube fundamentals, advanced promotional techniques, community engagement, and one-on-one consulting. Applications are due next week, and selected participants will be announced March 5.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Industry, News, YouTube by Drew Baldwin
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The 64th Annual Writers Guild of America Awards were handed out by Hollywood notables to very deserving WGA members in concurrent ceremonies on both coasts last weekend. Zooey Deschanel and Joel McHale tag teamed the Los Angeles-based kudosfest while Saturday Night Live alum Rachel Dratch hosted the East Coast version in New York City.

The emcees had help in distributing trophies reminiscent of whale tails (because a good writer knows how to spin one whale of a tale!) and entertaining the self-deprecating and boozed up crowd (at least that’s how you could describe the audience at the B.B. King House of Blues in Times Square) from household celebrities like Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Kristin Wiig, and Mandy Patinkin. Those individuals and more doled out and/or accepted honors on behalf of winners like Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris, Vince Gilligan for Breaking Bad, Henry Bromell for Homeland, and a few dozen other talented persons who are making it in the entertainment industry.

That list of a few dozen other talented persons also includes the winners of the WGA Awards’ recently added New Media categories. Heath Corson and Richie Keen won out in Outstanding Achievement in Writing Original New Media for AOL Cambio and McG’s Aim High, while John Esposito and Greg Nicotero beat the competition to take home Outstanding Achievement in Writing Derivative New Media for the AMC-produced and Machinima-distributed The Walking Dead web series.

A big congrats to this year’s winners, who join Anyone But Me and 30 Rock’s Frank vs. Lutz in the Writers Guild of America’s pantheon of New Media Honorees who possess one of the these.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Web Series, WGA Awards by Joshua Cohen
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Fred: The Movie drew 7.6 million viewers during its debut on Nickelodeon in September 2010. That was enough pairs of eyeballs to make it the top TV movie of that year with kids 2 to 11 and 6 to 11 and to encourage the powers that be at the children’s cable network to order a sequel.

Fred 2: Night of the Living Fred premiered on Nickelodeon in October 2011 and drew an audience of 5.7 million viewers. Like the original, the sophomore installment stars Lucas Cruikshank as a hyperactive, high pitched, prepubescent, Judy-crushin’, schoolboy who won’t be denied his object of affection and/or attention (which, in the original is Judy and in the sequel is vampires). And, like the original, Night of the Living Fred did so well, it inspired executives at Nickelodeon to order some more Fred.

A third Fred movie is currently in the works and those Fred fans in need a dose of the now-18-year-old Cruikshank’s alto-tenor and frenetic on-camera persona can very soon get their fix by way of a cable television series. Fred: The Show debuts tonight at 8PM EST on Nickelodeon (in honor of Fredisdent’s Day!) with back-to-back 11-minute episodes. Following the premiere, the 20-episode series will air regularly on Nickelodeon, Fridays at 8PM EST beginning February 24. Here’s a teaser:

In the past five days, the above video has racked up 870,000+ views. That’s a decent amount(!), especially considering Nicekloeon’s YouTube channel only has 6,000+ subscribers. The view count could be a great indicator of the level of online video marketing power Nickelodeon is putting behind the program and/or the kind of quality ratings we can expect from tonight’s premiere.

Of course the number of likes and dislikes on the video above also could be a great indicator of the quality of the ratings we can expect from tonight’s premiere. 25,000+ YouTube users have disliked the teaser, while only 2,300+ have given it a thumbs up.

That’s a bad ratio(!), but we all know sometimes haters just gonna hate. If the viewership numbers of the Fred television movies are any indication, the Fred franchise resonates with the kids watching Nickelodeon these days. Cruickshank’s television show should do just fine.

Filed under: Articles, Comedy, Fred, News, Nickelodeon, YouTube by Joshua Cohen
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Roughly 152 million individuals living in the United States (or almost 49% of this country’s population) watched a YouTube video in the month of January. And about one in every six of those individuals who watched a YouTube video watched one from Machinima.com.

According to the latest numbers from comScore’s monthly US Online Video Rankings, the “next generation video entertainment network for videogamers” that garners over one billion views a month worldwide, captured the attention of 23.8 million unique video viewers on its YouTube channel last month. That accounts for roughly 15.66% (or about one in every 6.38) of all of YouTube’s unique monthly video viewers. That percentage is up close to 1.2 points from December, when Machinima’s viewers accounted for somewhere in the ballpark of 14.46% of YouTube’s total.

Despite the slight uptick in YouTube share, Machinima is in a solid third place on comScore’s Top YouTube Partner Channels Ranked by Unique Video Viewers. Music videos still reign supreme in terms of viewership, with Vevo maintaining the number one position with 50.6 million unique monthly video viewers (or about one in every three YouTube viewers), followed by Warner Music with 29.7 million monthly uniques.

In advertising analytics news, US consumers watched 5.6 billion online video ads in January. That’s a post-holiday slump of roughly 1.5 billion from the 7.1 billion online video ads consumers were subject to in December. That may seem like a big dip, but the numbers are  little cause for alarm. Q4 is traditionally a huge quarter for advertising spends and if you look at the amount of online video ads viewed in Janurary 2011 compared to January 2010, the industry’s up 28% year over year.

Check out more online video-related stats and figures at comScore.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Industry, Machinima.com, News, YouTube by Joshua Cohen
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Actor Ed Begley Jr. has launched a Kickstarter campaign for his new web series On Begley Street, which documents his attempt to build the world’s greenest home.

An environmental activist since 1970, Begley and his wife Rachelle Carson-Begley are joined by friend and the shows producers Raphael Sbarge (ABC’s Once Upon a Time) and Billy Frank (Clueless, Indecent Proposal) as they attempt to build a LEED Platinum home in Los Angeles.

On Begley Street has already raised over $3,000 of the $25,000 goal which the Begleys will match dollar for dollar. “We get none of the money you might kick in,” Begley said. “It all goes to production, marketing, and promotion.”

Much of the project’s publicity stems from Begley’s own notoriety, however. “Keep an eye open as Ed and Rachelle’s high profile friends stop by for a visit and are then coerced into an afternoon of hard labor,” reads the Kickstarter page. Indeed, the campaign’s video features some familiar faces including Jeff Goldblum, Jeff Garlin, and Illeana Douglas.

Perks for large backers include an “outgoing voice mail on the cell phone of your choice” recorded by the Begley family ($250), your likeness inserted into the series ($1,000), and a speaking walk-on role in the series ($10,000).

“A webseries presents opportunities not available in any other format,” Begley said. “The format allows for a lot of experimentation and improvisation which is a lot of fun. We can continue to bring focus to issues that matter most to us and to our fans, like sustainable living and social good.”

Filed under: Articles, Comedy, Featured, Hosted, How-To, News, Reality, Web Series by Drew Baldwin
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Online video is getting a big boost.

Tubefilter is proud to announce its partnership with social media and tech powerhouse Mashable. Now part of the Mashable Publisher Platform, Tubefilter and its coverage of online video news will reach an even broader audience through Mashable’s editorially curated syndication offering on Mashable.com and Mashable’s social media accounts.

“We’re excited to bring you even more perspectives on emerging areas of technology like online video,” Adam Ostrow, Mashable’s SVP of Content and Executive Editor, wrote about the new partnership.

Mashable announced the program’s inaugural partners at Mashable Media Summit in November. Tubefilter articles will complement original reporting by Mashable’s editorial staff, and will feature a syndication publisher module that links back to Tubefilter’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.

With the new Mashable partnership (and a few others which we’ll be revealing soon, so stay tuned), we’re looking forward to advancing online video to even greater and wider audiences.

Filed under: Articles, Industry, News by Drew Baldwin
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Battleground, Hulu’s first original scripted series from executive producer Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man), is a solid addition to Hulu’s slate of original programming. Centered around the staff of a losing campaign in the 2012 Wisconsin senate race, Battleground is a political comedy that skews to the Choose or Loose demo and offers quality humor.

Instead of focusing on older, experienced West Wing-type politicians and staff, the show follows Chris “Tak” Davis (Jay Hayden), a young campaign manager currently on a 0-6 losing streak. He leads a motley campaign crew trying to win against the Makers’ campaign, the current favorites and Tak’s former boss.

While underdog political stories are nothing new, Battleground is a lighthearted series that becomes more enjoyable the more you watch it. That probably has to do with the fact the program is less The Candidate and more The Office. The inter-personal relationships between the campaign crew is what makes up most of the storyline, not the idiosyncrasies of talking points or political posturing (which, this being an election year, I’m sure we’re going to get our fill of soon). The one stand out performer is Ben Samuel, whose character grows throughout the pilot and offers subtle laughs as a former-renaissance-fair-sorcerer-turned-campaign-volunteer.

Originally developed for Fox Television in 2010, creator J.D. Walsh refused to let the show die after the network passed on the project. After Walsh financed a 20-minute pilot by way of generous and supportive family members, the series eventually found its way to Hulu. The series’ 13 half-hour episodes marks a step up in the length and quality of Hulu’s original slate.

Battleground is worth a watch, but series is not without few low ratings points. A lot of them involve the use of Bushisms in the beginning (they got old when Obama got into office) and some of the emotional scenes feel more contrived than natural. But check out the show for yourself. New episodes air every Tuesday on Hulu.com.

Filed under: Articles, Comedy, Featured, Hulu, News by Chris Landa
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