In line with its ongoing strategy of bringing innovation to television on a regular basis, France Télévisions and its New Writing team launched an unprecedented interactive experience in April 2013. Viewers were able to take part in a live investigation during the broadcast of an episode of the Les petits meurtres d’Agathe Christie (“Little Murders by Agatha Christie”) drama series as...
What is the essence of ideaBOOST
As they present themselves, ideaBOOST is a business accelerator with a difference. It targets start-ups who want to launch projects that produce either digital content or technology for the entertainment industry. Applying projects can be early-stage, mid-stage or even late-stage.
What sets ideaBOOST apart from the crowd of accelerators is that, on top of other selection criteria, projects...
The “Advertising is dead. Long live branded content!” post addressed a topic that covers a number of discussion-worthy issues, especially considering that the relationship between audiovisual content and brands, which started developing almost 100 years ago, is as strong and complex as ever.
The Procter & Gamble brand is a perfect example of this relationship. After inventing the concept of brand management...
For a little over 10 years now, the video game universe has been the battleground for a merciless war between two powerhouses, Microsoft and Sony, with Nintendo looking on from a safe distance. Last week the two gaming platform giants unveiled the latest generation of their consoles: the Xbox One (Microsoft) and the PS4 (Sony). Beyond the technical specs that...
Not too long ago, we were all working in a “audiovisual landscape.” But today, we’re evolving in a “media ecosystem.”
And it’s a concept that’s far from being a fad. The image conveyed by this term seems to be tailor-made to the situation our industry currently finds itself in. As Wikipedia informs us, an ecosystem is a natural system that tends to...
Have you heard about Aereo yet? It’s a US company that manufactures tiny antennas and apps, and it’s ruffling a lot of feathers over at the major US networks even though it’s only been offering its services in New York City for a year now, and in Boston for just a matter of days.
The principle behind Aereo is quite simple. Instead...
Authors Peter H. Miller and Randal Rudniski introduced the “Market Impact and Indicators of Over the Top Television in Canada: 2012” report they wrote for the CRTC in March 2012 with the following observation:
“Barely a day – and certainly not a week – goes by without an announcement or pronouncement on something to do with competitive online or ‘over the top’ television...
Last November’s first free-to-air broadcast of hit TV series “The Walking Dead” in France gave the Darewin ad agency and French digital cable (TNT) network channel NT1 the perfect opportunity to successfully combine two of today’s hottest trends: zombies and social TV.
Though television has always been a “social” medium by nature, sparking discussions about content around the water cooler or on the bus...
This post is the follow-up of the analysis initiated in Netflix: more than a House of Cards, published on February 15, 2013.
A couple of weeks ago, Netflix published its 1st quarter results for 2013, without disclosing stats on its subscriber viewing habits – in keeping with its usual practice.
These results, which exceeded forecasts, confirmed that original programming online has a more-than-attractive...
The lucrative free-to-play (F2P) market is clearly tempting. But there’s more than F2P, as two Canadians pointed out at the recent (March 2013) Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Each had a perspective on creating games that people actually want to pay for. Both focused on the growing trend towards “premium” and “paymium” strategies. In the first, you pay up front...
Organizers of the latest MIPTV event invited YouTube to present the new channels it has recently launched around the world. They took the opportunity to explain the group’s strategy when it comes to content creation.
An overview of successful channels supported by YouTube
“Our Original Online Content Screenings (presented by YouTube) are intended to show the television industry there’s a lot of creative and innovative energy going...
This campaign set a precedent for how independent games can finance their projects without engaging publishers.
Type of production/project: Digital Media (game)
Funding Target: $400,000 (USD)
Funds Raised: $3.3 Million (USD)
The company: Double Fine
Based in San Francisco, and founded in 2000 by industry veteran Tim Shafer, Double Fine is an award-winning independent games development company with a strong track...
In 2011, Toronto-based Golden Nugget Productions was a relatively new company without an established reputation among major broadcasters. Crowdfunding proved to be a great way to fund a first project.
Type of production/project: Documentary (Film/TV)
Funding Target: $50,000 (USD)
Funds Raised: $56,525 (USD)
The company: Golden Nugget Productions
It is difficult for new entrants to fund their documentaries using the conventional method of financing through...
Type of production/project: Digital Media hardware (Watch)
Funding Target: $100,000 (USD)
Funds Raised: $10,266,845 (USD)
The Company: Pebble Technology
Eric Migicovsky first came up with the idea for the Pebble Watch when he was still a student at the University of Waterloo. After graduating in 2009, he and a team developed the first iteration of the smart watch called InPulse, which was only compatible...
This campaign for a documentary film used a hybrid investment-donation-lending model.
Type of production/project: Documentary
Total Funds Raised: £730,000
The Company: Spanner Films
Fanny Armstrong and UK-based Spanner films decided to crowdfund The Age of Stupid so that the film could remain completely independent and they could retain 100% of the creative decision-making on the film. It was important for Armstrong...
