PROGRAMMING
Amazon Video announced the three new series that will make up its fall Pilot Season. Sea Oak, a dark comedy series based on a short story by George Saunders, focuses on a woman (played by Glenn Close) who returns from the dead after perishing during a home invasion. (Side note – the story is amazing, go read it.) There’s also Love You More from showrunner Michael Patrick King, which centers on a counselor for young adults with Down Syndrome (played by Bridget Everett). And comedy series The Climb, from creator Diarra Filpatrick, will focus on a Detroit office assistant who looks for fame on the internet. All three pilots run for half-an-hour. As usual, Amazon will consider viewer response before deciding on whether to pick up full season orders. The episodes debut for Prime subscribers on November 10.
ADVERTISING
MediaRadar, an advertising intelligence company for media ad sales teams, announced a new platform. The company will now support business development within media-buying and advertising agencies. In the past, the company had traditionally worked with media companies and ad-tech businesses.
Mobile programmatic ad tech company S4M has partnered with the measurement specialist Integral Ad Science. Under the new pact, FUSIO – S4M’s programmatic platform – will now be integrated with viewability measurement by IAS. Users will have access to IAS’s viewability measurements through the FUSIO campaign dashboard.
APPS + PLATFORMS
As part of a new update to its iOS app, Snapchat will now let users share links from other apps. Users will be able to send those links to others in private messages to one person or multiple people. (It’s entirely possible that the new update could turn Snapchat into a big source referral traffic for ecommerce and news sites. That’s the goal, anyway.) In addition, the app will let people hide in “Ghost Mode” – i.e., turn off live location sharing – for a designated period of 3 or 24 hours. Previously, users had to simply leave location sharing on or off. Finally, the app update makes it easier to watch user Stories. Users can now view other people’s stories by simply tapping and holding a user’s name anywhere in the app.
ESPORTS
Cloud9 just raised $25 million in Series A funding. The eSports player management company, which is based in Los Angeles, had already raised $3 million in seed funding earlier in 2017. Investors in the new round include WWE, CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz, the Beverly Hills Sports Council, and a number of others. Cloud 9 manages players and teams for eSports titles such as League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Overwatch. The company has also owned the London franchise for Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch League since earlier this year.
MEASURING UP…
SHAREABLEE SOCIAL TV RATINGS: Top U.S. Streaming Shows Overall by Engagement for the week of October 16-22, 2017
Program, Total Actions (000), Total Content, Actions per Post (000), Fans/Followers (000)
The ListenFirst Television Interest (TVI) Rating (TM) is a standardized measurement of the most buzzed-about TV programs on linear TV and streaming services. A complement to ListenFirst's other syndicated data products (such as the ListenFirst Digital Audience Rating - TV), the metrics included in the rating capture organic actions that are largely unaffected by paid media. Programs that surface on the TVI leaderboards are the most hashtagged on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, as well as most searched for on Wikipedia (used as a proxy for organic search volume).
All Series (10/16/17 - 10/22/17)
Source: ListenFirst. The TVI Rating aggregates metrics that measure organically generated activity by fans of the TV show. The metric includes total volume of official hashtag mentions on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, along with Wikipedia page views (as a proxy for organic search volume) for a show as a percentage of the total volume of the same activities for all shows.
OpenSlate Engagement Data for the Pets & Animals vertical, based on the engagement metric for the week ending October 22
TRIVIA
There’s a good chance you’ve heard of The Duffer Brothers, the creators of Netflix’s Stranger Things. But what are their first names? (Email trivia@cynopsis.com with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and state.)
Our Last Trivia Question: Who plays Dylan Maxwell, the teenager accused of vandalism, in the recently released Netflix mockumentary American Vandal? (Hint: He’s the creator and star of the LifeAccordingToJimmy YouTube channel.) Answer: Jimmy Tatro. Kudos to Andrew Bellamy-Producers Guild of America/NY, Andy Pittman-TAMU/TX, Lorrie Shilling/CA, Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/CA, Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/CA, Barry Blitch-Investigation Discovery/Discovery Communications/NY, and David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/CA