“Those misfits and nerds…will inherit the world.”
By Fred.
The advertising business has been increasingly taking notice of Next New Networks. Logical, since our networks have kept launching, kept growing, and gathering up more loyal viewers every day. The latest is Mediaweek, the media buyer’s bible, and Mike Shields’ astute profile of our partner Herb Scannell, and his leadership of our motley crew of nerds and misfits building a media company.
Check it out. How can you resist any article that begins, “To build a proper chain saw arm, start drinking a lot of OJ”?
Viacom Vet Herb Scannell: Act 2.0
By Mike Shields
APRIL 14, 2008
To build a proper chain saw arm, start drinking a lot of OJ.
You see, if you’re an aspiring movie director looking to recreate the chain saw arm wielded by the lead character in 1980s cult classic Evil Dead II, you’ll need one of those oversized plastic OJ containers to form the prop’s base. However, if your ambitions lie in sci-fi rather than horror, you’ll need several slightly more hard-to-find items to assemble a passable Death Ray, including a leaf-blower nozzle, a children’s toy wagon and a Betty Crocker Easy Organizer box.
Death rays, chain saw arms and a much-abused crash-test dummy wearing a Sundance Film Festival badge around its neck are among the many items lying around Erik Beck’s “office” on this particular Friday. Beck is the host of Backyard fx, a Web series on the channel Indy Mogul, aimed at amateur/independent filmmakers looking to churn out realistic-looking props, costumes and special effects on the cheap. Indy Mogul is one of 16 Web-based “micro-networks” launched (or, in a few cases, acquired) by Next New Networks, a 15-month-old startup that wants to define how video works as a business online.
“We want to be the next wave of media company,” says co-founder and CEO Herb Scannell. That’s a quote that could easily be dismissed as typical dot-com hubris were it not uttered by Scannell, a cable luminary who spent 18 years at Viacom, last serving as vice chairman of MTV Networks and president of Nickelodeon. Based on his previous experience, Scannell knows exactly what he wants Next New to be, and what he doesn’t want it to be.
“This is not intended to be a traditional media company run by traditional media guys,” he says. “This is really embracing what the Web does best. We are looking for a certain Web aesthetic.”
That means costs are kept low, but everything is original. While Indy Mogul’s three regular series—Backyard fx, Q&Erik and 4 Min Film School—are well above school-project production values, they aren’t exactly network-TV slick either.
Take Fast Lane Daily, the five-days-a-week show aimed at car lovers. Sometimes host Derek DeAngelis speaks passionately about issues like the design and power of the Jaguar XF. Yet the host, clad in jeans and a faded T-shirt, recently opened the show wearing a blonde wig and claimed to be Olympic skating great Oksana Baiul (it’s a long story).
Meanwhile, The Stack, a twice-weekly series from the comic book fan-targeted network PulpSecret, features three veterans of the sketch comedy/improv world, expounding on the latest issues of Spiderman, Wonder Woman and the like.
Beyond keeping things light and on a budget, all Next New series are interactive by design. Or, as Scannell puts it, “The audience is part of the writing team.” For example, a recent episode of The Stack concluded with excerpts of voicemails left by viewers in which they confessed about embarrassing comic-book purchases of the past (back issues of Sabrina the Teenage Witch are apparently not cool to have in your collection).
Yet, unlike many grassroots Web video ventures, Next New aims to be a grown-up media business—one than doesn’t regard traditional media principles with the disdain Web startup types reserve for older colleagues who don’t know what RSS means.
While Next New’s management team includes several entrepreneurs born of the Web—including digital media veteran Tim Shey, formerly a producer for the popular video blog Rocketboom, and Ben Relles, who launched BarelyPolitical.com and the whole Obama Girl phenomenon—there are more than a few former TV execs floating around the company’s offices on Park Avenue South in Manhattan. One of those is co-founder Fred Seibert, who created several of Nickelodeon’s recent hits, including The Fairly Oddparents.
“Our hope is to break some new models using fundamentals we learned in previous lives,” says Next New COO Jed Simmons, himself a former TV exec who once ran the Sundance Channel.
The media-buying community has developed some early admiration for Next New’s ambitions, even if buyers are still figuring out where it might fit on a flowchart.
“What’s cool and interesting about those guys is that they are a hybrid of a new and traditional media company,” observes Jennifer Gavin, director of digital strategy at Bartle Bogle Hegarty. “This is the first time that anyone is really doing that.” To Simmons, that hybrid concept means embracing modern digital tactics like wide-open distribution while maintaining predictable scheduling and TV-esque branding and packaging.
Scannell agrees that there are plenty of best practices to be stolen from the TV biz, but he believes Next New has several major advantages over traditional media companies when it comes to conquering the Web: flexibility, nimbleness and the ability to uncover “a new generation of creative people.”
“I’m not an Internet guy and I’m learning a lot,” says Next New’s supervising producer Alan Kaufman, another Viacom refugee. As the office tour continues, Kaufman enthusiastically shows off the company’s 10th floor recording studio, which he helped nudge management to build so staffers could produce video whenever they wanted. “It’s our space,” he says, smiling as he opens a door to a cluttered room housing cameras, lights, a green screen and lots of wiring. At Next New Networks, if someone has a good idea, he pretty much goes and shoots it. “You can take the keys whenever you want. It’s the free-est feeling,” Kaufman says, on the verge of a gush.
For example, when controversy raged over Sen. Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks about an alleged close call under sniper fire, associate producer Justin Johnson had an idea. Five hours later, he’d shot and posted a doctored clip of the former first lady’s Bosnia visit on BarelyPolitical.com, replete with fake explosions and a bogus, British-accented narration. That’s worlds away from TV production, where, Kaufman notes, “I’d have to worry about hair and makeup. I’d have to feed people. Even the simplest things cost several thousand dollars.”
Scannell says Next New’s cost-conscious ways allow the company to try ideas for new series or networks—and if one of those ideas bombs, it’s not the end of the world. For example, after seeing the growing number of wedding-related videos all over YouTube, the company launched the nuptials-themed Bride-o-rama network. But the short-term nature of wedding planning didn’t translate to a consistent audience, so the company killed it and moved on. “It just didn’t have much traction,” Scannell says.
Among the many shows Kaufman works on is Fast Lane Daily. His team starts shooting each morning at around 9:30. Usually by noon, the show is posted to the Web—and the audience usually chimes in right away. “The instant feedback is amazing, and the better you do [views-wise], the better you want to do.”
That instant feedback, and the overnight ratings-like info, is a result of Next New’s “super distribution” strategy. Scannell says that even before the media industry got religion about spreading its content across the Web rather than focusing on driving traffic to one’s own site, Next New was in the process of inking a flurry of distribution deals with the Web’s major video players, including YouTube, MySpace, AOL, Joost, iTunes and even TiVo.
So, while most Next New sites don’t even show up in Nielsen Online’s tracking figures and none of its shows reach The Evolution of Dance-type viewership levels (with the exception of Obama Girl), they can amass views from a bunch of sites, each of which encourage loyal fans to become subscribers. For example, an episode of FLD might generate 100 views on AOL, 5,000 or so on MySpace and 100,000 on YouTube.
As its audiences become more predictable, that will surely help Next New become an advertising player. But for now, ads are hard to find on most of its series. The company has been backed by roughly $23 million in venture funding to date, and executives acknowledge they are still figuring out long-term monetization. “We’re creating an audience that’s not huge but deep,” says Simmons. “These audiences will be very valuable to sponsors. There is a huge burden on us how we present advertising.” Branded integration is perfect for some series, but as the company starts generating 100 million views in a year, “the question is,” he says, “how do you scale all that [for brands]?”
Yet Simmons is confident some innovator will come along with a product that streamlines and standardizes online video advertising for the industry. He points to Next New’s experience with its syndication model. “One thing we thought was going to break us was the actual physical requirements of delivering our episodes to syndicators,” he recalls. Then along came Tube Mogul, a company that automates the process. “Monetization will come along,” he adds.
To date, FLD has landed the motor oil Royal Purple as its official sponsor, and DHL ads have been spotted on BarelyPolitical. But so far, Indy Mogul, given its movie-fan audience, is the clear standout, having landed commitments from Sony Pictures and Paramount. “It’s a great vehicle for brand integration,” says Scannell. In fact, last year the network showed fans how to recreate the barber chair from the Johnny Depp musical Sweeney Todd, and also streamed the movie’s trailer.
Just a few weeks back, Beck was enthusiastically showing off his team’s latest integration concoction for the Vegas-set, beat-the-house thriller 21. Beck’s voiceover sets the scene: “Welcome to the world of underground illegal board games.” Soon a group of kids is seen playing behind-closed-doors games of classics like Connect Four and Hungry Hungry Hippos. Money changes hands, and a threat of violence hangs in the air above Operation. It’s funny, potentially viral, and definitely nails the Web aesthetic Next New strives, somehow, to capture as a business.
Plus, it’s likely to be right up Indy Mogul fans’ alley. “One thing I’ve learned is how big this community is,” observes Beck. “It used to be a group of misfits and nerds.” For Scannell and company, those misfits and nerds, hopefully, will inherit the world.
