Media

Online Indian Media business Rediff.com has reported its 19th straight quarter of losses, despite India Advertising revenues increasing 9% quarter on quarter to $2.33 million, a third consecutive quarter of increase. The increase was attributed largely to an increase in spends by clients in the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance industries (BFSI) segment – which is normal in Q4 because the insurance sector increases advertises to target Indian taxpayers who buy insurance to reduce tax at the end of the fiscal year; Telecom, Education, Tourism and Real Estate sectors apparently increased spends as well, but “The auto industry have not been visible at all in the last six months,” Ajit Balakrishnan, Chairman and CEO of Rediff told MediaNama. Rediff had 207 advertisers, he said, adding that advertising rates have been stable during the quarter. Advertising levels, though “are still lower than pre-recession days.” Ecommerce Rediff reported net ecommerce revenues (i.e. not value of goods sold) of $0.6 million for the quarter, up 19% quarter on quarter, and 105% year on year. The year on year growth in net revenues the previous quarter was 95%. Some back of the envelope calculations that we did: - Gross revenues should have been $5 million for Q4-FY13 (since gross margin = net revenue/gross revenue). - Net revenue for Q3-FY13 should have been $0.5 million. - Net revenue for Q4-FY12 should have been $0.29 million. - Net revenue for Q3-FY12 should have been $0.26 million. Other notes related to E-Commerce - Merchants: The total number of merchants in our online marketplace increased from 620 to 701 over the past two quarters - SKU range has increased from 172,000 to 184,000 to 213,000 over the same period which indicates a 24% increase in our vendor base and 13% growth in SKUs in the past six months. - “During 2011, there was irrational exhuberance in the Indian ecommerce market. People were selling consistently below cost, and giving away deliveries for free, apart from massive returns. I’ve hear return figures of 30-40%. It took a great amount of self discipline to make sure we didn’t enter into that game. We kept a positive margin, obviously clearly lost marketshare during that period, but our returns were in the 2-3% region right through this period. We have positive margins – 12 percent gross margins on a weighted average basis across all that we do. It took a great amount of courage not to lose out heads. It makes us look like a dull company. Many people told us – you guys were the pioneers of ecommerce in India, why are you not outspending the others. I think it’s important to maintain the discipline in business.” - “What everybody calls ecommerce, in my head it is not ecommerce. Most people view this as ecommerce. Ecommerce are the people who stock and sell. Some years ago, people asked Meg Whitman, when she was CEO of eBay, and Meg’s answer was we’re a media company, and everyone was astonished. Similarly, our ecommerce execution, people call it a marketplace. But if you’re a small merchant anywhere in India, we’re a platform where you can pay us money and sell your goods. We view this as part of the classifieds and advertising business.” Financials - Overall revenues (which include India Online and US Publishing) were $4.18 million for the quarter, down 10% from $4.64 million reported the corresponding quarter last fiscal year, ended March 31, 2012. - India Online revenues (including advertising) declined 5% to $3.54 million from $3.73 million in Q4 last year. For the full year FY13, Rediff reported India Online revenues of $12.53 million, down 22.45% from $16.22 million in FY12. - Diversification: Rediff says it is trying to diversify its revenue streams and lessen its dependence on advertising, which has led to an improvement in its India Online business. - Cost Control: Rediff has controlled costs, resulting i

BOSTON – Sutter Health, a giant not-for-profit, Northern California-based network of doctors and hospitals, is using video  to communicate with the members and prospects about a range of health related topics from coverage to medical care and wellness.   With the Affordable  Care Act becoming law next year, Sutter and other healthcare providers are upping the amount of video to educate the newly insured and to help others navigate the new regulations. “When somebody goes to choose their provider, they can watch a minute, minute and a half video, hear the voice, see the face, get an idea of what the bedside manner of that physician might be in the hopes that that motivates them, brings them closer to their care provider, know that they really have a partner in their healthcare,” Hudson says. The result is a much more emotional connection between community members and health professionals, he says. The majority of the content is in the form of  two- to three-minute videos, constituting a library of around 2,500 videos. Beet.TV spoke with Hudson earlier this month at the Brightcove global customer conference in Boston.

Ustream, the widely popular live Web streaming site, has been quietly moving into a full-services, video solution provider for small customers and  big enterprises and media companies  says David Gibbons, VP for Product Marketing, in this interview with Beet.TV Some customers for the Ustream video platform include Cisco, Dell and Sony, says Gibbons. We spoke to him about the evolution at Ustream at the Streaming Media East conference in Manhattan.

YuMe is gearing up to introduce an audience-targeting tool in the second half of the year to help brands reach specific segments of viewers across screens, says Ed Haslam, senior VP of marketing at online video technology platform YuMe, in an interview with Beet.TV. ”We will create segements, reveal them to advertisers and take input from advertisers to see who they are trying to reach,” he says. “It’s a way for brand advertisers to find their audiences across screens.” Combining first-party and third-party data can help brands create segments of interest across online properties, based on likes and dislikes, he explains. YuMe collects data anonymously across its 147 million uniques and then matches that with first-party data from surveys of consumers. YuMe relies on tools from its recently acquired audience targeting technology company Crowd Science for this implementation of first-party data. YuMe has also studied audiences across screens in tandem with Nielsen to understand how much of a budget to move from TV to digital video, and when moving budget is no longer efficient. “We have TV profiles of viewership to find industry norms [and] based on this type of schedule we can recommend you shift this much of budget to help agencies plan fused TV and digital campaigns, ” he says. For more insight into how to plan TV and video together as well as brand safety, check out this video interview.

The product, rather than the model’s body, may be the focus of new campaigns. Or not.

A new campaign suggests that Mike’s Hard Lemonade is a versatile drink for occasions beyond the backyard barbecue.

Hacking in China is openly discussed and promoted, whether for breaking into private networks, tracking dissent or stealing trade secrets.

Launched in the first quarter of 2013, AudienceXpress, an automated sales platform for selling TV audience impressions, allows advertisers to focus on particular target audiences – but automates the process. We spoke with Walt Horstman, general manager of AudienceXpress, in our New York studio. Using the best practices of digital audience buying, the New York-based company incorporates audience data to provide advertisers with an audience-based, targeted approach that complements their traditional contextual-based buying. “If you’re interested as a marketer in young men who are active video game players, we can post out on a daily basis how many impressions are being delivered in your campaign that have reach young men who are active video game participants,” Horstman says. Already, AudienceXpress has delivered over 1 billion audience-based impressions and have launched 15 to 20 campaigns with national brand advertisers.  The company is a unit of Visible World.

A week after presenting its 2013-14 prime-time schedule at Carnegie Hall, CBS on Wednesday announced it has picked up another new series. The network has scooped up Sony Pictures Television’s Bad Teacher, a single-camera comedy based on the Cameron Diaz film of the same name. (Released in July 2011, the movie grossed $100.3 million stateside.) All told, it’s been one hell of a development season for Sony TV, which is producing eight new broadcast series. Other Sony newbies are: The Michael J. Fox Show, Welcome to the Family, Night Shift (originally titled After Hours) and The Blacklist (NBC); Rake and Us and Them (Fox); and ABC’s The Goldbergs. Actress Ari Graynor (Mystic River, Fringe) will portray the character originated by Diaz. Other cast members include Kristin Davis (Sex and the City), David Alan Grier (In Living Color) and Sara Gilbert (Roseanne). Bad Teacher joins a CBS freshman class that is particularly heavy on comedy. We Are Men breaks into the Monday night comedy lineup at 8:30 p.m., where it will lead out of How I Met Your Mother. At 9:30 p.m., Chuck Lorre’s Mom inherits the plum post-2 Broke Girls slot from Mike & Molly, which will return in mid-season. After years of speculation, CBS has finally beefed up its Thursday night comedy lineup, adding two half-hour series with big stars attached. The Millers (8:30 p.m.) stars Will Arnett, Beau Bridges and Margo Martindale, and The Crazy Ones is a vehicle for Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Crazy marks Williams’ return to series television for the first time since Mork signed off to Orson for the last time in 1982. CBS’ comedy investment is its most ambitious in recent memory. Last season, the network ordered just two sitcoms, Partners and Friend Me. The former was canceled after just six episodes, while the latter never made it to air. Bad Teacher is the second new comedy based on a theatrical. NBC’s midseason entry About a Boy will lead out of The Voice in the Tuesday 9 p.m. slot.

Dan Bartlett, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, will succeed Leslie Dach, a former Clinton White House staff member, as executive vice president for corporate affairs.