Death and Rebirth:The Clinton Era; The TV Upfront; The Web's Legal Limbo; Opening Up Social Nets - MediaBizBuzz for May 12

If you're not moving, you're standing still. Whether it's the Big Mo of politics, the urgency for innovation in business, dynamism is a differentiator. Not that restraint doesn't also have its place: Microsoft's long walk away from its Yahoo! tender; Rupert Murdoch passing over Newsday, unwilling to top Cablevision's offer. In the Democratic primary, after Clinton's stunning rout in North Carolina (and near draw in Indiana) Obama became his party's presumptive nominee. For the first time in the race, Obama surpassed Clinton in superdelegates, but they didn't run for the exits. The mantra from party elders -- showing greater deference than the media -- became, "She has time." But as others have observed, the clock is ticking. Even as technology has forced the hand of television, the recording industry, and Hollywood, implementing change, much less stepping aside, is fraught. The RIAA is a textbook case in inertia. While labels like Warner Music are moving into the light, the trade organization is still living in 1999, flailing its arms as if Napster were new to the scene. And to an extent, it's been aided and abetted: Somehow the 110th Session has morphed from the "Do Nothing" Congress to The Nanny State. Note to the judicial branch: When lawsuits become a primary source of revenue, that's a sign that business models are broken. What's a mogul to do? As an Obamanaic might say, "Be the change."

Upfront and Center:
Despite the Bureau of Advertising's finding that adults continue to spend more than half of their media hours with TV, there's no denying broadcast viewer erosion. Hell, even TV Guide's on the block. Viewing might even be up 2%, but that hardly reassures Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen, who predicts that the overall market for prime time broadcast TV will be down at least 2% and as much as 14%. Not that we'll see a commensurate uptick in online; Tim Hanlon, EVP of Publicis' Denuo Group tells Silicon Alley Insider that "The reality is that people buying media are at least a generation or so removed from the way in which people are truly consuming video and media." Yahoo! didn't get that memo; it hopes to sell up to 50% of its online ad inventory in conjunction with Upfronts, a 30% increase over last year. And, somehow, Spot Runner, (which aids marketers in buying TV ad spots on local cable and broadcast) has raised another $51M in funds, implicitly validating its model and allowing it to go global. The paint is hardly dry and the Wall Street Journal wonders if online sales teams will soon go the way of the Dodo. So barely recognizable is the landscape that approaches to the Upfronts themselves are diverging. Our Ed Martin writes about MTVN and how, in their case, content took a back seat to marketing messages. He isn't alone, both AdAge and MultiChannel Newsremarked on the participation of Dove, Pepsi, and LG, as much as Jon Stewart and Justin Timberlake. NBC's Zucker, between full court press for Financial Times and TVWeek, announced that WNBC was going hyper-local as a 24-hour news channel. The CW entered into a partnership with MRC to produce its Sunday primetime block. With anxieties running high as the February 2009 D-day for the Digital TV transition approaches, the FCC has finally committed to a September test, down in Wilmington, NC. The NAB approves, but understands that the Devil is in the Details. Boston's Backchannelmedia -- which is tracking to go live in February 2009 - just began an Interactive TV Ad trial with Hearst-Argyle ABC affiliate WCVB, partnering with Horizon Media for its TV to Internet click-through ad platform for a cross-market campaign to launch Horizon client MGM Grand at Foxwood. If this has a few of your cylinders firing, you might want to check out this Q&A with VC guru Steve Jurvetson: The Constant Search for Disruption. With the IAB's release of Digital Video standards last week, it's timely to discuss online video's explosive growth. (PDF of guidelines HERE.) Quarterlife be damned, an 8-minute nature documentary, Battle at Kruger, garnered 30 million views on YouTube and will be developed for NatGeo. Can Wonky Win? Fora.TV -- which hopes to distribute intelligent (elite?) discourse from C-Span, thinktanks, showcasing TedTalks and the like, raised $4M in a first round. Take that, Flava Flav! Hulu exploited the Long Tail, putting up 13 episodes of Speed Racer just before the weekend feature release of the classic animated show; one episode quickly cracked the Top 20 for Hulu, in a sense, outperforming the film's mediocre box office. As an SAG strike looms - AMPTP walked away from the table last week - production of features is coming to a standstill. What's more, Warners' Peter Chernin shuttered "indie studios" Warner Independent Pictures (WIP) and Picturehouse. If folks question the rationale behind the Dolans' desire for Newsday, they are slightly less puzzled that their Cablevision has snapped up Sundance for $496M, to bookend perhaps IFC? Filmmakers themselves are divided. In last week's Think Tank, Jack Myers looked at how magazine and online publishers are reinventing their business models, not merely to survive, but to flourish. The piece examines ContextWeb's ADSDAQ Exchange, AOL's Platform A, and how New York Magazine has become a digital ad success -- doubling its year-to year ad revenues. We also profiled Daylife, a news aggregator and emerging platform for publishers, advertisers, and developers. Sadly, the risk-averse among us have been contracting in size: Hachette counter-intuitively made cuts to its online divisions of ElleGirland Premiere; Reuters Media positioned its personnel moves as a realignment; and Gannett announced buyouts among the staffs of its New Jersey papers. Equally challenged (THE object lesson for what not to do in the wake of sea changes) is the recording industry. Among the majors Warners showed signs of life: While overall its revenues were flat, on the digital front it grew 47.6%. Edgar Bronfman professed joy with Amazon, iTunes, and was looking forward to fall's MySpace Music launch. Wiredcarried a speculative discussion of flexible pricing -- under consideration at Warners. It also announced a second investment in music social network, imeem. The TorrentSpy decision - $111M in damages (to go unpaid since it's declared bankruptcy) makes an indexer or publisher culpable for copyright infringement. This will have wide repercussions: online video aggregators like Veoh are ever more vulnerable. For this reason and more, it's not surprising that Google's willing to fight Viacom over its YouTube suit all the way to the Supreme Court. While Bob Pittman's come around and told Portfolio that ultimately recorded music should be free, acting as publicity for live performances, not all of his peers are as enlightened. Said the MPAA's Fritz Attaway: "We need DRM to show our customers the limits of the license they have entered into with us." Microsoft's loser to Attaway than Pittman - it's added increased DRM to its Zune. All this while universities across America are taking issue with the RIAA's push to hamstring P2P filesharing. In time they'll come to realize that what's being created is a generation of hackers, not consumers. Turning to the legislature, the few left that aren't running for the presidency, H.R. 5994, the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act, hopes to write Net Neutrality into law by amending the Clayton Act, which would ban discriminatory network management practices. H.R. 4279, the studio-sponsored "Pro-IP" law (which many consider Anti-IP) added new penalties for piracy, going so far as to create a Piracy Czar.

Microsoft In Rear View Mirror; All Eyes Turn to Facebook
As the Yahoo! mis-deal retreats into the middle distance, it's Facebook (called a "free radical" by some) that's absorbing the scrutiny. Speculation began last week in whether or not MSFT paid too much for its stake in the social network. When it was learned that Facebook turned to venture lender Triple Point Capital for $100M, the rebukes were swift. By the week's end, Facebook became second -- after MySpace and before Google -- to announce that it was unwalling itself and offering data portability. In english: users will be able to pull profile information from social networks into third party websites. It's genuinely exciting that these walls are coming down - expect Yahoo's Open Strategy to embrace the cause down the line. Why the race? First mover effect might signal one player's control over user data. In other social networking news, VentureBeat believes that Allen & Co is shopping around LinkedIn, posturing a $1B valuation. And Brightkite, a location-based social network, is the flavor du jour.

Mobileand Gaming: Full Steam Ahead
A new WiMax consortium merging Clearwire and the broadband wireless piece of SprintNextel was unveiled. Bold-face investors included Google, Intel, Comcast, and TimeWarner. Our Shelly Palmer weighs the challenges against the opportunities. PaidContent's MocoNews.net leverages its expertise to handicap the effort; TechCrunch thinks its an unmitigated disaster, a $500M money pit for Google. Talk of a merge between Helio and Virgin Mobile MVNOs makes sense to Silicon Alley Insider. For at least half the day Sunday, iPhones were unavailable at the online Apple Store. Anything you want to tell us, Mr. Jobs? Buoyed by the $500M first week take by Grand Theft Auto IV, the gaming industry is ready for its close up. Silicon Alley Insider reports that the annual revenue for gaming subscriptions in the US alone is $1B. Timing, then, might be a factor in RealNetworks' strategy to spin off its game division. Casual gaming has also come of age - witness the release of a "Boom Blox" by game designer... Steven Spielberg. Both the Washington Post and USA Todaygive it a thumbs up.

Political Animals:
As we head into Tuesday's primary in West Virginia, it will be fascinating to see how Hillary Clinton's win is received. Last week the New York Times came thisclose to rescinding its endorsement and Saturday Night Live -- whom Clinton has publicly thanked for carrying her message of unfair media bias-- took her apart - having her (AKA Amy Poehler) freely admit to being a sore loser with racist supporters who will do anything to win. Some trifecta! Setting aside the satire for the straightforward, Dipity has a cool mashup, called TimeTube. Enter a search term - in this case HRC - and see the videos plotted and captioned according to a timeline. Let me leave you on an inspiring note: The valedictorian of Morehouse College is unique not merely because he's the historically black college's first white student to hold the honor, but because of his desire to spurn the Ivy Leaguein search of uncharted experience. As we navigate the unknown, it's a lesson for us all.