Herb Scannell is resigning as CEO of broadband video company, Next
New Networks (note: the latter describes itself as "a new kind of media
company, creating micro-television networks over the Internet for
targeted communities, bringing together elements of TV programming
and Internet philosophy to allow viewers to contribute, share and
distribute content"). He will, however, retain his role as executive
chairman of the company, which has raised around $23 million in
venture capital to date. "Thus far, we've been videocentric, built our
network model, and got distribution and advertising up and running,"
Scannell wrote in a posting on his blog. "Now, I want to see us go
beyond video by building up our Web capabilities in key categories,
and move the company to make our sites and new offerings even more
robust for communities to gather and interact." Scannell, who
co-founded the company, was previously president of children's
programmer, Nickelodeon.
In other Next New Networks news: The company, which recently
signed new distribution deals with Hulu, Metacafe, Yahoo!, and
Vidshadow, has launched a cartoon series, entitled "Nite Fite," that is
exclusively sponsored by Mars's Starburst candy brand. The series,
which heavily features the brand in its content, marks Next New
Networks' entry into advertainment, a revenue model that the company
had long eschewed.
Comments
Thanks for the post -- I'm one of the founders of Next New Networks, and Tracy knows I'm a longtime reader and friend of ITVT.
Just want to correct something here that's not accurate -- we've never eschewed intergrating advertising into our entertainment, and there are dozens of examples of sponsor integrations in our programming over the past eighteen months, from the very beginning, with sponsors like Lionsgate, Janome, Sony Pictures, Paramount, and Royal Purple worked into our networks like Indy Mogul, ThreadBanger, and Fast Lane Daily.
What we do hold as a core value is that sponsorships need to be transparent (in other words, obvious and disclosed, not hidden as product placement) and relevant to the audience in order to be effective, and the Nite Fite series -- which I wouldn't lump with "advertainment," because we developed, own and produce the content, not the advertiser, and it runs on our network -- is a great example of how to have fun with a sponsor mention, and the audience has responded extremely well. I'm extremely happy with Mars and their agency Digitas for doing something so innovative in the space while supporting a new series from great new creators who represent the next generation of animation talent like Dan Meth and Mark Vitelli. It's exactly the kind of project we hoped to do when we started the company.