While women’s time spent with TV is on the rise over last year, attention to shows is dipping, the report said. In fact, many women are often using the computer while watching TV — sometimes even to watch videos online. Compared with a year ago, about 58 percent of women say they spend more time with the Internet and 38 percent spend more time with TV, partly because they’re home more due to the recession.

But while time spent with TV is increasing, it’s harder to get women’s attention. “What women are engaging with more is the computer,” said Donna Hall, a senior director at SRG. “In the context of the upfront and new shows being announced, you have an incredibly fickle audience to impress out of the gate, and while the TV might be on, they aren’t always paying attention.”

Only half of respondents said they usually pay full attention while watching even their favorite shows. The laptop is partly to blame. Half of women with laptops said they have them on frequently or more when watching TV, while 53 percent of women said they use a wireless device, such as a phone, which watching TV. Moms and women ages 25 to 39 are more likely to use the TV as background noise, especially when they are on the computer.

Multitasking while watching TV is not unique to women, but two-thirds of women say they don’t have enough time to get things done. As a result, this “time poverty” is usually felt more acutely by women, said Kaan Yigit, an analyst with Solutions Research Group.

When such women are on the computer, their eyes are often on TV programming. About 80 percent of the videos they watch online are also available on TV, ranging from the Susan Boyle viral video from Britain’s Got Talent to Saturday Night Live clips.

“When we go to bed at night, we know that we can access whatever happened last night somehow, somewhere,” Yigit said. “Often the first experience with a TV moment is when it’s posted on YouTube.”

About 47 percent of women 18 to 49 check Facebook or surf the web when they get up in the morning, slightly more than the 46 percent who watch TV first thing.

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Hayden Black, the creator and star of Goodnight Burbank, inked a production deal with United Kingdom-based Babelgum.com that brings the new spinoff Goodnight Burbank: Hollywood Report to the United States launch of Babelgum. The first of 20 episodes premiered the week of March 23, with new 5-minute episodes slated to roll out every week.

It’s Black’s first production deal with a distributor for a web series and he also has lined up his next deal for a new show with Dailymotion. He said he will make money on the Babelgum deal, though he declined to disclose the financial terms. Hhowever, there’s no guarantee the show will be a success on Babelgum, which faces its own challenges. The site has virtually no market share in the online video business. According to Compete, the site is averaging less than 100,000 visitors per month in the United States.

But if Black can pull in some of the audiences who have been drawn to his other shows, the spinoff might have a fighting chance. Black said Goodnight Burbank has amassed 10 million views during its two-year run. For the past three years he’s financed his shows Goodnight Burbank and Abigail’s Teen Diary from his pocket via his production company Evil Global Corp. with the occasional ad deal thrown in. “We’ve spent three years producing at a personal deficit, and ad revenue from the video web portals doesn’t even begin to cover costs,” Black said.

Now, he’s taking the proverbial next step and has made two full-time hires — business development and legal — to handle offers that are coming in. He’s currently finalizing a deal with Dailymotion for a sci-fi musical comedy series and is talking to DVD makers and video game companies about bringing shows to those mediums, he said.

For its part, Babelgum is trying to make inroads into the U.S. market. In a statement, Babelgum CEO Valerio Zingarelli said, “We’ve carefully tailored our mobile programming to local markets, based on research into national tastes and viewing habits. This customized approach has been a success in the UK and Italy, and we’re now ready to take the product to the U.S. market.”

Babelgum will announce advertisers in the coming weeks, a spokesman said.

Goodnight Burbank: Hollywood Report features the same cast and same fictional TV station, but this time the reporters are working on a daytime entertainment show. “It’s the trials and tribulations of an entertainment show that doesn’t quite have the chops,” Black said. Those tribulations will include Black’s character sharing a jail cell with Tom Hanks and the station manager running for mayor of Burbank, Black said.

For the U.S. launch, Babelgum redesigned its site with a Flash player and is also offering its shows on mobile phones. The company did not share unique visitors, but said its mobile applications already reach about 25-30 percent of iPhone users in the UK and Italy

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In their place, advertisers and Web publishers need to focus on improved targeting, adding rich media and video to their sites and using better metrics to determine the effectiveness, return on investment and engagement, he said. “We have to get off the idea that a click is a valid metric. There are many other ways of measuring the effectiveness of ads,” he said.

But if clicks are passe, what’s a more useful measure of effectiveness for web ads? Video will be a key component in a new range of metrics that better serve advertisers and publishers because video delivers on intent to purchase, Fulgoni explained.

ComScore can track the impact of online video ads by measuring whether Internet users who saw an online video ad then went on to visit a site or buy a product, for instance, he said. Brands using online video ads have seen lifts of anywhere from 20 percent to 40 percent or higher in terms of incremental buying with online video and rich media over other ad forms, he said. “The reason advertising works well on TV is it has sight, sound and motion, and you have that in online video. It’s easier to communicate a message and easier to persuade people,” he said.

The growth in viewing of long-form content online is also a boon for the growing online video ad market, he said. The longer people watch, the more advertising opportunities there are. The average online Internet user is watching 3.5 minutes at a time, and that keeps increasing. “That’s a really important metric because if we just stick with three-minute video clips that limits the number of ads,” he said. “You want these longer-running shows so you can maximize ad dollars. This is one of the key components of the future of online advertising.”

However, work still needs to be done in where ads should live in online video, whether as pre-rolls, post-rolls or another form, he added. Fulgoni did not elaborate on the ideal ad formats for online video.

Despite the lack of consistent standards and metrics in online video, advertisers continue to invest in the medium, said Michael Hayes, executive VP of digital at Initiative, during a separate panel. “The category is growing regardless of whether we solve the metrics problems,” he said.

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The cold hard facts: the three-headed multichannel beast otherwise known as cable operators, satellite providers and telcos collectively added 441,000 multichannel video customers in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Those statistics fly in the face of the conventional wisdom that in a recession consumers would cut back on cable services to save money, and they also go against the broader newteevee belief that TV fans can survive on Hulu, YouTube and iTunes alone. Because evidently we’re quite content with our oldteevee, thank you very much.

But, let’s pause and ask ourselves if maybe there is another side of the story. Because traditional television providers and programmers would be foolish to assume that net cable adds in the fourth quarter means everything is peachy. Sure, only 3 percent of online adults would pull the plug on cable to just watch video online, according to Leichtman Research Group, and we’re also watching more traditional TV than ever, according to Nielsen.

But what are teenagers doing?

The industry needs to peel back the layers in the research to understand what teens and young adults are doing now to be better prepared for business in 5-10 years. Consider this: Leichtman Research Group reported that while only 8 percent of web-video-watching adults say they watch less TV because of their web viewing habits, 18 percent of web video watching teens say they’re turning away from the tube thanks to the Internet.

“Yes, there are some teens who are watching TV less often, while the majority are still watching just as much TV,” Bruce Leichtman told us via email, adding that they’re mostly watching YouTube and music videos online rather than TV shows.

Any cord-cutting effect, if there is to be one, won’t manifest for almost a decade, Leichtman said. “It will be 6-12 years before this group is actually making decisions for themselves on whether or not they subscribe to a TV service – that they never paid for before, so it’s not really a cord cutting – so the impact of this group, accounting for about 9 percent of all in the U.S., could possibly be felt several years from now.”

Still, there is evidence that young Americans are slowly shifting their habits, and both Hollywood and the web world should pay attention to their behavior. Earlier this year, the research firm Solutions Research Group reported that that 70 percent of 18- to 34-year-old online Americans have watched TV online at some point, but only one-third of that group has ever viewed a show on a DVR or a TiVo.

While we as a society of video viewers aren’t thumbing our noses at Comcast, Time Warner and DirecTV right now, we might be in a few years. “It’s obvious to most that online will become the main platform for video entertainment,” said Kaan Yigit, an analyst with Solutions Research Group. “When we reach a true tipping point is debatable — some say five years, others 10. But it will happen, based on all the indicators.”

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The event is billed as a professional development day for teachers. If successful, the model could be replicated for other cities and hosted in partnership with local technology leaders and media firms, said Brian Monahan, senior vice president, global lead for social media, at Universal McCann. He’s a board member of the Bay Area Interactive Group, which is hosting the training day at media agency McCann Worldgroup in San Francisco. The event will not be streamed live, but the Bay Area Interactive Group and the school district plan to shoot the event and are evaluating how to offer the video of the training session for those who cannot attend.

“Kids need to be taught how to access collaboration tools, search tools and publishing tools, and our members know how to do that. They are the companies making the technology or enabling the financial success of that through the transaction of ads,” he said. “If students can share a book report with the world on YouTube, that can inspire them to do the reading and think about the book.”

Video podcasts could prove to be particularly useful in the current recessionary environment. Schools have been hit hard by budget cuts, so video of lectures or field trips may replace actual trips for some schools, Monahan said. CNET Executive Editor Tom Merritt will speak to the teachers about how to podcast.

Some public schools have launched digital media projects already; students at one of the city’s high schools created video presentations of each presidential candidate’s position using online video during the fall presidential election, for example, while students at another school created audio podcast walking tours of San Francisco. But the district wants digital media to become more ubiquitous in the classroom, said Patricia Theel, supervisor of career technical education for the San Francisco Unified School District. “We are hoping teacher can integrate more technology into and across the curriculum so it’s happening in the English class and the social studies class,” she said.

The digital media training session will have other benefits in that it will give the teachers more connections at local tech companies, Theel said, which they’ll be able to tap for potential internships for their students.

Monahan said he’ll look to replicate the training event for other interactive groups and associations around the country that also want to partner with local schools. Most major cities have local media trade associations that could become hubs for this type of professional development for teachers, he said.

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Internet-connected sets from Sony, LG and Samsung were among the most buzzworthy products showcased at the recent Consumer Electronics Show. They’ll come to market later this year with Crackle, blip.tv, the Minisode Network, YouTube, Flickr and other web services embedded into them, heralding a long-awaited step in the march toward web-to-TV convergence.

Their expanding role also raises the question of whether they might become gatekeepers for web content, much as cable and satellite operators have for decades determined which networks make the cut. Many consumer electronics makers will now also play a role in separating the wheat from the chaff by striking deals with some Internet sites and passing on others. They’ll also determine the placement for such services on the TV sets. This development can benefit content creators and consumers, because Internet-enabled TVs now represent a new distribution source for programs.

Most TV set makers declined to comment on their potential new role as gatekeepers.

Yahoo’s program to develop widgets for TV sets is open to anyone, pointed out Roger Urrabazo, product manager for the Yahoo Widget program. As part of the program, Yahoo’s consumer electronics partners have agreed to allow their consumers access to any widget in the Yahoo widget gallery, said Lucas Mast, a spokesperson for the company. That means widgets from YouTube, MySpace, Showtime, CBS and others are available on sets from Samsung, Sony, LG Electronics, VIZIO and Toshiba, Mast said.

However, Will Richmond, an analyst with VideoNuze, says the best placement on a TV set menu is likely to be awarded to the strongest brands, like Netflix, Amazon or YouTube. “These are known consumer brands, and they all have some degree of pull through the retailer,” he said.

Still, consumer electronics makers are more eager to welcome new services to the set rather than block them, Richmond said. “They are just concentrating on selling sets. The economy is hammering these guys, and they need to focus on that.”

More Internet services could be what help them move more units.

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Meanwhile, HBO has been a partner on YouTube since 2006. And it is perhaps that partnership that drove the programmer to finally hatch a plan for an original web series, one that’s fronted by the crème de la crème of YouTube stars.

With the 10-episode show Hooking Up, which will launch Oct. 1 on HookingupShow.com, YouTube, Metacafe and Break.com, HBO is planting a big flag in the web series world. Unlike the network’s Runaway Box, a quiet online hub for comedy videos, HBO is actually talking about this new series. “This is the first big project for HBOLabs,” the experimental arm of the network that tests content for various HBO platforms and also runs Runaway Box, General Manager Fran Shea said.

To be sure, HBO is making clear that Hooking Up is not in the prime-time pipeline. But it could very well make the leap to the TV set in other ways, such as via HBO on-demand. “Everyone is looking at this to see what works,” Shea said.

But the real purpose of Hooking Up is to test whether a certain tactic of traditional TV works on the web — that of casting of bona fide stars with built-in audiences. TV networks and film studios have long done this, as they have learned that fans of high-profile celebrities will pay the price of admission to any new project with which their beloved stars are involved.

That’s HBO’s approach to Hooking Up, too. The show features YouTube stars Jessica Rose, Kevin Wu, Philip DeFranco, Michael Buckley, Kevin Nalty and others, all of whom have web views in the multimillions.

“It’s an old television trick and every programmer looks at this and says, ‘I know stars will bring audiences in.’ But will they keep them? I don’t know,” Shea said.

It may be an old trick, but it’s not a guarantee. After all, big names don’t always draw. Witness Will Ferrell’s recent box-office dud Step Brothers. Then there are movies like 2007′s Lions for Lambs with mega stars Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise, which also flopped.

HBO’s strategy is risky in other ways. Philip DeFranco is indeed a big draw on YouTube. But he plays himself. Viewers tune in for his take on the news. Will those same viewers want to see him playing a character, some college student, in Hooking Up?

It’s a gamble, and not one I’m willing to wager on one way or the other just yet.

Daisy Whitney is a contributing writer with TelevisionWeek and the host of the New Media Minute, a weekly webcast on the business of online video.

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Because now Comcast wants to turn Fancast into the link from the Internet back into its cable programming service. If Comcast is even remotely successful with this web-to-TV convergence, then Fancast could very well represent a model for linking together new and old distribution methods.

Fancast this week added an online store through which users can rent and/or own more than 3,000 television shows and movies, and that store is supposedly the start of the broad new Fancast strategy.

Keep in mind, I’m not suggesting that Fancast is a better online store than others. I am a huge iTunes advocate and think it provides the greatest ease of use among online stores. Rather, the Comcast strategy with Fancast is worth watching because the operator appears to be taking steps to become more than just a dumb pipe. After all, cable’s role as the middle man in delivering content is under siege as consumers turn to the web to watch video programming. A broader Fancast is more of a retention play than a revenue driver. Customers who contemplate jettisoning cable programming in favor of becoming Internet-only video viewers might think twice if Comcast can strengthen the ties between its web and TV services.

Later this year, Comcast will begin testing the capability of synching Fancast to your Comcast DVR, which means you could program your home DVR from the Fancast site using your work computer. As a Comcast spokesperson noted, “The end user should feel like they can find and manage and get all their entertainment that they want no matter where it is.”

The next step will be to loop in video-on-demand functionality into Fancast. That could mean programming a VOD playlist directly from Fancast.com. So I could set up a “Daisy’s Shows” category that includes AMC’s Mad Men, HBO Entourage and fitness videos. Then when I sink down into my cushy couch at night all I’d have to do — theoretically — is click on my playlist to find my pre-programmed VOD picks.

As with anything, we’ll have to wait and see if Comcast can pull this off.

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Case in point: the distribution strategy and release schedule of LG15: The Resistance.
EQAL, the production studio behind the show, will release new episodes just once a week, starting Sat., Sept. 20. Hmm, that sure feels a lot like how the broadcast networks dole out programming, doesn’t it?

But it makes sense. As EQAL President Greg Goodfried explained, the daily web model can be overwhelming. “The one drawback to shows with daily content is if you miss a week — or two weeks or three weeks — you have five to 10 to 20 thumbnails to click on,” he said. “Even if the video is only one minute, the mental problem is the same; it feels like you have to dedicate all your time to it. If we have a weekly video and you’re gone for three weeks, you only have to have three thumbnails to click on.”

The show is also a spin-off and spin-offs — think the The Jeffersons or Frasier — are a staple of traditional TV. “Our model for a while has been Star Trek and Star Wars,” said EQAL CEO Miles Beckett, referring to two franchises that spawned spin-offs.

In addition, EQAL is creating foreign language versions for other countries with local production studios in those countries. Yet again, that’s a practice akin to the international syndication of American TV shows.

New media enthusiasts may bristle at the TV-like trappings of The Resistance. I don’t. Because for all its flaws, traditional TV has built a $70 billion-a-year advertising business on weekly installments of hit shows. Meanwhile, the web is still trying to figure out if it’s even going to earn $1 billion in online video ad revenue this year. A little bit of imitation might bring in more viewers and, as a result, more bucks.

Are the similarities to traditional TV in The Resistance coming from CBS’ influence? After all, EQAL has a first-look deal with the network. Goodfried and Beckett insist that the CBS partnership had no bearing on the decision to imitate traditional TV practices. “We wanted to take the things that are great about TV and bring them to a web series while still representing what is great and unique about the web. We are influenced by TV and watch TV,” Beckett said.

The Resistance will still release short videos, text blogs and photos every day and include interactive elements on the show’s site.

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That’s because Next New Networks, which produces and distributes the do-it-yourself visual effects show, has implemented technology from both Freewheel and Castfire that lets the web studio insert fresh ads, bumpers and host shout-outs for current ad campaigns into both current and older episodes in the Next New Networks catalog, imitating a longstanding practice in the traditional TV business.

The concept of dynamic ad insertion isn’t new to TV or the web, but the Next New Networks implementation is noteworthy for a number of reasons.

First, it’s enabling Next New Networks to realize as much as 25 percent more revenue for its ad campaigns, because about one-quarter of its 20 million monthly views come from its back catalog, said Tim Shey, one of the company’s co-founders. Now Next New Networks can run current campaigns, like the Death Race, in older episodes. Sure, technology vendors like DoubleClick have made a living by refreshing ads on the web, and other firms like YuMe Networks, VoloMedia and Kiptronic offer similar technology for web video. But the project is also the latest example of how new media is borrowing some of the best practices of oldteevee and making them better.

Dynamic ad insertion has been a staple of the local TV business for years. Cable and satellite operators both rely on technology to swap fresh ads in and out of local and national programming. Technology firms like Visible World have built their success on delivering targeted ad copy to specific zones in cable systems. But where dynamic ad insertion is most interesting is in the curious case of video-on-demand from cable operators.

TV programmers and advertisers were hotly pursuing advertising opportunities in VOD in 2003, 2004 and 2005 because of VOD’s targetability and the opt-in nature of the medium. But advertiser interest in the space dropped off sharply when broadband video took off two years ago — and that’s because one of the issues that has plagued VOD for years is the lack of dynamic ad insertion tools. Cable operators have only tested dynamic ad insertion in a handful of markets but to date there has not been a widespread implementation of the technology. As a result, ads in VOD programming usually live with the content for at least a month, which has scared off advertisers with time-sensitive campaigns.

So forward-thinking advertisers shifted their new media ad budgets to broadband and now broadband video is showing traditional TV that it can be a lot faster and better.

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