The two companies put out a press release without a whole lot of detail (below) but are holding a press conference shortly where we may be able to tease some more out of them. (Update: Well, that was a waste of 10 minutes. Verizon is also promising to make executives available for interviews this morning, but my expectations are now very, very, very low. Subterranean.)

Right now, all they’re really saying is that they’ll have video content, delivered over the Web and via mobile devices, and that consumers will be able to stream some of it and download some of it.

Roping Redbox into the JV — Verizon will own 65 percent of the company, and the movie rental service will have the remainder — makes sense, because it will give the unnamed service a digital-plus-physical option. Just like Netflix and Dish Network’s Blockbuster already have.

But while the big media companies are very happy to license some of their content to Verizon or any other player that wants to pay for digital rights, they are much less comfortable with Coinstar’s Redbox, and have tangled with that service in court.

Right now, for instance, Redbox has announced that it won’t work with Warner Bros.’ new 56-day “window” for new movies on DVD, and will buy discs from third-party sources instead of getting them directly from the studio. So it will be interesting to see how Warner Bros. and parent company Time Warner treat the new venture, and whether that dynamic plays out with other content guys.

VERIZON AND COINSTAR’S REDBOX FORM JOINT VENTURE TO CREATE NEW CONSUMER CHOICE FOR VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT
Joint Venture Will Offer the Best of Both Worlds – Physical and Digital – to All Consumers Nationwide

NEW YORK – Verizon and Coinstar, Inc. today announced the formation of a joint venture that will create a new choice for quality- and value-conscious consumers seeking a simple and affordable way to access the video entertainment they crave. The venture’s services will offer all of the convenience, simplicity and value of Redbox® new release DVD and Blu-ray Disc® rentals combined with a new content-rich video on-demand streaming and download service from Verizon.

The joint venture plans to introduce the product portfolio in the second half of 2012. It will offer subscription services and more in an easy-to-use, flexible and affordable service that will allow all consumers across the U.S. to enjoy the new and popular entertainment they want, whenever they choose, using the media and devices they prefer. Additional brand and product information will be revealed in the coming months.

“When you consider the core elements the parties bring to this venture – our powerful brands; our national rental kiosk footprint; our anytime, anywhere network presence; and our mutual commitment to customer-focused innovation – it’s clear that Verizon and Redbox are a powerful entertainment team,” said Bob Mudge, president of Verizon consumer and mass business markets.

“Consumers rely on Redbox for the latest new release movies at a great value, and our joint venture with Verizon will enable us to bring them even more value by offering expanded content offerings and greater flexibility for how and when they enjoy entertainment,” said Paul Davis, chief executive officer of Coinstar, Inc. “This alliance is the result of a deliberate and strategic process to identify a partner who shares our commitment to delivering innovative solutions to consumers. We look forward to rolling out the shared benefits this venture will bring to consumers, retailers, and shareholders.”

This venture between Verizon and Redbox will create the kind of national multi-platform product that customers are demanding from video entertainment service providers. It will leverage Verizon’s industry-wide relationships with entertainment content providers, its advanced cloud computing technologies and state-of-the-art IP network infrastructure to distribute video on-demand content to its customers.

“The joint venture will combine the accessibility and value of Redbox with Verizon’s vision for a borderless lifestyle – where consumers easily accomplish what they want or need to do, on their terms, through the power of the network,” said Mudge. “Together, we are erasing old technology boundaries, freeing people to spontaneously enjoy the entertainment they want, whenever they choose, using the devices and media they prefer, at home or away.”

By offering instantly available online and mobile content with immediate access to physical media through rental kiosks, Verizon and Redbox will be uniquely positioned to deliver the best of both worlds – digital and physical – to consumers across the country.
The joint venture is a limited liability company with Verizon holding a 65 percent ownership share and Redbox holding a 35 percent ownership share at the outset.

But if you watch the game on the Web, your eyeballs are worth a whole lot less. NBC, which is streaming the entire thing for the first time ever, will be lucky to get anything near a million dollars for that same ad when it runs online.

So why is Comcast’s broadcast network putting the game on the Web, period? Isn’t this the classic analog-dollars-to-digital-dimes trade that Big Media strives so hard to avoid?

Nope, says Rick Cordella, who runs digital for NBC Sports. The network assumes that nearly every eyeball — and every ad dollar — that it gets from the Web this week will be a bonus, because whoever watches online is simultaneously watching on a big TV, the way football is supposed to be watched.

This is supposed to be the classic “second screen” experience that Twitter’s Dick Costolo and so many other digital folks are excited about.

And that makes plenty of sense to me. Many TV guys have gotten plenty comfortable with the idea of streaming their most valuable live sports events online, for free. In most of those cases, the general assumption is that anyone who’s watching on the Web is someone who can’t watch the game on a TV to begin with — see the CBS/Turner Sports livestreams of the NCAA March Madness tournament.

And in NBC’s case, it is packing the Webcast full of extra camera angles and other goodies, including a feature that will let you rewatch every Super Bowl commercial once it’s aired. The assumption is that you’re holding the TV remote in one hand, and controlling your laptop with another.

NBC already does a version of this with its Sunday Night Football broadcasts during the regular season, and the network says it draws between 200,000 and 300,000 unique viewers per game (that’s the source of that Vikings-Saints screenshot, above).

Meanwhile, those broadcasts are the networks’ best-performing shows by a long shot, so it doesn’t seem to have slowed them down. The NFL, meanwhile, reports that Web companion streams of the Thursday night games it shows on its own channel averaged 450,000 uniques.

So Cordella argues that putting the biggest TV show of the year online, for free, is really no big deal. But I’m pretty sure that this attitude isn’t shared by everyone in the TV business, and we might hear a bit about that today at the D: Dive Into Media conference. Curious to see what ESPN boss John Skipper thinks, for starters.

• Showing TV shows the day after they air, like Hulu does.
• Renting TV shows and movies one at a time, on demand, like Amazon, Apple, Walmart and many others do.
• Renting video games, like GameFly does.
• Getting more people to sign up for its DVD rental service, which is what Netflix used to do.

So what is Reed Hastings trying to do? He explained it again during his company’s conference call Wednesday night, but it’s the same message he’s been delivering for some time: He’s trying to create the Web version of HBO or Showtime.

That is: A premium cable channel that gives subscribers lots of viewing choices — including some stuff they can’t see anywhere else —  but not unlimited choices.

That may disappoint some customers, investors and even reporters. Because the idea of a maverick Internet video service that could upend all of Hollywood and the TV industry sounds pretty exciting. People are still hoping for one, perhaps in the form of a “virtual” cable service – perhaps from Google or Apple – though yesterday Hastings said he doesn’t believe that’s happening, either.

But Hastings’s more modest ambitions are popular enough: He now has 23.5 million Web video subscribers worldwide, which is more than CBS’s Showtime has. And he is creeping up on Time Warner’s HBO, which has around 28 million subs. [UPDATE: Let's make this an apples-to-apples comparison: Netflix has 21.7 million Web video subs in the U.S.; that 28 million number for HBO is US-only, too.]

Still, Hastings will need to keep reiterating his plan for some time in order for everyone to get it.

That’s partly his fault, because he hasn’t always been consistent. Last summer, for instance, he said the company would start marketing its DVD-only business again, but the company has since canceled those plans (and now rarely acknowledges DVDs exist, even though they are a huge business for Netflix). Last fall, Netflix also said it would get into the videogame rental business, but those plans have been scrapped, too.

“We are just another network competing for viewing time with, and licensing content from, other networks,” Hastings wrote in his letter to shareholders yesterday. That’s not quite as compelling as “All the movies and TV you’ll ever need, for $8 a month,” but it’s the truth, and it seems to work for lots of people.

Turns out there are lots of us, and we’re not just engaged in a new, postmodern behavior. We’re building valuable data sets for marketers, who would like to know what we’re saying and what we’re watching, and what that means.

Eventually they’ll use that data to show us more ads. And perhaps we’ll comment about those, too.

That is the theory, at least, behind a slew of “second screen” start-ups. And Bluefin Labs, one of the most prominent ones, has just raised another $12 million in a B round led by Time Warner’s investment arm and SoftBank Capital. Earlier investors, who have poured in some $8 million, like Redpoint Ventures and Lerer Ventures, have re-upped.

Bluefin has a fancy-pants pedigree — it uses technology hatched at the MIT Media Lab — but the idea is quite simple. It harvests comments we leave on social networks — primarily on Twitter, and to a lesser degree via Facebook, where more of the data is locked up — and analyzes it to see what we’re saying, and when.

That stuff can be used to create cool infographics like the one on the right, about last Sunday’s Giants-49ers game. But TV networks like CBS, and ad guys like Starcom MediaVest, want the data for themselves, for obvious reasons.

Given that Facebook and Twitter are deep in the ad business themselves, it will be interesting to see what kind of access they provide to the Bluefins of the world down the line. If this gets really big, it seems like they’d want a very active role.

And while we’re on that subject, we should note that Bluefin CEO Deb Roy says his company isn’t using Google+ data yet. Which is interesting, given all of those big user numbers.

Down the road, Roy says Bluefin could expand his business in different directions. He could measure other data points that tell us about the way people are watching TV: What are people saying on blogs? What are they saying when they reach call centers? And he could also measure other mass mediums. But for now, TV will keep him busy.

A new deal between Time Warner’s movie studio and Netflix, Redbox and Blockbuster will double the “window” for new releases. That means the services will now have to wait 56 days after the discs first go on sale to offer them to their customers, instead of 28 days. [UPDATE: Redbox parent Coinstar now says they haven't agreed to a new deal; see below]

The move is part of Hollywood’s ongoing campaign to bolster flagging DVD sales, and sources tell me the new deal is supposed to be announced at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Warner Brothers executives have already talked publicly about extending the current window.

This is the second time that Warner has been able to get the rental services to wait before distributing its movies.

In 2010, it struck deals with Netflix, and later Coinstar’s Redbox, to wait 28 days before renting its new discs. Coinstar and Netflix later landed similar pacts with most of the other big studios. (Coinstar did up end up in legal battles with Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox, which like this Web site is owned by News Corp.)

Two years ago, Netflix was able to argue that by delaying access to DVDs, it was able to get its hands on more streaming content, and lower prices for the discs it did buy. This time around, though, Warner won’t be granting any additional digital rights to the studios. It will simply be offering them the ability to buy discs in bulk, at a significant discount to retail pricing, like they already do.

Earlier today, news broke that HBO, another Time Warner unit, would stop selling its DVDs to Netflix altogether, but sources tell me the two moves aren’t directly related. Next week’s planned announcement is supposed to be tied to Warner Brothers’ continuing push for Ultraviolet, an industry consortium that’s supposed to allow home video buyers to watch their purchases on multiple machines, in multiple formats.

Reps for Time Warner, Coinstar, Netflix and Blockbuster parent company Dish Network declined to comment.

UPDATE: Coinstar is now commenting, via email. “The current agreement Coinstar has with Warner Bros. is to receive movie titles 28 days after their release. No revised agreements are in place.” The company’s current deal with Warner Bros. expires at the end of January; PR chief Marci Maule referred me to comments CEO Paul Davis made last fall about pursuing “workarounds” if studios try to extend their windows.

It’s the typically newsless time around Christmas and New Year’s, but for once there has actually been a lot going on at Yahoo.

Last week, the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s typically moribund board decided to move ahead with negotiations to sell part of its stake in China’s Alibaba Group, as well as all of its shares in Yahoo Japan.

While that is still not a done deal, it adds clarity to the Yahoo mishegas, as current leaders there seek to turn around the company’s lagging fortunes.

Now, as Yahoo continues to contemplate a pair of partial investment bids by private equity firms Silver Lake and TPG Capital into 2012, more focus will be on the selection of a CEO candidate to take over, sources said.

While I have floated some names that have been contemplated — such as Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson, former aQuantive and Microsoft exec Brian McAndrews, and board member David Kenny — I have collected some more that seem to be getting the once-over and are being mentioned internally as well as externally.

Sources said that the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee at Yahoo, which is run by independent director Patti Hart, has been looking for someone with definite public company experience, as well as expertise in large-scale management.

As to talent, candidates seem to be either good at running big platforms, or deeply knowledgeable about advertising and media as well as technology.

Another important criteria, said sources: Someone who is “collaborative” and nonconfrontational. As in, not like the former and very pugnacious CEO Carol Bartz, who was fired in September.

Thus, here’s another trio of candidates to consider, while we wait — and who knows how long that will be given that the Asian activity could have tired out for a bit this usually slow-moving board:

Chris Liddell: The former CFO of Microsoft is an interesting name that just popped up recently, and it makes some sense when you think about the possible mindset of the Yahoo board.

Liddell, who has a charming New Zealand accent, did a short stint, from January of 2010 to March of this year, as CFO at General Motors. Recently married to another former Microsoft exec, he has since been living in New York.

He apparently loves living in the Big Apple.

But when he left GM, Liddell made it clear he wanted to go for a top job next. He was among the candidates for a recent search for a CEO of Time Warner’s Time Inc. (an effort that was run by exec search firm Heidrick & Struggles, which is also conducting the Yahoo hunt).

Known as tough and decisive, he certainly is qualified to deal with complex financial situations, such as the one in which Yahoo now finds itself knee-deep. One knock: Little product or advertising experience.

Laura Desmond: While certainly a dark horse, Desmond has been queried by Heidrick, said several sources.

She is CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group, a subsidiary of Publicis, one of the largest media planning and buying agencies, making Desmond one of advertising’s most prominent players.

Well-known in Yahoo’s key market, she is considered a savvy and smart exec with a wry sense of humor.

I happen to particularly like one line from one of her bios:

“Ms. Desmond’s career has been driven by two caveats: Take intelligent risks and learn more from failure than from success.”

She could learn a lot at Yahoo. (I know, easy jab, but it works!)

David Rosenblatt: The former DoubleClick CEO, who went on to a big ad job at Google after it paid $3.2 billion for the company, is also a long shot, mostly by his own choosing.

The sharp exec is always on the short list of CEO candidates for a lot of big, splashy online jobs, but he seems to want to swim his own way.

Case in point: He was recently named CEO of New York-based 1stdibs, a relatively obscure online marketplace known among antique dealers and interior designers looking for one-of-a-kind furniture, art and lighting.

Yes, that’s right: Fancy lamps.

Rosenblatt also serves on the boards at Group Commerce, Twitter and IAC.

All that Internet ad and e-commerce experience is exactly why Rosenblatt would be one of the better choices for CEO of Yahoo. But, for him, I would guess taking such a job is probably in the life’s-too-short category.

More to come, obvi!

The two companies say the service will go into a “brief beta trial” and will then be available to all Time Warner Cable subscribers (again, as long as they’re also HBO customers), “in the next month.”

Depending on how you look at it, the agreement either extends the reach of Time Warner’s “TV Everywhere” program, or fills an embarrassing hole. Time Warner and Time Warner Cable are two separate companies that split up in 2009, so programming deals between the two aren’t automatic, by any means.

But that explanation didn’t do much to appease Time Warner Cable customers who wanted the service. The cable company has 14 million subscribers, making it the country’s second-biggest cable provider after Comcast.

Time Warner rolled out HBO Go this summer to very positive reviews; Time Warner says users have downloaded five million apps for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android devices. Earlier this month, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said that HBO Go users watch up to 50 percent more of the channel’s programming.

South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung Electronics has hired former AOL and Google exec David Eun to lead a new push to create more media offerings, the company said.

In a press release, the maker of a wide range of devices — from televisions to tablets to smartphones and more — said Eun would serve as executive vice president of its media-related units.

About Eun’s role, Samsung said: “He will play a key role in developing a global media strategy and driving new business opportunities to take advantage of Samsung’s growing number of digital televisions and displays, mobile phones, tablets and other connected devices.”

It’s not clear what that means, but presumably it could spell more investments and acquisitions in digital media, and even in the social space.

The move is part of a larger reorganization at Samsung Electronics, which it also announced has divided into two parts, digital media and communications and device solutions.

Samsung’s deepening of its media efforts — it has previously launched various smaller content initiatives — is an interesting one, especially in light of the fast-changing market it now competes in, in which partners like Apple and Google have also become intense rivals.

Google bought Motorola recently and has been increasing its media offerings, as has Apple. Samsung and Apple are also engaged in a series of global legal battles over devices.

In turn, companies like Amazon — which recently released the Kindle Fire tablet — have upped their efforts in the consumer electronics area.

In addition, Japan’s Sony — which already owns a major Hollywood studio — now owns all its handset business and has recently added tablets to its lineup.

Eun is an interesting choice, having been part of Google’s earliest efforts to move beyond its core search business into media, such as its acquisition of YouTube.

He left his most recent job at AOL, where he had headed its content unit, earlier this year. Eun has also previously worked at both Time Warner and NBC.

Here’s the official press release about his hiring:

Samsung Electronics Appoints David Eun as Executive Vice President

Eun to Enhance Samsung’s Global Media and Content Efforts

SEOUL, Korea — December 14, 2011 –Samsung Electronics Co., the technology leader and innovator in consumer electronics and telecommunications, proudly announces the appointment of David Eun as Executive Vice President.

Eun joins Samsung after an accomplished career in media and content. He was most recently President of AOL Media and Studios, where he oversaw AOL’s efforts to become a leading provider of premium content, spanning over 100 different websites and production studios in NY and LA. Before that, he formed a global Content Partnerships group at Google with oversight for media strategy, partnerships and strategic alliances spanning over 30 different Google products including Google Books, Maps and YouTube. He also has a deep knowledge of traditional media businesses from working at Time Warner and NBC.

He will play a key role in developing a global media strategy and driving new business opportunities to take advantage of Samsung’s growing number of digital televisions and displays, mobile phones, tablets and other connected devices.

“Samsung Electronics has an unparalleled footprint across multiple devices and platforms that provides a unique experience to consumers around the world. The competition for prominence in the living room has already begun, and Samsung Electronics is ideally situated to extend beyond that to connect the entire home and the lives of consumers,” stated Eun. “I’m looking forward to joining the impressive leadership already in place and to building a new presence in media for Samsung Electronics.”

Eun received a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was a Teaching Fellow for the Harvard Negotiation Project, and an A.B., magna cum laude in Government, from Harvard College. He was selected “Digital Power Player of the Year” by the Hollywood Reporter in 2010, is an Advisory Board Member for the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and sits on the Board of the Television Academy of the Arts and Sciences Foundation.

I bought it Saturday night, watched it on the plane Sunday, and laughed out loud, a bunch. You should do it, and there’s a good chance you have — techland loved this story this weekend. Also, again: It’s very funny.

But What Does It All Mean? Not a ton. It’s an evolutionary step, relevant to a select group of people who make entertainment. With one interesting twist.

The part that isn’t new here is Louis C.K. using the Web and doing it on his own. We’ve seen a bunch of that over the years, mostly from entertainers who have already become famous (or at least semi-famous) with the help of mainstream media. Prince and Radiohead sold their own music only after they sold lots of songs for big music labels. Adam Carolla leapt/got pushed from TV and radio gigs into podcasting.

The new twist here is the way his experiment changes video “windows” — which determine when shows and movies show up on different outlets. By going direct-to-fan first, C.K. doesn’t shut off his chance to end up working the Big Media Companies he says he doesn’t want to work with. He’s just making them wait. So the people who really love him can get it right away, and he can capture almost all of that value in the transaction.

We’ll call it the Louis C.K. Window.

It can run for a week, or a month, or however long he’d like to be the sole outlet for his show. But then, if he wants to get more money for his product and reach a different audience, C.K. can sell the program to HBO or Showtime or Netflix for a “pay-TV window.” And then, eventually, to the likes of Comedy Central or FX. At some point, he can retail discs and downloads via Amazon and iTunes, etc.

The Louis C.K. Window is the most gratifying, because it’s cool, and because he’ll keep almost every penny his fans spend to see him. But it’s also likely to expose him to the smallest number of people.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that a million people pony up for the concert — basically, that is, everyone who watches his (great) show on News Corp.’s FX channel. (News Corp. owns this site, too.)

That’s a wildly optimistic estimate, and it will still be a fraction of the people that HBO, which has some 28 million subscribers, can reach. You can fault Big Media for a lot of things, but it remains pretty good at rounding up Big Audiences.

But that’s the great thing about the Louis C.K. Window. It lets Louis C.K. — and a relatively small group of people with big ambitions, and ardent fans — have it both ways.

HBO Go users, who can watch shows like “Game of Thrones” on their iPad, iPhones, and Android devices, watch 30 percent to 50 percent more than non-users*, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said today at the UBS media conference.

But Bewkes said that the pay channel’s subscriber count had been “stable” in the past year, which would mean it still has about 28 million paying customers.

That makes sense, given that the “TV Everywhere” strategy Bewkes has been pushing isn’t focused on attracting more customers but in keeping the ones he has — especially those tempted to seek out video entertainment via the Web, or services like Netflix.

Meanwhile, Bewkes was careful to note that those viewership bumps may not continue, given that HBO Go is still primarily in the hands of early adopters, though that’s still a decent-sized number. Last month Time Warner announced that the HBO Go app had hit the 5 million download mark for Android and iOS users.

Speaking of Netflix — just in case you didn’t get the message via this weekend’s interview with the Financial Times — Bewkes reiterated his position on the service. He’s happy to sell them stuff he can’t sell anymore. Services like Netflix and Hulu “can definitely add value to all of us, if you’re trying to get that obscure movie that you haven’t seen yet,” he said.

That kind of faint praise may explain why Bewkes’s initial assessment of Reed Hastings’s company today — “Netflix is our friend” — drew laughs from the audience.

*Bewkes didn’t specify whether that 30 to 50 percent increase was for TV viewing, or an aggregate number that includes TV + devices. I’m assuming the latter, but have asked Time Warner reps to clarify. UPDATE: Yup, aggregate.

And if you didn’t understand that one, he offered another metaphor: A “200-pound chimp.”

In the following months, Bewkes cut back on his rhetoric, which may or may not have had anything to do with a lucrative deal to sell reruns of “Gossip Girl” to Netflix. But now that deal has been inked, Netflix stock has been crushed and lots of smart people think the video service may be on a permanent spiral.

So here’s Bewkes again, damning his new partners with very faint praise, this time in the Financial Times instead of the New York Times: Netflix and similar services (read: Hulu and Amazon, for now) can’t get the best stuff anymore, he says, and are stuck showing “archival content that nobody would want in Blockbuster.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Bewkes adds. “It can do certain things and not other things. It can fly, it’s not a submarine. Don’t turn a hamburger into a cow.”

And that is how a pro mixes metaphors and backhanded compliments.

Again, remember that the real purpose of this stuff isn’t to hurt Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’s feelings — Hastings can probably take it — but to make Time Warner shareholders feel better about the company’s cable holdings. Because Time Warner’s cable channels — like TBS and TNT, and its HBO premium channel — are absolutely competing with Netflix for viewer time and dollars, no matter how much either company tries to insist otherwise.

Does this sort of semi-smack-talk entertain you? (It’s okay to admit it. Me, too.) Then you’ll want to check back on Tuesday: Both Bewkes and Hastings are scheduled to present that day at the annual UBS Media/Telecom conference. I’ll be there to record the slings and arrows, and I’ll report back.

That seems like an obvious correlation. But, until recently, that wasn’t the case, for a couple reasons. Some Web video sites had held back a bit from shoving ads in front of users’ faces, for fear of scaring them off. And lots of folks who wanted to buy video ads couldn’t find places they wanted to place them.

This is changing now, and that means the Web video business might finally be catching up to the long-running Web video boom.

Here, for instance, is promising news for ad buyers and sellers, via FreeWheel, a start-up that helps serve and manage video ads for the likes of Turner, Vevo and Fox. FreeWheel says that last quarter, for the first time, the rate of video ad views grew faster than overall video views — 128 percent versus 97 percent:

Just as important is that viewers seem okay with the bump in ads, too. The completion rate for the ads seems to have held steady, even as the number of ads has increased.

That’s particularly true for “long-form” stuff — often TV episodes on Hulu and other sites — which have recently seen ad loads double. The longer you watch a video clip, it seems, the more likely you are to watch the accompanying ads all the way through.

Easy enough to cover this stuff with caveats, the most obvious being that FreeWheel is anything but an unbiased observer here. It’s also important to note that this data goes through the first part of this fall. And, as lots of glum Web publishers will tell you now, the Web ad business has gotten a lot less robust in the last couple months.

Big picture, the Web video business is still very much a work in progress, which you can see at a glance by noting the turmoil at Hulu, or YouTube’s overhaul. And there’s still a long way to go: Video ads grew 42 percent in the first half of the year, but still only make up 6 percent of the overall Web ad business. But if it keeps headed in this direction it’s going to quickly make up ground.

Speaking of YouTube, here’s a clip Google’s site tells me is a new favorite. Involves some standard-issue hip-hop swearing:

Michael Bloom joined the publisher, which owns Rolling Stone, Us Weekly, and Men’s Journal, in May. On Friday afternoon, he sent out a memo announcing his departure. Here’s the bulk of the note:

As some of you already know, I’m moving on from Wenner Media. While it’s been a relatively short time, I’ve really enjoyed working with so many talented and creative people across Wenner’s incredible brands.

Over the past six months, a new digital leadership team has been put in place, and a lot of great work has been done to set the foundation of what will be a terrific digital future. I’m proud of what you guys have accomplished and I know that you will go on to do great things in 2012. I’ll certainly be rooting for you from the sidelines.

Unlike many of his competitors, Wenner Media owner Jann Wenner has never rushed to embrace digital publishing. For a long time, he did very little with the Web beyond handing over his flagship RollingStone.com site to RealNetworks.

That deal made him money, but it also allowed upstarts like Pitchfork to grab lots of territory and mindshare over the years. Last year, Wenner got control of the site again and moved to put most of it behind a pay wall.

Around the same time, Wenner declared himself unimpressed with the commercial upside of the iPad for magazine publishers, a position that put him at odds with the conventional wisdom. Since then, many of his peers have become much more sympathetic to his take.

Bloom, who had previously put in time at Sharecare, MTV, and AOL Time Warner, didn’t mention a new job in his note; Wenner Media hasn’t announced a replacement. I’ve asked Bloom and a Wenner rep for comment.

Netflix will foot at least part of the bill for an unspecified number of new episodes, which will be produced by News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox studio (News Corp. also owns this Web site) and will start running in 2013. The new shows will be exclusive to Netflix streaming video subscribers, at least for its initial “window.”

That fits the content strategy CEO Reed Hastings has been laying out for a while: He wants to create an $8-a-month version of HBO, delivered over the Web, stocked with stuff you can’t get anywhere else.

That’s why Hastings has spent the last year or so cobbling together a slate of exclusive movie deals (like a recent DreamWorks pact) and TV shows (like a recent deal with CW), and that’s why he’s already committed to a deal to produce “House of Cards,” a new Kevin Spacey/David Fincher miniseries next year. At the same time, he is losing a Starz deal that gave him access to movies from Sony and Disney.

Netflix has been noodling with the notion of using digital distribution to revive dormant TV shows or extend the life of ones that are about to be canceled, for some time.

Others are contemplating the same thing: Producer Jeff Kwatinetz, for instance, is trying to get financing to film new episodes of two ABC soaps — “All My Children,” which went off the air in September; and “One Life to Live,” which goes off the air in January.

Saving old shows that couldn’t generate enough viewers to justify a broadcast network’s support, but which still have a loyal following, has particular appeal to Netflix. The company’s executives believe they can “algorithmically bring an audience to a show,” using recommendation engines, over an extended period of time.

In this case, the company is bringing back a show that’s been off the air for five years, but which still has a very vocal fan base. In October, show creator Mitchell Hurwitz said that “nine or 10″ new episodes of “Arrested Development” were in the works, which would function as a prelude to a to-be-filmed movie.

J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth reports back from a recent huddle with Netflix managers, and says he thinks they’re done writing checks for a while: “We believe the vast majority of Netflix’s domestic streaming spend for 2012 … has already been announced or committed. Accordingly, we would not expect Netflix to spend aggressively or announce major new deals until management has better visibility on U.S. subscriber growth.”

Anmuth gives himself some wiggle room in his prediction — it’s possible that CEO Reed Hastings still has some whopper deals he’s signed but hasn’t announced yet — but the winking and nudging seems to indicate that the checkbook has gone away.

Part of the Netflix pitch in recent months has been that it’s going to be spending a lot of money beefing up its streaming video catalog, in part because it won’t be spending it on a Starz deal that gave it access to Disney and Sony movies. And Hastings says that, increasingly, Netflix is going to be paying a premium for stuff you won’t be able to find anywhere else — it’s one of the reasons his content bill is jumping to $3.3 billion, up from $1.2 billion a year ago.

Recent Netflix deals include a new pact to stream DreamWorks Animation movies, which used to run on Time Warner’s HBO, and a deal to grab reruns from the CW, the broadcast joint venture between Turner and CBS. And the company has made one high-profile commitment to original content, via “House of Cards,” the Kevin Spacey/David Fincher miniseries that will run next year.

Are those kind of deals enough to keep Netflix subscribers happy, or to lure new ones back to the service? We may get some hints from Hastings and company in the next few weeks, as they hit the investor-conference circuit. Netflix CFO David Wells will appear at a Credit Suisse gathering on Nov. 29, and Hastings will speak at a UBS conference on Dec. 6.

Time Warner’s publishing unit told its employees this afternoon that five magazines — Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, People and Real Simple — would be available on the Kindle Fire tomorrow.

The announcement comes after negotiations that dragged on for weeks and continued through Tuesday morning — a process that baffled most of Time Inc.’s peers, who signed on to the new device in time for its September unveiling.

Supposedly, the major stumbling block for Time Inc. was that Amazon has retained the ability to set the retail price for the magazines it sells, which means it could theoretically slash prices or give away the magazines for free. That scenario would be a major bummer for all the publishers who have been diligently trying to convince subscribers and newsstand buyers that they’ve been underpaying for their reading material.

But Amazon has told Time’s competitors, like Condé Nast, Hearst and Meredith, that it doesn’t intend to beat down prices, and that assurance was apparently enough for them. Jeff Bewkes’ company apparently needed more convincing.

This never seemed to be an issue, by the way, with Barnes & Noble and its new Nook tablet; Time Inc. was a part of that gadget’s launch announcement.

Like the titles that Time Inc. sells via the iPad and other Android tablets, access to the Kindle Fire editions will come via bundled deals, where consumers pay a single price and get both paper and digital copies of their magazines.

Here’s the memo that consumer marketing head Steve Sachs sent out at the end of the day:

November 15, 2011
To: Time Inc. Employees
From: Steve Sachs
Re: Time Inc. Titles Now Available on Amazon’s Kindle Fire

I’m pleased to share the news that Time Inc. has just reached a deal with Amazon that will allow subscribers to our magazines to enjoy their subscriptions on the new Kindle Fire. Starting tomorrow, subscribers of FORTUNE, PEOPLE, Real Simple, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and TIME will be able to access digital editions of these magazines on the Kindle Fire at no additional cost. Other Time Inc. titles will follow shortly.

To date, hundreds of thousands of Time Inc. print subscribers have authenticated to receive their digital editions, with thousands more being added each week. Our agreement with Amazon continues to expand our All Access strategy, adding the Kindle Fire to the growing list of platforms where consumers can enjoy our content, including Apple’s iPad, the Barnes & Noble NOOK Color and NOOK Tablet, the Android Marketplace and Next Issue’s store.

It’s important to note that Time Inc. is the only publisher designing all of its digital magazine apps specifically for tablets. Because we’re producing a rich consumer experience made for each device, our brands translate beautifully — and the Kindle Fire is no exception.

Adding the Amazon launch to our platforms has meant that IT and other dedicated teams have had to work quickly and nimbly. I want to offer a special thanks to all those who have been hard at work bringing our brands to life on tablets.

S.S.

But before you envision the rollout of a nationwide Google pay TV service, consider: Building out and maintaining a cable TV (and broadband) service is enormously time-consuming, expensive and messy.

Think, for example, of all those angry/confused service inquiries your local cable guy has to deal with. And recall that last year, when Google tried to sell its own line of smartphones, it was hoping to get by without setting up a customer service operation that gave buyers the ability to talk to a real live human.

Verizon spent some $23 billion on its FiOS rollout, and by the time it stalled out last year, it still wasn’t clear if it was a good idea for the telco to build out a cable/broadband service. So why does Larry Page think it makes sense for him?

He doesn’t, according to Sanford Bernstein analysts Craig Moffett and Carlos Kirjner in a note this morning. Instead, they argue, Page and Google have to be thinking about Kansas City as an R&D experiment meant to accomplish three things:

First, it helps Google (slightly) on the public policy front as it promotes the agenda of faster broadband, and it potentially adds to their status in promoting net neutrality. Faster broadband means more Internet usage, more searches, and more ads. Of course, the real regulatory game is a few orders of magnitude more sophisticated, but every little arrow in the quiver helps.

Second, it is a laboratory for Google to learn about technology and consumer behavior, ranging from the impact of higher speed access on Internet usage to the potential and economics of different ad formats and models, on different platforms, particularly when it comes to advertising associated with video and TV.

Third, it is an opportunity for Google to learn about the economics of deploying and running infrastructure. And learn they will…

Analysts like to pull their punches, but Moffett and Kirjner are crystal clear here: There’s no way they think Google becomes the “world’s biggest cable company” or anything like that.

Just to beat this into the ground, here’s another excerpt from their report (well worth reading the whole thing) where they spell out just how ugly the economics of this kind of venture would be:

From a [return on invested capital]-based perspective, the difference between Google’s current business model and that of a facilities-based wireline service provider like Verizon could not be starker. In 2011, we expect Google to post an ROIC of 56%, or 38% when including goodwill. In 2010, Verizon’s wireline segment (which includes FiOS) sported an ROIC excluding goodwill and “one-time items” of… wait for it… just 1.6%. Including goodwill and similar intangible, and smoothed one-timers, it was -1.0%.

Still. It’s quite obvious that something has changed in Google’s thinking over the years.

The company that strove to stay away from anything approaching the content business has now leapt in with both feet. See, for example: Google Music, Google Books, YouTube, and YouTube’s new “channels” project. And recall that Google just made a plus-sized bid for Hulu.

So the notion that Google is now willing to consider even testing out life as a cable TV service is still telling. As is the notion, buried lower in the Journal piece, that Google has floated the idea of turning YouTube into an “over the top” cable service, though that doesn’t seem like it’s on the table right now.

Android boss Andy Rubin even spelled it out at the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong last month: “Google is in the very, very early phases of adding consumer products to our portfolio.” So even if that doesn’t mean it’s ready to become a cable guy, it’s still going to evolve into something much broader than a search company.

Google has looked at ways to expand a previously announced project to build a high-speed Internet service in Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., adding video and phone service in a mirror of offerings from cable and telecom companies, according to people briefed on its plans. As a result, Google has discussed distributing major TV channels from companies like Walt Disney Co., Time Warner Inc. and Discovery Communications Inc. as part of the video service, though the discussions were exploratory and no final decisions have been made.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

John Martin, Time Warner’s chief financial officer, told analysts on the company’s earnings call today that the two deals, to license reruns like “Gossip Girl” from the CW Network, will have an immediate impact on the company’s earnings. About half of the $100 million will be booked as operating profit, he said.

CBS, which co-owns the network with Time Warner, should see the same results. CBS reports its earnings tomorrow.

This doesn’t mean Time Warner thinks the deals will generate $400 million a year over their lifespan. The Netflix deal in particular is tied to the CW’s fortunes, so the revenue will vary depending on how its shows perform.

Still, this is basically found money for the company. The same goes for every big media company — like Disney, News Corp. (which also owns this Web site) and Comcast — that has made digital distribution deals in the last year or so.

In the best-case scenario for the content guys, the Web video race becomes even more heated, and players like Apple, Microsoft and Google start trying to compete with Hulu, Netflix and Amazon.

But they’re also trying to avoid training consumers to expect to see their stuff on Web services right away, because their shows and movies are still more valuable for them when they’re distributed through traditional outlets. Tough tightrope to walk, but so far no one has stumbled.

Disney has re-upped a two-year-old deal with Netflix to stream older shows that aired on ABC, ABC Family and the Disney Channel. And it announced what is essentially the same deal with Amazon, which will make the shows available via its Amazon Prime streaming service.

The Amazon deal also includes animated shows featuring Marvel characters, and it’s possible that the two deals have minor differences. The Netflix release, for instance, says that some shows that are still on the air — like “Grey’s Anatomy” — will be available 30 days after the last episode of each season runs on TV. There’s no reference to window length with Amazon.

But for the average Web video viewer, this stuff is going to mean the same thing: Both Amazon and Netflix are going to have a bunch of old ABC shows. A few of them will be programs that are still running on TV, but they’ll be from previous seasons, not this year’s reruns. And everything else will be even older.

That’s now the standard for most Big TV Web-video licensing deals. The networks and studios are quite happy to sell their shows to digital distributors, as long as they’re a bit musty.

It’s basically found money, and it will drop straight to Disney’s bottom line, just like equivalent deals at Comcast’s NBC, News Corp.’s Fox, etc. (News Corp. also owns this Web site).

And the networks are finding ways to sell the same stuff multiple times, like today’s pacts, or deals announced earlier this month to show CW Network shows on Netflix and Hulu, which (could) bring more than a $1 billion in new revenue to owners CBS and Time Warner.

The deals also show that Amazon continues to cut into the lead Netflix has built up in its Web video catalog. Netflix is moving toward an exclusivity strategy, where it pays a premium for stuff you’re not going to be find anywhere else on the Web. But it can’t fill its 20,000-title catalog with exclusives alone. And in this deal, at least, it doesn’t appear to have carved out any exclusives at all.

It’s important to note upfront that Hulu is paying cash for the programming. While the video site — a joint venture between Disney, News Corp., Comcast and Providence Equity — has discussed bringing in another equity partner, that’s not happening with this particular deal.

I don’t have a price estimate for the deal so far, except that it’s going to be significantly less than the value of the Netflix deal — pegged at perhaps $1 billion (maybe more! maybe less) over an eight-to-12-year period — signed earlier this month.

That’s because Hulu will only have access to a year’s worth of content at any given time, while Netflix will eventually have multiple years’ worth of shows available for its subscribers.

Things to note on a Friday afternoon:

• Hulu’s core value is that it aggregates primetime broadcast shows from its three corporate owners: Disney’s ABC, News Corp.’s Fox and Comcast’s NBC (News Corp. also owns this Web site). But CEO Jason Kilar has pushed hard to expand the site’s appeal beyond programming from that trio. Until now his biggest non-network deal has been a Viacom pact for Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” This one could be bigger, simply because it’s three years longer.
• The fact that Hulu has announced any deal at all is interesting given the flux surrounding the site. Until recently, its owners had it on the block, and now that it’s no longer for sale, the next step is to figure out who’s staying and who’s going — both in terms of owners and management.
• While the deal means more content for Hulu visitors, it’s also another part of the Great Free TV Web Pullback of 2011. That’s because unless you’re paying for Hulu Plus, you’ll have to wait eight days after the shows air to watch them online. You can debate the TV guys’ logic here — in short, they think that holding stuff back increases its value, even though lots of people assume it will make it much more likely to be pirated — but this is increasingly going to be the norm.

THE CW AND HULU SIGN FIVE-YEAR LICENSING AGREEMENT FOR CURRENT SEASON PROGRAMMING In-Season Episodes of The CW’s Drama and Reality Series To Stream on Hulu and Hulu Plus

(October 28, 2011) –The CW Television Network, a joint venture of CBS Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment, announced today a five-year licensing agreement with Hulu for the rights to stream in-season episodes of The CW’s programming on the Hulu Plus subscription service and the free, ad-supported Hulu service.

With this agreement, Hulu Plus will be the only online subscription service to carry in-season episodes of The CW’s drama and reality series, with the five most recent episodes of each show available to subscribers the next day after broadcast. Users of the free, ad-supported Hulu service will be able to watch five episodes of current season programming eight days after airing on The CW.

Available later this year, programming on Hulu and Hulu Plus will begin with the nine series on The CW’s Fall 2011 schedule, including new series “Ringer,” “Hart of Dixie” and “The Secret Circle,” as well as returning hits “The Vampire Diaries,” “Gossip Girl,” “Supernatural,” “Nikita,” “90210” and “America’s Next Top Model.”

“Our new arrangement with Hulu only affirms the incredible value of The CW’s series, as well as amplifying the immense power of the broadcast network model,” said Mark Pedowitz, President, The CW. “As we increase the amount of year round original programming on The CW, this deal provides our shows with greater exposure on a new platform, helping build even more awareness that will drive viewers back to the network and its affiliates. We see this as a win for everyone involved, the network, the stations, Hulu and ultimately, the viewers.”

“The CW programming is a great example of the kind of in-season content we want to make available on our service – high-quality, engaging, serialized shows that fans passionately love,” said Andy Forssell, SVP of Content for Hulu. “Making these shows available on Hulu and Hulu Plus will allow new and existing fans to get their fix of The CW’s great shows anytime and anywhere.”

The new agreement with Hulu delivers more ways for viewers to catch up with The CW’s serialized dramas and reality series, and provides the network with valuable off-air promotion and marketing to grow its brand, as well as increase awareness for its series. The CW’s content can also be made available online through authenticated cable providers.

The CW, which last year introduced an innovative digital convergence strategy for broadcast and online ad sales, will continue to present its programming on cwtv.com with a full complement of advertising, prior to streaming on the free Hulu service.

Memo to Flipboard, as well as Pulse, CNN’s Zite and AOL’s Editions: You might want to make some room in the already-crowded news and social reader space, because you’re about to get some bigfoot company.

Next Wednesday, according to sources close to the situation, Yahoo will finally officially unveil its offering, called Livestand.

And perhaps as early as next week or in the weeks soon after, Google will also weigh in with its version of the genre — code-named Propeller — which also might be the product’s name. Another moniker under strong consideration: Currents.

As I have previously reported, Google Propeller is an HTML5 reader for the Apple iPad and Android — essentially a souped-up version of similar apps such as Flipboard, AOL’s Editions, Zite (which was just bought by Time Warner’s CNN) and Pulse.

All these apps are part of the drastically changing habits of media consumers, helping users better navigate numerous social and media feeds — such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as news sites and more — using handsome interfaces and touch technologies on tablet devices.

Flipboard, the most prominent and elegant of these offerings, is now available only on the Apple iPad.

Flipboard’s traction among elite users, along with its high-level design ethos and strong reviews, is why Google tried to buy the well-funded company last year, sources said.

But Flipboard — which is backed by some of tech’s biggest venture players, who have invested more than $60 million at a $200 million valuation — declined the kind offer.

At the time, sources said, Google told Flipboard execs that if it did not buy the start-up, it planned to do a version of its own.

Hence, after I heard about the product earlier this year, I dubbed it the Flipinator.

According to sources, Propeller will launch with a plethora of media partners, as well as integration into the Google+ social network. The aim of the search giant is to offer media companies easy tools for publishing content on these devices, as well as a better path to monetization.

That is essentially the same plan at Yahoo, which has been working on Livestand with hopes of it being a product that will woo publishers into tight collaboration with the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Livestand was announced by Yahoo’s now-fired CEO Carol Bartz in February, at a speech at the World Mobile Congress in Spain.

At the time, Bartz demoed a magazinelike platform that would allow publishers to put up content easily and give users the ability to personalize their selections based on search history and interests.

Bartz called it “content in context.” (You can see the demo video below.)

But while Bartz promised the product within three months, development has been slowed by its complex technologies, bugs and the need to sign on publishers.

Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving is pushing the product hard as a way for the company to reinvigorate its media products.

It’s not clear how many publishers Yahoo will have at launch, and neither are the distribution plans, beyond flacking it from the Web site and being present in app stores.

Google, on the other hand, has its Android platform to push out Propeller, although it all must work as well on Apple’s iPad, which is the dominant tablet on the market.

But just because both Yahoo and Google are big companies is by no means a guarantee of success — think Yahoo 360 or Google Wave or Buzz — and their lateness might be a hindrance.

And, in fact, other news reader apps are much further along. The leader, Flipboard, has already had four million downloads and 50 partnerships with leading publishers.

It also has started to introduce rich advertising products and, perhaps most importantly, has tight social integration with Twitter and Facebook.

There will be social elements on both Yahoo’s Livestand and Google’s Propeller. But news reading will be stressed more, making them more like Pulse, a tiny but highly innovative start-up.

Each of the existing apps will presumably compete by adding on more features. Pulse recently added cross-platform, cross-device syncing, while Flipboard is close to unveiling an iPhone version it has said it was working on.

Yahoo and Google PR declined comment.

Here is the Livestand demo video from February:

You’ll forgive both groups if they’re a tad skeptical.

But if you feel like extending Reed Hastings the benefit of the doubt once more, then pay attention to the shareholder letter he published yesterday — in particular, the part where he explains the company’s content strategy.

In the end, if Hastings does deliver, this is the plan that will let him do it. And it’s a change from the company’s original content strategy, which means some folks haven’t figured it out yet.

Short version: When Netflix was a DVD company, it could afford to offer just about every movie or TV show every made. Now that it’s a streaming video company, it has to pick and choose.

So Hastings is trying to build an $8-a-month version of HBO — a network you pay for in addition to your regular TV package, not one that replaces it. And to make that work, he doesn’t have to have everything — but he has to have stuff you can’t get anywhere else.

Here’s an extended excerpt from his letter:

In television… the networks (ABC, FX, etc.) have long relied upon exclusive content to differentiate among themselves. As video moves online, so too has this practice of exclusive content. HBO has an exclusive license to recent Universal movies that includes its online HBO GO, for example. Netflix has signed exclusive licenses for DreamWorks Animation, for Relativity, and others. In episodic television, exclusives are also the norm. Netflix doesn’t license “Deadwood” from HBO because they see strategic value in keeping it exclusive. Netflix licenses “Mad Men” and “House of Cards” exclusively for much the same reason.

…We don’t have to “beat” Starz or other networks to succeed…We won’t have every movie or TV series; but we do provide enough value that consumers also want to subscribe to Netflix.

Any given consumer will have only one of DirecTV or Comcast, say, for their video service. That is classic either‐or competition. But with premium television networks like Netflix, the more good experiences there are, the more consumers are willing to spend to have multiple channels from which to get enjoyment.

Simple, right? The complicated part is the execution, of course. Hastings and his team have to figure out what their customers, and future customers, will value, and how much Hastings and his team can afford to pay for it.

And if they make the wrong calls — if it turns out that “House of Cards” isn’t interesting to anyone besides Kevin Spacey, or if the DreamWorks movies don’t satisfy people who used to watch the Pixar movies Netflix used to have — then Netflix really is toast.

But Hastings still has some 25 million subscribers, which means he still has plenty of money to keep betting — during his earnings call yesterday, he said the company’s content bill had shot up to $3.3 billion, up from $1.2 billion just a year ago. That’s not enough to pay for an unlimited supply of videos. But it should be enough to build a decent pay TV channel.