Category Archives: Etc.

The Technology Behind ESPN’S Digital Transformation

ESPN is experimenting with ways to identify highlights without human intervention, but it’s not in a rush to cut its in-house experts out of the loop. “People come to ESPN for our authority and our style,” LaBerge says. “These people are picking [clips] with their own judgment. The key here is that they can do it instantly, as the game is happening. And then distribute it instantly.”

Pushing out highlights quickly makes sports fans happy, and happy sports fans have a more direct connection to ESPN’s business interests than you might guess. “What we’ve found is, when that happens, we see piracy of our content go way down, because most people just want a low-friction way to share something,” LaBerge explains. “We’re to the point where we’re 10 seconds faster than their ability to go back, rewind their DVR, and clip something.”

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How Netflix Exec Cindy Holland Spots A Hit Show

As far as greenlighting, it really starts with the storytellers and somebody coming in with a really passionate vision for the series they want to create or the piece of content they want to create, and our belief that they have the ability to execute against that vision. It could be anything from anyone, from Jenji Kohan, who had proven success on Weeds, and came to us with a memoir about a woman in prison and told us how she wanted to expand that world and really focus on all of the characters in that world; to somebody like Raphael Bob-Waksberg, who was a well known TV writer but hadn’t run a series of his own. But he came in and he pitched Bojack Horseman, season one, all 12 episodes of that season in minute detail, and about halfway through the meeting, we said, “Wow. This is something we’ve never experienced before and never heard before.” It was such a different approach—an adult, half-hour animation series, that we were really—we kind of knew it in the room. So many times, that kind of magic happens. And you know pretty quickly that it’s there, and really that comes from the spirit and the enthusiasm of the creators themselves.

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From Sheryl Sandberg to Peter Chernin: Counting Down Potential Disney Successors

The shocking and sudden departure of Thomas Staggs as Walt Disney Company’s chief operating officer Monday has blown open the race to succeed Bob Iger atop the entertainment giant. It likely means that for the first time since the 1980s, Disney will look outside its ranks for a new leader to guide the company through an era of tremendous changes in the entertainment landscape.

“For the first time in memory they’re going to go outside for a CEO,” said Laura Martin, an analyst with Needham & Company. “That’s a big thing. Given the unique culture of the Walt Disney Company it was widely expected that a successor to Bob Iger had to come from within.”

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