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Post by Mathieas on Mar 24, 2014 20:48:12 GMT -5
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Post by Mathieas on Apr 14, 2014 13:35:32 GMT -5
Looks like the Hollywood Reporter didn't get all of its facts straight. First, the deal isn't for $500 million, which makes sense who would pay $500 million for Maker? Turns out Disney is offering $950 million. Wait what? Second, it isn't a done deal and Relativity plans to present a billion dollar stock offer to Maker. www.deadline.com/2014/04/relativity-says-it-can-top-disneys-bid-for-maker-studios/Yup, there is a bidding war a brewing.
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Post by Milowent on Apr 14, 2014 20:41:20 GMT -5
From the deadline article:
Major studios are becoming interested in YouTube-oriented multichannel online network companies including Maker Studios which targets millennials with more than 55,000 channels [Maker has 55,000 channels? Really? Is this a long tail distribution where most of the views are in the top 10% of so?] that attract 380M subscribers and 5.5B views per month. For example, last year DreamWorks Animation paid $33M with another $117M in potential payments for AwesomenessTV, and Warner Bros recently led a funding round for Machinima. But many investors are wary about the business models; YouTube collects a big chunk of the ad sales. When Disney announced its plan to buy Maker last month Cowen and Co’s Doug Creutz questioned why the entertainment giant “couldn’t have build something themselves for less money” since Maker “generally does not internally develop shows, but instead signs personalities with established shows to contracts.” [Basically ....]
... this sounds like Dinsey is buying Maker is order to leverage its stream of contract revenue from creators, assuming Maker continues to be able to sign up new talent to keep the numbers up. The whole business model depends on YouTube's ad model with creators, which could be changed on a whim.
Is 55% of youtube ad revenue for 55,000 "partners" worth $950M dollars? (or 500M in cash, at least)?
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Post by Mathieas on Apr 16, 2014 1:43:38 GMT -5
Maker doesn't even get the 55% that goes to the individual partners, I don't think Maker takes all of that. I don't know what the split is, I'll look into it.
I think Disney strategy is this, someone at the Magic Kingdom realized this online thing is big and they want to be a major player and don't want to take the time to build it on their own.
Terrible analogy alert: Think of it like high school (because everything is like high school). Imagine you are the new kid in school and your goal is to be the most popular kid in school. You could throw a series of killer parties, join the football team, numerous clubs, wear really thin sweaters (this only works if you are a girl); or you could find the most popular person in school and buy them. (see the Patrick Dempsey classic "Can't Buy Me Love").
I don't think Disney is worried about making back its investment, they want position.
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Post by Milowent on Apr 16, 2014 12:26:56 GMT -5
I don't think Disney is worried about making back its investment, they want position. *Someday* they have to expect to make back their investment, otherwise it makes no sense. Oh yeah -- I realize that's not how US corporate executives think. If they can pump up Disney's stock price through questionable deals, executive will do so, because they'll get rewarded for it.
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Post by Mathieas on Apr 16, 2014 15:42:41 GMT -5
*Someday* they have to expect to make back their investment, otherwise it makes no sense. Oh yeah -- I realize that's not how US corporate executives think. If they can pump up Disney's stock price through questionable deals, executive will do so, because they'll get rewarded for it. See Yahoo's acquisition of Broadcast.com (the deal that made Mark Cuban a billionaire) for illustration. Cuban runs around (he's on Shark Tank now) acting like he is the greatest business man alive. The VC company that invested in his company also was heavily invested in Yahoo and worked out the acquisition to pump up Yahoo stock and their profits. They literally made money out of hype.
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Post by Immortal1 on Apr 19, 2014 17:23:21 GMT -5
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Post by Milowent on Apr 21, 2014 8:08:58 GMT -5
totally agree. i did briefly see something about the danny zappin lawsuit and it reminded me of all the "youtube drama" that has surrounding lisanova and zappin in the past. there was this huge campaign against zappin (a few years ago?) about how he was a "felon" -- basically he got caught using drugs 10 years ago. but the campaign was your typical youtube smearathon of "FELON FELON FELON" without context. but zappin played into the drama, so the fact that he brought a lawsuit to stop the sale didn't surprise me.
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Post by Milowent on May 1, 2014 9:14:28 GMT -5
saw this tweet:
"Top Disney exec Kevin Mayer explains the acquisition of @makerstudios: "We needed a big presence on YouTube." Previously had a 'minor' one"
but its not like buying Maker gives "Disney" a presence on youtube. you won't think of Maker's stars as "Disney" properties now. no collab videos with the Little Mermaid, I bet.
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Post by Mathieas on May 3, 2014 19:39:01 GMT -5
Does this Make Jenna Marbles a Disney princess?
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Post by Milowent on May 8, 2014 8:34:35 GMT -5
www.bloomberg.com/video/what-makes-maker-studios-worth-a-1-billion-dNOS_7_0T~KdIx_a5xHuXg.html"What Makes Maker Studios Worth $1 Billion?" (video of Erin McPherson on Bloomberg TV) (Erin = Chief Content Officer at Maker Studios, former Yahoo Video Chief hired in September 2013) Answer: NOTHING....maker is sitting at the convergence of new media and traditional media... ...something about morgan spurlock (the supersize me dude, come on....) ... ...we launched MakerTV this week ... (HINT: A VIDEO WEBSITE ...) --- BUT, apparently Disney/Maker just signed a big ad deal with Omnicom. venturebeat.com/2014/05/06/maker-studios-omnicom/Disney’s $500M bet on Maker Studios pays off: Omnicom signs eight-figure deal with the companyWhen Disney put up $500 million in cash plus an extra $450 million based on performance to buy online video-production company Maker Studios, many people were surprised and a bit confused. [and still are ...]But it looks like a much better deal now. Maker Studios has signed an eight-figure upfront deal with advertising agency Omnicom, according to Ad Age. [OK, eight figures, that's uhh uhh, probably $10 million. or 1% of 1 billion -- this is like saying the IceBreakers sours gum ad for Lonelygirl15 made lg15 profitable ...]Maker Studios runs a wide network of online channels, including a number on YouTube [and any not on youtube???], whose collective audience commands high ad dollars. [emphasis on the "collective" here.]A couple of months ago, Omnicom signed a $100 million upfront deal with Instagram after the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app had experimented with ads from a handful of brands, including Michael Kors, Levi’s, and General Electric. The deal came after Instagram introduced support for video, presumably because video still commands the highest engagement and monetization. That makes the Maker Studios deal attractive to both parties. One important element to today’s deal is that Omnicom’s clients will not only get to place ads on Maker Studios’ channels, [apart from youtube's ads???] but they will also get access to Maker Offers and Maker Labs. Maker Offers is a program through which YouTube stars create videos for brands and upload them to their own YouTube channels. [Wheee. Remember when Carl Jr's had a bunch of youtubers make videos, 5 years ago?] Maker Labs is, more or less, the network’s in-house agency. [When you can't understand what people are talking about, it usually means its bullshit, right?]“Labs are a new way of creating content with brands involved … . Our version with Omnicom is to shorten the timeframe of relevant content creation,” Maker Studios global sales head Jason Krebs told Ad Age. [So it sounds like brainstorming where you go from concept to video in like a day, or something?]This deal is also one of the largest ad deals for a YouTube network ever. Usually, companies like Maker Studios give up about 45 percent of their YouTube ad revenue to YouTube. However, they get to keep the money from product placements and branded content, making deals like this one very attractive. [Alright, this is all screwed up. YouTube gives the channel creators 55% of ad revenue. If a channel owner aligns with Maker, that 55% is split between Maker and the creator on whatever terms they have. But these ads are just additional ads being sold on top of the YouTube ads, of which Maker and the creator will also have some split. How many ads can videos support?]The report also points out that while Omnicom isn’t getting exclusive rights over Maker Studios, it is the first to ink such a deal. He expects the network to sign similar deals with other advertising and media agencies.
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Post by Immortal1 on Aug 8, 2014 11:56:49 GMT -5
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Post by Milowent on Aug 8, 2014 14:28:20 GMT -5
lol. "Here’s a statement from Maker: “Lisa and Ben have left the company. They will always be an important part of the Maker family [what? they left the family! maybe they are alums?]. We [the amorphous we] are forever grateful for their pioneering vision in founding the company five years ago that has since become the world’s leading provider of online video content for millennials. Lisa and Ben are among the most creative people we know and we wish them all the best.” "Earlier this week, Maker announced it had hired new managers who had worked at AOL and Yahoo." oh goody, AOL and Yahoo, full of creative groundbreakers, I am sure.
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Post by Immortal1 on Aug 8, 2014 14:32:04 GMT -5
I don't know how I'd feel as a creator with Maker who signed on with the Donavans pre-Disney. If there was an indie vibe left it's surely gone.
Next prediction they let creator contracts expire.
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Post by Mathieas on Aug 8, 2014 16:58:28 GMT -5
I have a feeling Disney will shunt the dead weight, about 90% of the people who signed up. Then they will slowly turn Maker into a content creator, turning out branded companion Disney product. Then they will change the name to Disney Web or Disney Interactive.
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