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 by Chris Davison, davison@intellcap
Vivi Zigler is Executive Vice President, NBC Digital Entertainment and New Media, and her career has been truly multimedia, from radio to television to online to mobile. Vivi stands at the center of the transition from traditional media to new media, from the old and stable TV business model to the many new and unpredictably developing business models of tomorrow. I recently had a chance to sit down with Vivi to discuss YouTube, MyNBC, and the new frontier of the new frontier.
Q: Can you tell us about your background? what made you want to work in entertainment?
My background is extremely eclectic, the best part of my background is that it’s varied. I’ve done local stations, radio, on-camera, network and cable marketing, programming, sales, and now digital entertainment. This is a helpful background in particular for what I’m doing now, which is digital entertainment where I’m translating all of the traditional businesses into new businesses. As to entertainment per se, I started off literally wanting to be Woodward and Bernstein and thought I was going to change the world and I found out that in fact it wasn’t so easy to do, that maybe having fun, maybe presenting something to someone that made them have a good time or enjoy themselves or be relaxed or be informed was maybe as close as I was going to get, and was a lot more realistic goal.
Q: How are things coming along with NBC 2.0?
On the digital entertainment side, things are going really well. I think we have found our pace and our to-do list is at least as long now as it was a year ago. We are adding things as fast as we are crossing them off the list. Since as recently as a year and half ago, NBC.com has gone from a very flat site to a very deep site. We have a lot of video, games, blogs, and we’ve just launched our social networking, which is called MyNBC. It’s incorporated around all of our shows so it is gold-standard content with community around it. Since October we’ve already streamed over a third of a billion videos on our own branded website. We have short clips, previews, behind-the-scenes as well as our full length episodes. We’re doing well but I think we can always do better. One of the things about digital, and particularly the online space, is that the consumer rules. They get to say what they want. It’s their space and if we’re lucky we’ll be invited in. We’re regularly looking at our own message boards, doing focus groups, checking to see what they think, what they like, what they don’t like, and consequently, always updating. This year we won our first Broadband Emmy and our first Webbys, so that’s a lot of wonderful accolades for a site that feels truly only about a year old.
Q: How is your new media joint venture with News Corp different than YouTube?
I continue to be fascinated that people continue to ask the question. YouTube is user-generated whereas NewSite is focused on all the gold-standard content from NBC Universal and News Corp such as “Battlestar,” “Monk,” “Psych,” “Top Chef,” “The Office,” “Heroes,” it goes on and on. It’s video that’s the backbone of NewSite, not user-generated. It’s a very different kind of a play than YouTube - there’s a place for both NewSite and YouTube. Also it’s important to note that NewSite is a destination in and of itself as well as a very strong digital distribution deal.
Q: What prompted the change from NUTS to Universal Media Studios?
I think that question is probably best asked of Katherine Pope who is president of the studio, but I think that Katherine’s vision there was about making sure that the name is reflective of the world she lives in, that we’re all living in now. Television show content can exist on a WAP site, as a text message, online at NBC.com, on a cable, or VOD platform. It’s no longer only a single, linear television show that people watch when we put it up there. I think the name change simply signifies that the studio understands this world and is capable of being a player in the digital space as well as the traditional television studio which has served them so well. It makes all the sense in the world to me as a client of the studio on the network side. The studio has supplied us with some incredible shows such as the upcoming “Bionic Woman” which I think will be a terrific online property. We’re going to have a lot of fun with that one online.
Q: AMPTP and the WGA are at loggerheads over new media residuals, any suggestions?
I hope that whatever happens with the negotiations, we emerge with a framework that is flexible and allows these young and not-yet-developed media to get their legs. I’d hate to see us overburden digital media to the point that we can’t afford to experiment and invest, as this is critical to the future of the entertainment industry – to writers, directors, actors, producers, studios, and networks alike. I work in the digital side of the business right now and I could not begin to predict with any certainty what the world will look like in 3 years. The rate of change in the business is astronomical. We are always trying to keep pace with the change of technology and with the change in what the consumers want to do. Ultimately, my suggestion is to focus on keeping the business alive as it reinvents itself.
Q: What is NBC Universal doing in mobile?
Lots of stuff. Mobile is sort of the new frontier of the new frontier. Just this morning I gave a presentation with some stats about what we’re learning in particular about Gen Y and by far the one device they said they can’t live without is their cell phone. It beat TV and their laptop. That makes all the sense in the world because cell phone is now the same as all of the above. I have a phone right now that I can go push a button and watch live TV on it. This isn’t something that’s coming in a year or two years, it’s right now. The 18-to-34 year olds are absolutely going to eat that up. Portability is, and will be, a key component for consumers from now on. We’re busy – we need something that can go with us, wherever that might be. We are up and running with a number of full episode linear channels as well as some short form ones. We are investing in content and resources for mobile and trying to learn what works best, and as quickly as we can. We developed a number of WAP sites last season and intend to launch a number of them this fall with the goal being a WAP site for every show – so that’s a pretty strong push for us right now. We now look at all the digital content we create as something that has multiple platform destinations. Our distribution group, technology group, and sales group are now spending a great deal of time working in the mobile world.
Q: Can you tell us about SNL’s Backstage and its user-generated content component?
Marci Klein, who is a terrific creative force all by herself, has been doing a feature called Backstage and what she does is that she kind of walks around and shows people what the experience is. She gets some very funny insights from the host for that week: what it’s like to get prepped for the show, what’s it’s like during rehearsal, and what’s it’s really like backstage. The SNL backstage has a mystique to it. It’s sort of the ultimate cool club and has been for years and years and years. We’ve tried some user-generated where viewers can email questions and Marci will ask them of the host or ask them of the head prop guy, or ask them of the makeup person who makes them look like George Bush, or whoever it might be, so users are getting a chance to not only peek behind the curtain, but also to get their specific questions answered, their own mysteries solved. With MyNBC, which is in beta test to the public, users will be able to upload their own phone photos and Flash-based videos. Pick any show we have: Would you like to make the closing argument from “Law & Order” and upload the video? Shoot your own, upload it, and the fans will have a great time with it - all of that kind of thing you’ll be able to do.
Q: Any thoughts on the HRTS during its 60th Anniversary year?
It’s a great organization. My favorite is certainly the panels and there have been some great ones through the years. I particularly enjoy the Network Presidents and the Cable Chiefs. What a unique chance to hear them all speak. The fact that HRTS celebrates entertainment and works to illuminate the issues is very important right now. As an industry we certainly have some big challenges ahead. An organization that seeks to pull us together over – no pun intended – universal themes, the cost of programming…what skill sets do our leaders need these days…the future of the business…whether discussed in a panel or an online newsletter, raising the dialogue level is critical.
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