AdAge interviews COO Wolf about MTV acquisition of Atom Entertainment and Google video syndication deal
Advertising Age - MediaWorks - MTV Wants to Be Marketers' On-Ramp to the Web
This Monday, MTV announced a video syndication deal with Google. Yesterday, it announced it would acquire online gaming and entertainment company Atom Entertainment, including two online video sites, AtomFilms.com and AddictingClips.com, and two casual gaming sites, Shockwave.com and AddictingGames.com. MediaWorks' Abbey Klaassen interviews MTV Networks Chief Operating Officer Michael Wolf about these acquisitions this week in AdAge.
Here are some exceprts:
Here are some exceprts:
Around the Google deal, it really is the first time where anybody in the content business can use video and create a new content economy on the internet by marrying a video to an advertisement and allowing smaller owners to place that on their sites. It promises to be a groundbreaking way for content to be distributed and monetized on the internet. We brought this idea to Google. Eric Schmidt and I negotiated the deal and it's the first of many [MTV will] be doing in the digital media space.
It's very complementary to iFilm because iFilm does not produce original content. It's more of an aggregator and promoter of content. Atom Films is a way of showcasing and providing for the discovery of new creators and producers. Online video content is going to be critical to our success in future -- having original video content is important for both users and advertisers. ... [As for using Atom Films as an incubator] we've already done that with iFilm through our "Web Junk" program. We see the same thing with Atom Films. It's a pipeline for creators to be able to work both on small and big screens.
