Television Future

Louis C.K.'s Online Download Starts a Comedian Revolution

By Daniel Lehman

For several years, comedian Louis C.K. has earned acclaim not only for his hilarious stand-up sets but also as the creator, writer, director, and star of the FX series "Louie." Now he's earning acclaim for a new business model after offering his latest stand-up film, "Live at the Beacon Theater," for purchase as an unprotected download on his website for $5 in December. He produced and directed it himself, bypassing traditional theatrical, DVD, or television distribution and forgoing any up-front payment or funding in exchange for complete creative control. C.K. earned more than $1.1 million from online sales, donating a large portion of his profits to charity.

Three months later, Aziz Ansari ("Parks and Recreation") surprised fans when he released his new stand-up special, "Dangerously Delicious," on his website for $5. "It seemed like the smartest way to deliver it," the 29-year-old comedian told the Associated Press, adding, "In this era, the way people consume media, the way people release media has not caught up."

Jim Gaffigan announced in February that he planned to do the same, for the same price.

"Inspired by the brilliant Louis C.K., I have decided to debut my all-new hour stand-up special on my website," Gaffigan wrote on his site. "I know I am taking a risk here.... However, I am incredibly motivated by the courage of Louie to offer his fans direct access for a low price. Buyers of my special can be assured that their money will go directly to feeding and raising my four children instead of a giant corporation."

"Jim Gaffigan: Mr. Universe," taped Feb. 25 in Washington, D.C., will be available as an exclusive digital download on the comedian's website beginning April 11 for $5 per download. Gaffigan has promised to donate $1 from each sale to the Bob Woodruff Foundation, a charity dedicated to serving injured veterans and their families.

Gaffigan's manager, Alex Murray, told Back Stage that the plan had always been to distribute Gaffigan's upcoming special digitally, with an online content provider such as Hulu, Netflix, or YouTube. But C.K. showed them how simple it could be to go it alone. "We were trying to re-create an old business using new digital partners," Murray said. "And what Louis was doing was just giving his special to his audience for five bucks."

With Ansari and Gaffigan climbing on board, C.K.'s DIY experiment has become a daring model for direct distribution. These comics are speaking to their fans as individual artists rather than part of a network or studio's publicity machine, making their audience feel like participants in the process. The strategy is a hot topic in the comedy community, and Murray predicts that more comedians will be following the leader soon.

At least some of Ansari's "Parks and Recreation" fans and 1.8 million Twitter followers may be expected to follow him online, where "Dangerously Delicious" has been available for download since March 20. He is also using the special, which was recorded last summer, to promote his upcoming stand-up tour, called "Buried Alive." As of press time, Ansari's publicist declined to comment on total sales or number of downloads of "Dangerously Delicious."

 "Aziz is a great comic with a big following," Murray said, "and if he can afford to take that risk, I think it's worth taking at this moment in time."

But to find that following, comedians may need to rely on traditional media a little longer. Comics who distribute their specials on Comedy Central or HBO, with the marketing power of that network behind them, are still more likely to reach new, broader audiences that will follow them in the future. Chris Hardwick, a popular stand-up who hosts the Nerdist podcast and is also a client of Murray's, recently taped a stand-up special that will air on Comedy Central later in the year.

"We have our personal goals and expectations, but we don't know if it's going to work," Murray said of Gaffigan's gamble. "We feel confident that he'll certainly cover his costs and break even at the very least, and hopefully do much better. He's at a point in his career where he can take that risk. But I think there's really only a handful of people that could do this type of thing."

For TV, The 
Future Will Be Relevant

Hulu's Kilar expects more personalization

By Jon Lafayette, Broadcasting & Cable

The head of Hulu took to the stage at the annual meeting of the American Association of Advertising Agencies to describe the future of television, a medium that currently attracts the lion's share of ad dollars.

Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, the streaming service owned in part by News Corp., Disney and Comcast, said the future of TV will be personalized, the way the online radio service Pandora takes a listener's favorite song and finds other he should like. "The notion of of turning on the TV and not getting something you want is a travesty," he said.

Another aspect the future of TV will provide the viewer with will be a comprehensive selection of premium video. It will also be social to its core. "Weather and TV are the things people talk about," Kilar said. "With digital we and other services out to be able to make the social TV experience come alive."

TV will be "crazy convenient," he added, saying the need to go to a particular room to watch is "going to be the kind of things our grandkids laugh about."

And while today content largely comes in short clips or 22-minute episodes, "you're going to see new formats" and a tremendous amount of experimentation.

For marketers, the changes in television will mean "more relevant, higher value advertising."

In addition to working to make the TV experience better for viewers, Hulu has been working on improving TV for advertisers by avoiding showing shampoo ads to bald people or diaper spots to households with no children. Those efforts helped Hulu reach more than $400 million in revenue last year, and Kilar says growth is accelerating from last year's pace.

When it launched, Hulu provided an on-screen button that asked viewers whether or not the ad they were seeing was relevant to them. If they said no, that category was suppressed for that viewer.

More recently Hulu set up Ad Swap, which let viewers get rid of an ad they don't want to see and choose a replacement. The unwanted advertiser doesn't get charged and recall is enormous for the ad selected by the viewer.

Thanks to the on-demand nature of Hulu and its advertising innovations, brand recall for spots on Hulu is 51%, compared to 30% on broadcast and 23% on cable and ad message recall is 43% on Hulu, versus 24% on broadcast and 17% on cable, Kilar said.

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Hulu's Jason Kilar 'Thinks Different' about television

By Dawn C. Chmielewski, LA Times

Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar chose the advertising agency's conference in Los Angeles to do his own riff on Apple Inc.'s "Think Different" campaign.

Instead of saluting "The Crazy Ones" from the memorable TBWA/Chiat/Day ad campaign from 1997 that heralded the rebirth of Apple -- and featured some seminal figures of the 20th century, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi and Albert Einstein -- Kilar offered his own pantheon of innovators.

Kilar saluted those who strove to do better -- including Walt Disney, who conceived of the idea for Disneyland while sitting on a park bench in Griffith Park, watching his daughters ride a merry-go-round; James Dyson, who invented the bagless vacuum cleaner (and brought a sense of industrial design to the bland household appliance), and Steve Jobs, whose iPhone relegated the rotary dial phones to museum pieces.

"I can think of no bigger inspirations for looking at the world around you and looking for a better way," said Kilar, speaking Wednesday at the American Assn. of Advertising Agencies conference at the Beverly Hilton hotel.

Hulu, said Kilar, strives to bring the same relentless innovation to television. "If we're really on our game people will look back on it and will say, "Wow, I can't believe TV was like that in 2007."

The online television service, which is jointly owned by media giants News Corp., Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal, as well as Providence Equity Partners, brought in $420 million in revenue last year. The site, which features television shows from the current season, attracted some 37.7 million viewers last month.

Kilar articulated his oft-repeated vision for the future of television, saying it will become more personalized (the way Internet radio service Pandora delivers music tailored to a listener's taste) and social.

"TV is one of the most social mediums.... The things people talk about most are the weather and television," Kilar said. "With digital, we should be able to encourage social to the core. It's going to be a big, big deal."

Kilar also highlighted some of Hulu's attempts to re-imagine advertising, including allowing the viewer to choose which ad they'd like to watch, or to skip commercials they don't find relevant. Such efforts increase the viewer's ability to remember the promotions they've watched, Kilar said. "The recall goes through the roof because they're mentally engaged with the ad."