Mobile News Asia

As MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) ad execs begin meeting with marketers and media buyers for this year’s upfront, the Viacom unit is putting some finishing touches on reshaping its digital team. Later this morning, MTVN will announce that Suzanne McDonnell (image, left) will lead the Digital Fusion unit, while Heather Hopkins will add SVP of marketing and sales development to her existing role as GM of the Tribes vertical ad network. Both McDonnell and Hopkins will report to Kevin Arrix, who was promoted to EVP of Digital Advertising Sales just three months ago.

A nagging chicken-and-egg problem has held back advanced TV advertising, which promises richly interactive and highly targeted capabilities combined with the massive reach of television.

The Catch-22 is this: Big buyers want to reach a big audience. But the TV industry hasn’t had an incentive to invest in advanced capabilities because the ad dollars aren’t there. That, along with the technical challenges of standardizing the way those ads are delivered and measured, has fed a cycle of inertia preventing newer TV ad models from catching fire.

“You need scale in order to make this an actual business,” said Carolyn Everson, COO of MTV Networks’ U.S. ad-sales group. “The real trigger for the entire marketplace is obviously when it moves beyond trials in a few million homes to a national footprint.”

In 2010, three key areas will start to show critical momentum: interactive ads that let viewers request more information, coupons or product samples; video-on-demand ads that can be served on the fly; and wider availability and use of set-top box metrics for measuring TV viewing. More on Multichannel.

The discussion started by ContentNext’s Ernie Sander and FT.com’s Rob Grimshaw at paidContent 2010 continued with a panel of other digital media execs from traditional media companies—along with Google (NSDQ: GOOG) product manager Josh Cohen.

—Flavor of the month: CNN.com’s KC Estenson: “There are new revenue opportunities today that we didn’t see five years ago. It’s just matter of finding them, experimenting. We balance market conditions, consumer protection and privacy issues, which platforms to go on and when. It’s enough to make you not want to get out of bed in the morning. At CNN.com, we’ve tried to focus on what we do well. With mobile, we didn’t want to be first on iPhone or Android. We wanted to get it right. Not rushing to the flavor of the month takes discipline.”

Pali Capital’s Rich Greenfield opened the paidContent 2010 conference at the TimesCenter with a note of skepticism about the recent spate of media joint ventures, such as Hulu or the recently-launched YouTube music video channel Vevo. Moderator Quincy Smith, ex-CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS) exec now partner, Code Advisers, put the question to Rio Caraeff, president & CEO, of Vevo, who said, simply: “If we focus on what the fan wants, instead of the retailer, which has been the traditional focus of the music industry, we’ll be successful.”

—Canoe Venture’s David Verklin characterized the impetus of creating a JV as an attempt to satisfy the need for something “nimble, aggressive, adaptive,” while having the support of an existing infrastructure. Verkin: “The world is littered with failed JVs. We named our company Canoe because the only way you can get the six major cable companies to work together on a coast-to-coast venture is to get into the same boat. You don’t need 100 percent unanimity, but you do want to get to the same destination.”

—Time Inc. (NYSE: TWX) EVP John Squires, now Managing Director, of mag industry JV Next Issue Media, suggested that having a strong board that is able to provide clear direction from the outset is also a key to making sure a JV works.

After some effusive praise for CBS’ cost containment and ability to withstand the economic downturn, Sumner Redstone, executive chairman, CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS), handed the call over to Les Moonves, CEO and president. Before hanging up, Redstone repeated a line he gave when introducing the Viacom (NYSE: VIA) earnings call last week, saying that “Content is always king.” In his opening remarks, Moonves couldn’t resist celebrating the record-breaking Super Bowl viewership of 106.5 million. “In a socially fragmented universe, big events and TV viewership provides the biggest bang for the buck.”