News & Opinion

Only O'Dwyer's ranks PR firms by 19 specialties. The firms on this list have broken out their net fees for accounts classified as entertainment PR.   See complete list here.   See all Bob Gold & Associates awards & highlights here.

  The MESA-championed LMT Provides the First-Ever System of Standardized Language Codes Embraced by the Media and Entertainment Industry   The Society of Motion and Television Engineers (SMPTE), the leading standards governing body for media & entertainment engineering, today announced it has joined with the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA), a leading community of media technology executives, to co-develop the Language Metadata Table (LMT) standard. This is the first project that SMPTE has undertaken to electronically publish machine-readable metadata as a standard that is expected to be used operationally rather than by application developers. It is expected to significantly streamline media asset management around the globe.   Conceived by WarnerMedia, MESA supports the LMT Working Group as one of its communities of practice. LMT, based on IETF BCP 47 (Internet Engineering Task Force Best Common Practices) guidelines, is the first list of language codes vetted and approved as an industry standard for media and entertainment. It greatly benefits media companies, content owners, video service providers, and others who need standardized distinctions between spoken and written language and consistent codes. Other international standards bodies have created controlled vocabularies; however, they are broadly used, for many purposes. The constraints of the LMT provide a controlled vocabulary for what is needed in the professional media industry.   LMT codes will be used for a plethora of content-oriented applications, such as audio, written and timed text like closed captions and subtitles, accessibility for the visually and hearing impaired, licensing and localizing international content and distributing non-English content.   “Having an authorized system of consistent codes reduces the Tower of Babel and simplifies development work by enabling all parties to work off the same table,” said Yonah Levenson, Manager, Metadata Strategy and Terminology Governance at WarnerMedia and founder for LMT. “SMPTE’s publication of LMT will help everyone manage their media assets by removing cumbersome processes like maintaining mapping tables and having different payloads for different distributors.”   The MESA-organized LMT work group committee of data experts are helping to share and expand the standards table, and have created universally accepted language terms, definitions, examples and templates for over 200 language codes and display values, with more in development. These members include HBO, Turner, Warner Bros, Disney, WWE, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Showtime, Lionsgate, Fox, and other organizations.   “We have long regarded the LMT as a critical tool for the future of media and are excited to see it join the ranks of SMPTE’s foremost industry standards,” said Mary Yurkovic, Smart Content Community Builder at MESA. “This brings together the hard work of MESA members, standards groups and top metadata experts, who are tackling all the industry’s nomenclature one classification at a time.”   LMT will be published in SMPTE’s Registration Authority (smpte-ra.org), a highly sanctioned and publicly accessible database with registers of metadata elements, unique identifiers, values and more for the media and entertainment industry.   To ensure the LMT registry keeps evolving, SMPTE will use its public committee draft (public CD) process, which provides open documents that are distributed for review and commented on by industry professionals prior to completion of the full standardization due-process. The LMT programming tools will also be available as opensource code to developers worldwide, and as with any registry SMPTE maintains, the LMT entry will facilitate interoperability.   “SMPTE’s work on LMT is a crucial step in addressing the broad challenges and complexities around sharing data and content in the media and entertainment industry. We are grateful to MESA for choosing SMPTE as a home for this standard,” said Bruce Devlin, VP of SMPTE standards. “Anyone involved in international distribution will greatly improve their media asset management workflows thanks to the new standardized language codes this introduces.”   Aided by MESA, the work group will continue within the rules of SMPTE’s due process to further define and document its policies and procedures, update additional languages and partner with organizations including EIDR, ISDCF, and MovieLabs to strengthen LMT and support broader adoption.   For more information, please visit https://www.mesalliance.org/language-metadata-table   About SMPTE® The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers®, or SMPTE, is defining the future of storytelling. The Society’s mission is to enable the technical framework that allows the global professional community to make media for artistic, educational, and entertainment purposes and to distribute that content for the benefit and enjoyment of people worldwide. As a global volunteer-driven society of technologists, developers, and creatives, SMPTE is engaged in driving the quality and evolution of motion pictures, television, and professional media. The Society sets industry standards that help businesses maximize their markets more cost-effectively, provides relevant education that supports members’ career growth, and fosters an engaged and diverse membership community.   Information on joining SMPTE is available at smpte.org/join.   About MESA Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) advances new technologies that are enabling the digital transformation of media & entertainment. Focused on three core M&E technologies: data, IT and security, MESA’s 120+ members and content advisors collaborate to advance change management, new workflow solutions and production/supply chain efficiencies. Founded in 2008, MESA’s Content Advisors direct an annual event schedule of over 25 meetings, conferences and summits. MESA creates and curates content for 10 weekly newsletters and their M&E Journal that is published bi-annually. For information visit: www.MESAlliance.org.

O'Dwyer's has connected companies with the best PR firms in the industry since 1968. We have ranked over 100 of the top PR firms in the U.S.   See complete list here. See all Bob Gold & Associates awards & highlights here.

VideoCoin Network, bringing disruptive innovation through decentralization to video processing, is starting its next chapter following delivery of its commercial release after years of intense development. It is now making major investments into significant multi-pronged partnership, marketing, and advertising initiatives. This includes selecting Bob Gold & Associates as its public relations agency of record.   “VideoCoin Network is now engaging enterprise-grade companies with its pioneering utilization of unused compute resources for business purposes, and in doing so is serving as a major industry ambassador to validate the blockchain-orchestrated model of decentralization,” said Bob Gold, President & CEO, Bob Gold & Associates. “We are thrilled to help VideoCoin Network on two fronts: first, to engage with large and established media and technology companies on proof-of-concept initiatives to develop confidence in the solution and its model. And second, to support marketing and advertising via traditional PR and as one of the first companies in their category to utilize Google AdWords to unearth video service developers and smaller customers who can develop into larger customers.”   “In surveying the landscape for innovation in video platform services, we determined that the VideoCoin Network was employing a revolutionary approach to this massive market with a solution that’s ready to go to market. In fact, it’s the only blockchain business we could find that is using AdWords, which confirmed to us that unlike most projects, VideoCoin Network is serious about engaging real customers and building a real company. This made our wanting to secure the account an easy decision,” Gold added.   Led by famed entrepreneur Halsey Minor, the VideoCoin Network is next-generation innovative infrastructure for the encoding, storage, and distribution of video that powers video services for end users globally. The business competes with centralized providers like AWS but takes advantage of the immense, efficient, and inexpensive power of unused computing capacity available around the world. With Bob Gold & Associates as its PR agency of record to support its partnership, marketing, and advertising efforts, the VideoCoin Network is poised to dramatically expand its visibility and industry engagement.   “It takes time for big companies already doing things one way to risk a new vendor doing things another way even if the new way is better. When we started salesforce.com virtually no companies were willing to risk uploading customer data into a website. We needed to prove we were reliable, innovative and cheaper. It was very hard work, but today Salesforce.com is a $175 billion company. Today is just the same. I  now know the better model always succeeds,” said Halsey Minor, CEO of Live Planet, implementation partner for the VideoCoin Network. “Bob Gold and his team are highly experienced and well known in the video tech industry, and we are counting on them to help tell a great story about the VideoCoin Network and its technology.”   The VideoCoin Network launched commercially in May 2020, following a series of new product features and enhancements. This includes the recent launch of VideoCoin Network’s “Innovators Program” and participation by iNDEMAND, which distributes premium VOD & PPV entertainment to more than 150 North American TV operators and 55 million homes.  

O'Dwyer's is the leading source for news on PR agencies, public relations, and marketing communications. We publish our news in a weekly newsletter and a monthly magazine that focuses on a specific specialty or industry trend.   O'Dwyer's has been conducting its PR firm rankings for 50 years.    See complete list here. See all Bob Gold & Associates awards & highlights here.

Originally published on TRANSMITWelcome to the age of mass disruption, where every industry, especially media and entertainment, is experiencing rapid changes in their business models, technologies and production workflows. Driving this supercharged, superfast evolution is data. And for me, data equals noise as well as insights.   For example, we did general consumer audience research about a streaming feature. Guess what? Nearly 40% of the respondents told us they don’t use a streaming service. But later told us they used Netflix. Oh.   So it’s not just my brain that’s in data overload. I know, I know — its life. And while no one ever said life would be easy, the truth is it seems like it’s never been tougher for company messages to be heard above the noise.   Data has always been around us, between us, connecting us. But we haven’t done a great job of monitoring and gathering data until this era. Domo, for example, who previously claimed 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated a day in 2017, now predict that, by 2020, it’s estimated that for every person on earth, 1.7 MB of data will be created every second.   So the real question, IMHO, is not what to do with the data, but how any executive in our space can break through the clutter of it all to tell a meaningful story about how their company leverages technology to unlock opportunities.   In our information-saturated age, business leaders “won’t be heard unless they’re telling stories,” says Nick Morgan, author of Power Cues. Here’s the kicker: It’s more than just a story, if it’s told as a personal experience. That’s why case studies are so powerful.   One year, we pitched an interview with an executive who had no news, but had some strong opinions about the streaming space. He predicted that Netflix would change its model and introduce downloading. A trade reporter and a business reporter snapped at the opportunity to talk to our executive. Best of all, their stories appeared within hours of each other, and that helped take the story global – we had over 10 million views!   Noise.   I know that most CEOs I speak with tell me their growth strategy is comprised of creating a better technology. For them, technology holds the key to unlocking a competitive advantage that will elevate the company to the next level.   Maybe.   An explanation of how your product solves a particular problem doesn’t always make for an engaging presentation. But a story that tells a specific audience why they should care about having this problem solved can capture their hearts and minds.   The human condition is ultimately the most powerful part of any storytelling. I believe the real question is how anyone’s software, services and solutions can be made to stand out and become a truly recognized brand in a highly competitive industry. I’m willing to bet that almost all the readers of Transmit do not work for a monopoly. So how do you make your data and analytics story compelling?   Following are some tips that I believe, if used, will help propel your business forward.   Bob Gold’s 5 Rules To Improve Your Storytelling   Strive to tell your story better, bolder and in a more compelling way. Here’s a short list of the five most basic rules of marketable storytelling: 1. Be able to tell your story ...in the time it takes to ride an elevator. Writers are always looking for good stories…they just don’t have a lot of time. Ask yourself, “How can I boil it down to a compelling single statement?” If you are trying to convince senior leaders to take a risk by supporting your project, convey that most companies are built on taking smart chances. First settle on your ultimate message; then you can figure out the best way to illustrate it. 2. Be direct and straightforward. Get to the heart of why your story matters. Sometimes a simple, one-page fact sheet helps. 3. Try to get beyond the buzzwords. Can you explain what new capabilities are truly unique to you and how they help people do their jobs better or improve quality of the project? 4. Highlight a struggle. A story needs conflict. Is there a competitor that needs to be bested? A market challenge that needs to be overcome? A change-resistant industry that needs to be transformed? Don’t be afraid to suggest the road ahead will be difficult. There may be a tendency not to want to share personal details at work, but anecdotes that illustrate struggle, failure and barriers overcome are what make leaders appear authentic and accessible. Showing your vulnerabilities and humanizing the topic will get more attention. People actually like to be told it’s going to be hard. Smart leaders tell employees, “This is going to be tough. But if we all pull together, we’ll achieve something amazing.” A well-crafted story embedded with that kind of a rallying cry encourages the intended audience to be partners in change, because they want to be part of the journey. 5. A picture is worth more than 1,000 words Graphics, photos, and video are great additions that can enhance any story. They help to quickly summarize or illustrate the issue. If you have stats or historical data to support the story, include them. Be creative and be strategic. Know who your audience is. Storytelling doesn’t have to be a 1,000-word byline or whitepaper. Use video vignettes, a Q&A or an illustration. A quick video interview with people close to the project or initiative is easy to digest and eminently watchable.   When I started in the PR biz – before mobile phones, Internet, 500+ channels on TV and 200 OTT services – UCLA did a study to find out just how many “calls to action” each consumer received in a day. You know a call to action is “turn the dial,” “buy this product,” “watch this show,” “go to this theme park.” Got a number in your mind? What is it? Remember, there was radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, billboards, bus shelters. A lot of places where folks were being asked to do something.   Ok, here’s the answer: 1,500.   Sounds like a lot right? But today we have email, text, apps, online sites, and so much more that we are bombarded with messages everywhere in our lives. And that is NOT counting the cacophony of news of disasters and paranoia created by daily coverage of the goings-on globally. Today it’s exponentially noisier. It’s greater disruption. This is a very, very noisy environment where you must figure out how to grab the attention of the select few executives whose decision could help your company soar. No one makes decisions in a vacuum. That means that executives who are not directly involved in selecting your company are affecting the decision of which company to hire.   Without disruption we wouldn’t have great stories. Of victims, winners and change agents. I have fallen in love with living in disruption because it creates new opportunities to tell more stories. And these stories at the end of the day, really do count. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: Entertainment Technology is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.

New Program to Provide Opportunity and Connect the Music Industry thru Education, Access and Resources with Emerging Black Artists and Vanguard Leaders Dead Prez, Darien Bankhead (Boyband), Laze Elliott, Attorney Kendall Minter and Others to Serve as Advisory Council Members The Royalty Network, one of the country’s most esteemed independent music publishing companies representing over 700,000 compositions, today launched the Black Empowerment Thru Music initiative, a new program focused on empowering Black communities by connecting emerging musicians, producers and songwriters with leaders across all aspects of the music industry.   The Royalty Network is pledging to undertake a multi-faceted and proactive effort to help aspiring young black artists, songwriters, and entrepreneurs, establish successful careers in the music industry, and is inviting professional and established musicians, artists, attorneys, songwriters and others to do the same. The activities range from free Los Angeles studio time to financial support for designated organizations, matching grants, donation of instruments to schools, mentoring and much more.   “We, at the Royalty Network, hope to create a sustainable program to empower future generations of musicians and business leaders, while fostering inclusivity throughout the music industry and communities around the world,” said Frank Liwall, president of The Royalty Network. “For more than 26 years, we’ve held an unwavering commitment to racial equality and are ready to do our part to turn words – and music – into action. Together we can provide a leveled playing field for the Black community.”   Industry leaders have stepped up to serve on the Black Empowerment Thru Music Advisory Council. They include artists stic & M-1 (dead prez), producer Darien Bankhead (Boyband), entrepreneur and music executive Laze Elliott, renowned entertainment attorney Kendall Minter, Harmony Program founder & executive director Anne Fitzgibbon, and others.     “Black people’s contributions have long been exploited for the benefit and success of the music business, but yet we often are the least and the last to benefit in the music business,” said stic of dead prez. “It's important that The Royalty Network’s Black Empowerment Thru Music Initiative not only recognize this important truth but also do its part to address and impact the inequities that still exist.”   “As a community organizer and artivist, I am happy to be included on the Advisory Council for The Royalty Network Black Empowerment Thru Music Initiative,” added Mutulu “M-1” Olugbala of dead prez. “It is important to me that we use this platform to take practical steps that are also impactful.  I intend to facilitate change by connecting emerging Black artists with songwriters and producers who can help them find their inner strength and calm and ultimately a clear and resonant voice for our community.”    The Royalty Network pledge includes:   Establishing new relationships with, and continuing to support organizations that provide Black students with free music education Donating musical instruments to schools and music programs serving underprivileged communities Providing webinars, as well as one-on-one mentorship and access to industry veterans for students and aspiring professionals entering the music industry Dedicating time each month for Black student artists to have free recording studio access at The Royalty Network’s Burbank studio Designate a quarterly “match” period, matching dollar for dollar the overall monetary contributions of its clients and contribute to a designated program in need Prioritize Black student candidates for paid internships Actively recruit qualified Black candidates for full-time positions   "To make the changes we'd like to see in the world, we simply have to act on them ourselves,” said Darien Bankhead (Boyband). “Frank and The Royalty Network recognize the equality issues for the Black community and I'm happy to aid them in their efforts in extending opportunities to us. It's important that we stay active in efforts to assure that traits such as race don't continue hindering Black artists' success."   Civil rights and legal advocacy groups benefiting from The Royalty Network generosity include Black Lives Matter, the Mass Defense Fund of the National Lawyers Guild and the NAACP Empowerment Program.   Additionally, The Royalty Network will continue to support programs including After School Rocks, Harmony Program, and others through donations, scholarships and volunteering time to work hands-on with students.   “Frank Liwall is the very definition of integrity. I’m confident that, like everything Frank sets out to do, this Black Empowerment Thru Music Initiative will succeed and be a model for empowering the music community to build a world free of racial inequality,” said Daniel Powers, Founder, After School Rocks. “Frank and I both know that the secret of living is giving, and I’m honored to join with The Royalty Network in building awareness and supporting Frank’s efforts to work for lasting change.”   For more information about the Black Empowerment Thru Music initiative and to volunteer, please visit https://blackempowerment.roynet.com/. About The Royalty Network, Inc. The Royalty Network is one of the country’s most esteemed independent music publishing companies representing over 700,000 compositions. The company has been increasing its client roster dramatically from year to year, boasting a perpetually growing catalog of some of the most prolific songwriters, producers and artists across a multitude of genres. This includes a hit parade on albums from the likes of Beyoncé, Lil Wayne, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, Burt Bacharach, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Eminem, and many others, and film, TV, and ad placements such as Target, BMW, Chevrolet, Gillette, "Black Panther", "Creed 2", “The Fate of The Furious", "American Idol", "Dancing With The Stars", and many more.

LOOKING FOR TOP PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRMS IN LOS ANGELES? Bob Gold & Associates is ranked #4 in Los Angeles.   A strong PR firm will help you build relationships with the public that advance and promote your company. If you’re looking to improve the overall image of your business and cultivate a professional and beneficial relationship with the media, hiring a PR firm is essential.   Learn more about Bob Gold & Associates PR service offerings here.   See Manifest’s Top 20 PR Consultants listing here.  

Smart Home Services pioneer, Plume was just announced as a finalist in Light Reading's Leading Lights 2020 Awards in the following two categories: Most Innovative IoT/M2M Strategy: Awarded to the communications service provider, systems integrator or technology developer that has unveiled the most innovative Internet of Things/Machine to Machine (IoT/M2M) strategy during the past year. Most Innovative Security Strategy: Awarded to the communications service provider, systems integrator or technology developer that has unveiled the most innovative security strategy during the past year.   The annual shortlist acknowledges more than 75 companies across 21 categories for the innovation and continued evolution within the global communications industry.   Visit Plume on the web discover.plume.com, plume.com & opensync.io.   Follow Plume on LinkedIn & Twitter.