By SANDRA GARCIA
NEW YORK-The producing/ directing team of Bill Price and Chris Weinstein has been signed to head Division 6, the commercial production division of National Video Center.
Division 6, which is best known for producing TV promos and openers, had been a ship without a captain after director Glenn Lazzaro departed for New York-based cYclops productions back in October 1997 (Lazzaro is now with bicoastal X-Ray Productions.). Since then, Division 6 had been laying low, shopping around for staff directors. Now, with the addition of Price and Weinstein, Division 6 hopes to not only breathe some life back into its operation but also to grab the attention of Madison Ave.
Price and Weinstein had a five-year partnership as founders/owners of New York-based Withatwist Productions, a TV promo company whose recent projects included image campaigns for cable networks Cinemax and Speedvision. Since Price and Weistein’s departure, Withatwist has closed its doors.
Price began his career at MTV as on-air promotions coordinator. During an eight-year stay at Viacom, Price launched HA!, the cable comedy network that later merged with HBO’s Comedy Central. From there Price went on to become director of on-air promotions for Tribune Entertainment’s The Dennis Miller Show.
Weinstein met Price while working as an editor at MTV, where he had earned two Emmys for his work on MTV Sports. Weinstein’s editing style, which became synonymous with MTV’s look, also won him several Monitor Awards.
Since their initial collaboration, Price and Weinstein have served as producers, writers, directors, and editors, both together and separately. Their credits include promotional spots and campaigns for HBO, Showtime, ESPN, MTV, VH1, NBC, TV Guide, and Comedy Central. With their new venture, Price and Weinstein hope to re-invent Division 6 as a commercial production company while continuing to do network promo work.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More