After just eight months in business, bicoastal Case Nydrle is breaking up, confirmed executive producer Carol Case, who cited "creative differences" with director Peter Nydrle as the reason for the split. Case Nydrle was backed financially by executive producer Bruce Mellon and feature film producer Neal Moritz, partners/owners of L.A.-based Original Film. Case said she remains a partner in Original and its hybrid music video/spot division, Holiday. At press time, SHOOT had not yet connected with Nydrle….Natalie Hill has become executive producer of the West Hollywood spot operation of multimedia company Tony K., which also maintains a London office. Hill was formerly with Strato Films, Los Angeles….Exec. producer Ron Hacohen, a mainstay at the Hollywood office of bicoastal HKM Productions, has left the company. Hacohen had been a staffer with HKM since 1990, when he was named head of production. He became exec. producer in ’96….A federal judge has reportedly overturned a $40 million jury award won by Children’s Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), Minneapolis, from Walt Disney Co. and ABC. In its St. Paul federal district court lawsuit, CBC contended that the Radio Disney children’s network was launched using CBC children’s radio network operational info and trade secrets, which were illegally accessed by Disney and ABC through ABC Radio, which had a business relationship with CBC. CBC recently shifted its core business from radio stations to spot and long-form production. In the commercial arena, CBC owns nearly 50% of Harmony Holdings, the publicly traded parent company to bicoastal/ international The End and bicoastal Curious Pictures. CBC also helped launch spot house Populuxe Pictures, New York, a couple of months ago (SHOOT, 11/13/98, p. 1). Despite the setback in its litigation against Disney and ABC, CBC is still a well-capitalized firm, having recently sold its radio-station holdings for around $71 million….
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 โ 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