Featured Company: Big Moving Pictures
Web Site: www.bigmovingpictures.com
Headquarters: Las Vegas
Year Founded: 2006
Founders: David Knight, CEO; Wayne Hammack, Advisory Board Member; & Bruce Macurda, CFO
Angel Investors: Brian McClendon (Google Earth), Mark Gibbs (Nielsen Netratings), Dave Weinstein (PayPal), Robert Lawton (NeXT Computer)
Employees: 23
By David Knight, CEO
Big Moving Pictures, or BMP, is the first digital out-of-home media company to bring a home-like television experience to outdoor audiences. BMP’s initial offering, the Rolling Television Network (RTN) has all of the elements that a home TV network does (cameras, directors, production team), but on wheels. The company has “prototyped” its production, operating and business models through its seed phase, including “performing” at twenty events nationwide, and is now moving into a full-scale rollout. We are now pursuing a $15 million institutional funding round to support rapid growth and achieve a “land grab” of the largest events in the U.S. and abroad.
BMP’s RTN solves a major problem for big-name advertisers: how do they know if the public is actually watching their commercials? There are three, somewhat insidious, and impossible to control technologically-based competitors for consumers’ attention: (1) TiVo and other DVR-devices, in many cases embedded within cable and satellite boxes; (2) hundreds of channels available at the flick of the thumb; and (3) perhaps the most disruptive of all, wi-fi—which means that even the lauded Nielsen householders do not have to change the channel during commercial breaks (thus the Nielsen tracking box thinks that the people there are actually watching Desperate Housewives on ABC), they just shift their attention to their laptop, which is now conveniently mobile throughout the home. RTN comes as a timely solution by literally bringing the television experience, and its revenue source—commercials—to where the audiences are gathered and most receptive. Above all, the integration of RTN with very well-attended, popular events virtually guarantees that the audience is watching the content, and paying attention.
During its prototyping period, BMP has developed, tuned and empirically proven its ability to grab and hold the attention of millions of consumers, at gigantic events across the United States. To date, the events have been mostly aviation-oriented, including air shows featuring the United States Navy Blue Angels, and United States Air Force Thunderbirds. The reception by both the performers and crowds has been tremendous, and we have “broken the code” on how to inject TV commercials into what were previously non-media-oriented events. As RTN is expanded to appear at open-wheel motor races, major music festivals and other large-crowd, multi-day events, and internationally, BMP’s revenues are projected to grow exponentially.
Founder’s Story
I am a serial entrepreneur with a passion, and business sense for, the media and communications marketplaces. From a very early age (I was the youngest disk jockey in America at the age of 12), I was captivated by the power of media to engage and motivate the public on a large scale. I worked in a range of industries, from the music recording arena to high-tech defense, and throughout was always pursuing opportunities that placed me at the leading edge of technology and technology adoption. Notably, I participated in the production of the first music CDs ever created, worked on microprocessor-controlled industrial and military systems in that concept’s infancy and eventually developed what became the highest-volume file transfer network on the web (click2send.com, eventually dissolved in the dot-com meltdown). Post-bubble, I took senior positions with a variety of companies in order to perform the triage needed to save them from the meltdown. Of the seven companies I worked with, only one was lost—the remainder were reconstituted, refinanced or sold.
It was during the post-bubble reconstruction period that I came upon the XPRIZE—a $10 million prize being offered to any private group who could successfully create and operate a suborbital spacecraft. I joined in the non-profit effort as vice president and suddenly found myself immersed fully in the world of next-generation aerospace. This was a thrill and a constant challenge, and a real departure from the cubicle world of software and Internet startups. At the final launch of the winning SpaceShip One, developed by legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan, a camera was mounted onboard that would allow viewers worldwide to witness this history-making spaceflight. I was convinced that there must be a video display technology that would allow watchers on the ground to see the video stream against the blinding Mojave Desert sunlight—I found that Moore’s Law, which was formulated to describe the progression of microprocessor technology, in some form fit with display handling as well—thus over a period of years, big-format, outdoor-capable video systems had been quietly chugging along, morphing into ever-more-powerful displays. I got my hands on a prototype of a very, very bright outdoor television unit to bring the live event to the thousands of people assembled in Mojave to watch it.
Having determined that display technology had indeed advanced to the point where it could be used not only as a credible event-magnification format, but potentially as a next-generation television advertising medium, I began to pursue research into where the advertising industry was going, where it would go if something along the lines of RTN came into being. I gathered a stellar board of advisors, angel investors and others to move Big Moving Pictures from concept to a full-fledged reality—where it is today.
Business Model
Big Moving Pictures’ revenue comes from the running of television commercials, typically in the gaps that naturally occur in major events. The most difficult achievement has not been the overall production, technology or presentation (all had their own difficulties but are solved), it’s the expansion of the “gaps” into actual fixed times wherein RTN content and advertisements can be run. This requires the cooperation of many constituencies including the performers, promoters, schedulers, even safety officials. All have to allow RTN to, in essence, open a gap in the day (say, an air show) where RTN-produced content (say, a 90-second clip introducing one of the Blue Angel pilots) can be run, accompanied by commercials from national advertisers. The audience finds this very comfortable since it approximates their experience in television-watching at home, and the event promoter gets a piece of the revenue in exchange for this “virtual real estate”—so everyone is happy. Commercial time is sold in 30-second increments, just like broadcast TV, and per-viewer rates are approximately the same as prime-time, high-end cable like Discovery Channel.
Current Needs
BMP is now deploying over twenty salespeople nationwide to introduce RTN to big-name advertisers (these are national brands), to entice some of their TV advertising money over to this modern, closed-loop medium. As the company expands into many events and event-types around the world, revenues are expected to place it into the big leagues within a short few years. For this “land grab” to continue, the company is assembling an institutional-class funding round during the latter part of this year.
Long considered a “serial entrepreneur,” David Knight has founded or participated in the buildup of numerous startup companies in the high-tech and consumer media industries. From his first paying job as the youngest disk jockey in America, through to his current development of the world’s first rolling television network (Big Moving Pictures), he has always operated at the leading edge of the customer experience and technology.
