The Digital Hollywood Experience

Watch Videos From Digital Hollywood

"The Conference that Defines the Future of the Industry"

PDF of Summit Program

Thursday, March 5th, 2015

2:15 PM - 3:30 PM

Session B:  Prague Room A, 3rd Floor - Live Webcast

Programming the New ‘OVN’s' (Online Video Networks: the Next Generation of Niche Video Content

Brian Bedol, founder & CEO, Bedrocket

Oren Katzeff, Head of Programming, Tastemade

J.R. McCabe, SVP, Video, Time Inc.

Stephanie Horbaczewski, CEO, Stylehaul

Matt Farber, Digital Media Executive/Entrepreneur, Moderator

Matt Farber is an audience driven digital video executive with a proven track record of developing audience and partnership models around emerging technologies. Farber currently consults digital media companies on audience strategy. Current and recent clients include Livestream, WE tv (AMC Networks), Yahoo, Big Frame, Dailymotion, and Zeebox.  Recently, Farber ran DoubleBounce, a digital video content company that works with proven lifestyle television production companies to create premium, short-form content. In 2012, the company merged with leading brand integration agency Bark Bark.  Matt continues to operate Wilderness Media & Entertainment, a collection of assets targeting a “gay-ish” demographic. Through Wilderness, Farber founded the Logo cable network, selling it to Viacom and

spearheaded programming and business development leading to its launch in 2005. He then expanded into radio, music, and online creating Twist, a syndicated radio show acquired by Clear Channel in 2007; starting an imprint label with Sony Music; and partnering with Community Connect (now Interactive One) to create a social network for the LGBT audience. In 2013, he launched Gwist, a YouTube  channel funded in part by Google Labs.  Farber has held a number of executive roles in digital media and television. He spent a decade at MTV starting out in television programming, ultimately becoming MTV’s first digital chief building a $40M business leading all online and convergent content initiatives. He also served as General Manager of MTV2 where he developed a local and digital strategy to grow distribution, and created the first 360-degree programming initiatives. Farber left MTV to become CEO of digital music creation and discovery platform Tonos, where he raised $17M in funding from Softbank and Sequoia. Most recently, Farber was Executive Vice President, Programming for Fuse, overseeing content across all platforms for the cable network  Farber graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Wharton School.

Oren Katzeff, Vice President and General Manager, Demand Media Entertainment: where he runs the day-to-day operations of Cracked.com and Mania.com. His responsibilities include overseeing the creation of high quality, intelligent text and video content, and identifying, evaluating and structuring content monetization and distribution opportunities. Prior to joining Demand Media, Oren was Senior Director of Business Development for the Yahoo Media Group, where his primary focus was negotiating all business deals for Yahoo News and Yahoo Finance. Within this role, Oren negotiated and managed over fifty key partnerships, including those with The Associated Press, Reuters, ABCNews, FOX, USAToday, The Weather Channel, CNN, Gawker, Huffington Post, and many others. Prior to joining Yahoo, Oren practiced law at a small firm in San Mateo, California, gaining experience in both the litigation and business transactions side of the profession. Although he no longer practices law, it still makes him smile when his grandmother proudly tells her friends that her "grandson is a lawyer". Oren holds an undergraduate business degree from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and a JD from Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. He has written over ten short screenplays, seven of which were filmed and submitted in film competitions (a few of them were award winning), and sometimes feels the itch to give stand-up comedy one last try.

Stephanie Horbaczewski is the co-founder, president and CEO of StyleHaul, the leading multi-platform marketing solution for global fashion and beauty brands with scale. The StyleHaul network on YouTube has more than 199 million network subscribers and attracts more than 60 million monthly unique visitors to the content being created and curated by StyleHaul’s 4900 channels, across 62 countries, making the company the largest within these categories.  A fashion industry alumnae with more than a decade of experience working with iconic brands like Saks Fifth Avenue, Horbaczewski established StyleHaul in 2011 with the vision of translating the fashion editorial space, at scale, to digital, social and multi-platform trends. StyleHaul speaks directly to the influential and engaged 18 to 34-year old female demographic.  Horbaczewski has expanded StyleHaul to more than 70 employees and offices in New York, Chicago and London, with programming also being executed in South East Asia and Brazil.  StyleHaul’s headquarters are in Los Angeles.  Under her leadership, StyleHaul has partnered with marquee global beauty brands like L’Oreal and Maybelline, on premium branded content programs, spearheaded global industry trends and shifts, executed successful rounds of funding and recently announced an unprecedented deal with FremantleMedia to develop 10 original content series over the next two years. Lisa Kudrow and the Showtime Networks’ “Web Therapy” made its digital debut on StyleHaul in September via new webisodes, one of which features one of YouTube’s brightest stars, Caspar Lee, who was also part of the cast of “The Crew,” the first original content series produced by StyleHaul and FremantleMedia.  Stephanie was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in 2013 and has been featured in leading publications like: The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. She holds a BA in Classics from Trinity College and a JD/MBA from Suffolk University.

J.R. McCabe, SVP, Video, Time Inc.:  J.R. McCabe is a media executive with more than twenty years of experience in business development, strategic deal making, sales and sales management. Throughout his extensive career in the entertainment industry, McCabe has identified and developed new business opportunities, led the creation and launch of two broadband networks, and most recently, conceived and brought to market a first-of-its-kind national VOD network. In addition, he has worked closely with major advertisers and agencies to create branded entertainment and video. Past stints include senior roles at CBS Paramount Television and Universal Studios Television. Some of the recently launched and highly popular products McCabe was instrumental in creating include Parents TV on VOD, Better – the daily TV show, Better.TV and Parents.TV.   McCabe joined the Meredith Corporation in March 2006 to build and launch Meredith Video Solutions (MVS) and he was the architect of the strategic vision for MVS. The team is tasked to create and distribute original content based on some of Meredith’s most well-known magazine brands via television, video and digital media. A few of those brands include Better Homes and Gardens, Parents, Family Circle, Ladies’ Home Journal and Fitness. He is also charged with leveraging Meredith’s unique brand equity and expertise to a wide range of advertisers, while creating distribution platform businesses and relationships where the original content may air.  McCabe oversees all business development, branded entertainment development and sales, broadband video sales, syndication and ad sales for MVS. While under his management, numerous advertisers have become clients of Meredith Video Solutions including Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark, P&G, GE Lighting, Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods, Discover Card and General Mills. In addition, many outlets now broadcast Meredith-produced original video content. McCabe led the negotiations for programming and video carriage deals including the Comcast agreement to create and launch the national Parents TV VOD cable network which is now available in more than 14 million digital TV homes; a deal with ESPN to continue airing the Meredith-owned Family Circle Tennis Cup; and an arrangement with Brightcove to create the online platform for Meredith’s new broadband networks. He also was an integral part of structuring deals with Google/You Tube for content on multiple channels, with Adobe for its Media Player, and through CBC New Media for Sprint TV on its mobile deck.  Currently, one of the new projects Meredith Video Solutions is working on is to bring a new business and programming model to daytime syndication via the Better show. The hour-long daily lifestyle television show, built on the editorial backbone of Meredith’s brands, offers removable program segments for local TV stations. This provides the opportunity for stations to sell local product placement and integration to their advertisers. At launch in September 2007, 14 stations aired the show. One year later, more than 40 stations have licensed Better.  Prior to joining Meredith, McCabe led the Eastern regional syndication sales team for CBS Paramount Television in New York. He and his team were responsible for selling first-run and library programming, as well as movie packages. In addition to CBS, some of his clients included NBC, Hearst-Argyle, LIN TV, Scripps-Howard and Media General.  Before CBS Paramount, McCabe spent more than seven years at Universal Studios Television distribution in several roles. He was charged with building the branded entertainment initiative for the division prior to the NBCUniversal merger. At that time, he was in the early stages of crafting opportunities to develop, produce, sell and distribute original programming and films. Those offerings were presented to national advertisers for product placement and integration, as well as network distribution outlets such as Hallmark, VH1, Oxygen, Lifetime and Turner when the merger closed. After coming to Universal in 1997 to manage Northeast sales, McCabe was promoted to manage both the New York and Chicago syndication sales offices for Universal.  He started his career in local broadcast sales as a local account executive selling radio in Harrisonburg, VA. After moving to New York Times-owned WNEP-TV in Wilkes-Barre, PA where he developed new business from local and regional advertisers, McCabe moved to New York City and joined what would become New World/Genesis Entertainment in 1993.  McCabe is a 1989 graduate of James Madison University where he earned a B.B.A in Marketing. He resides in Rockville Centre, NY with his family.