TV listings discovery service MeeVee has put itself on the market via press release.
The Burlingame based company has taken $25 million in funding over four rounds that included DEFTA Partners, Edmond de Rothschild Venture Capital, FCPR Israel Discovery Fund, Labrador Ventures, The Bay Area Equity Fund and WaldenVC. The first sign of trouble at MeeVee surfaced in July 2007 when the company cut 20% of its workforce.
According to MeeVee:
Due to accelerated development of the online entertainment market, the Board of Directors at MeeVee has determined that combining with an established player will maximize the potential for the community, technology and content relationships the Company has built.
MeeVee claims that it is “engaged in multiple discussions with potential acquirers that provide the greatest long term upside and synergy,” but then adds “Interested parties should contact Steve Hughey (shughey@meevee.com) for more information.” You don’t normally ask for interested parties to contact a company re a sale unless the current talks (if they exist) aren’t going well.
The other sign of trouble and that they’ve just about run out of money: the press release states that MeeVee has 7 full time employees. After the July cut there were 27 employees.
We’re putting MeeVee on Deadpool watch.
I don’t even have a TV…
TV is a dead medium. It will take a few more years to be FULLY dead and buried. But dead is dead.
Radio is still alive, why would you think TV will die?
25 million?? what a waste of money, i could have started 50 startups with that much money, what a shame.
Whoever is running the show these days is a complete dope. They might as well have put out a press release saying: “We’re just alerting you that we’ll be insolvent soon, and you’ll be able to buy our assets without actually assuming any of the current liability. Your best bet is to wait.”
genius.
@Fabian: TV is dead? I think you need to cut back on the Web2.0 Kool-Aid my friend.
What on earth did they need 27 employees for? No wonder they’re in trouble, but still entirely typical.
@Fabian
TV is dead? That’s a joke and like Mark said you need to lay off kool-aid you’ve been drinking.
I don’t get what they needed $25 million for and how they could possibly be burning through it so fast.
What I could do with $25 million!
Its surely waste of money. I know people to whom given a chance could make millions more out of the given figure.
@3 (Zizi) Radio is still alive because people spend too much time on their cars. I know a few folks that listen to radio at home, but all of them are over 65.
@7 and 5 (Chris and Mark) Not a fan of Rev. Jones guys … just look at what’s going on with video over the web. Companies like YouTube, Veoh, even Revver. And the decline of TV viewers. And the fact that every network and studio is scrambling around to have an “interactive” strategy. Not to say the quality of the shows (yeah .. the ones online are not that much better). So .. was I a little dramatic … sure … am I right … I think I am.
Well … somehow my post with the answers to Zizi, Mark and Chris did not publish too bad … I had some good answers … and BTW, I am not a fan of Rev. Jones.
meevee isn’t going anywhere without some distribution partnership putting the brand and content in front of viewers.
placing a $25M for that to happen was silly.
however, based on the foregoing VC list alone, I could have told you this was going to flop. those VCs all have a crappy track record.
…all except Rothschild? WTH were they doing investing in MeeVee, they should really stick to their core competency which is incest…
They need to see if they can stuff a few more hidden keywords into their homepage! (try with javascript turned off to see what I mean).
The below all within H1 and NOSCRIPT tags
“MeeVee is the web’s only online video guide and TV guide. Whether you want TV listings for top TV shows from networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and CW or cable: MTV, VH1, ESPN, Discovery, Bravo, the Food Network or to watch online broadcasts of the top primetime shows you’ve missed, we’ve got it here. American Idol, 24, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Jericho, Family Guy, The Simpsons, CSI, Without A Trace, Mind Hunters, The Office, Criminal Minds, Deal or No Deal, Friday Night Lights, the Black Donnellys, the Office, Scrubs, Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, 30 Rock, My Name is Earl, Smallville, Veronica Mars, Supernatural, Battlestar Galactica, the Lost Room, Reba, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, Survivor, Shark, Men In Trees, the Colbert Report, the Daily Show, Late Night With David Letterman, Las Vegas, Law & Order, 48 Hours, Dateline, 20/20, Naked Brothers Band, Amazing Race, Cold Case, The Apprentice, Grease, American Dad, Extreme Makeover, How I Met Your Mother, The Class, Two and a Half Men, Rules of Engagement, Heroes, Prison Break, Supernanny, Reno 911, What About Brian, House, Friends, Seinfeld, The Closer, The Unit, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Boston Legal, The Sopranos, Entourage, Rome, Extras, the L Word, Sports Center and more. Want celebrity videos? We have those here sources across the internet: Youtube, Metacafe, NBC, CBS, Fox, Discovery, MTV, Comedy Central, Spike TV, and ABC. Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer Anniston, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears, and more can be found at MeeVee. Music videos? Jay-Z, Eminem, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Audioslave, The Killers, Outkast, Usher, Justin Timberlake – MeeVee has music videos, interviews, and more. What about sports clips? NBA Basketball, NCAA Basketball, MLB Baseball, NFL Football, NCAA Football, World Cup Soccer, Tennis, NHL HOCKEY, NASCAR, auto racing, boxing and more are available at MeeVee.”
TV is a not a dead medium just because we don’t have time for it.
good news ,i try it
Online Tvlistings is a dead medium. I have a feeling another major site will be “sunset” to improve synergy, Maybe in a week or two.
agreed, tv isn’t a dead medium, but something that people have very little time for. welcome hulu, joost… et al.
Why do companies always bloat then take so long to cut back to a core team? What was that etrade guy ceo thinking?
http://www.sidereel.com is sooo much better….
25 million seems to be the magic number…hmm
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008.....-deadpool/
I use meevee’s rss feed everyday. I set up shows I like then an rss feed shows them on my desktop everyday. Do they do anything else?
I don’t have TV, but I do watch TV programming regularly. Via a TV tuner PCI card on my computer with 22″ LCD monitor. And I can’t live without TV. TV is going to be here forever. I still need to watch all those live sports event, you can’t get them in Youtube. Those who say it’s dead are basically morons, like that Zumbox guy.
What do you spend $25m on for a web “company?”
Freshly imported code monkeys do NOT cost that much. They need an audit. Well, a sane business model audit first.
TV is dead? LOL very funny. I can accept an evolution, but dead?. Stop it, prophets of failure.
$25m for a web version of the TV magazines that are struggling badly. I don;t know about the systems in the US but in the UK the Sky system does pretty much the same thing as the web site were offering.
For that sort of money 50 startups like http://www.jobsplay.com would have been able to get off the ground and offer something useful