OpenRoad.TV exists to provide detailed travel resourcing and vibrant community for people interested in exploring the American West.  

OpenRoad.TV, on the web, on television, and in other tightly integrated media, will become the premier video brand for anyone interested in curious, engaged and adventuresome travel in the vast, iconic and heavily visited American West.  It will generate a large and interactive online community and will inspire people from throughout the world to imagine, plan and book their travel in the West.

The American West, including Alaska and Hawaii, is an enormous and growing $213 billion travel market. It attracts people from throughout the region and the nation and from across the globe.  By 2010, for example, China will lead the world in outbound travelers.  Last year, 55 percent of all Chinese visitors to the United States arrived first in California, up 10 percent over the year before. Only OpenRoad.TV is focusing on the entire American West and absolutely no one else has our unique combination of assets and competitive advantages to swiftly become the premier video travel source and online community for the West.

Nobody knows the West better than the creators of OpenRoad.TV.  In addition to our lifetimes of work and travel throughout the region, we have produced a spectacularly successful and award-winning television series about western travel, Bay Area Backroads, now completing its fifteenth season on KRON Television in San Francisco.  In addition, we have created and carefully catalogued a massive and one-of-a-kind video library, which we have the license rights to deploy in virtually every way imaginable.  Our video library includes 400 half-hour episodes, more than 1000 individual stories and over 5000 hours of original, uncut, broadcast-quality video that would cost more than $10 million to replicate.  We have the knowledge, the experience and the video resources none can match and we have already begun to meet the demands of travel planners by providing a trusted, credible and easy-to-use online source of professionally-produced video about destinations in the West.

The recently launched website, http://www.openroad.tv/, currently has more than 180 story videos and over 130 text, audio and video blogs available and easily accessible.  New videos, blogs, links and other materials are being added every day.  Visitors are beginning to submit their own video, pictures, tips and stories about their journeys in the region.  People are engaging in online conversations with each other and the OpenRoad.TV crew.  The website is achieving what few other websites can even attempt to do by marrying expert video and knowledge with the fascinating filings from users to develop a dynamic collaboration and a rich travel resource.  In its first year, http://www.openroad.tv/ has stimulated positive public reviews.  It has been recognized, along with The New York Times, Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor as a Webby Honoree in the travel category.

In addition to establishing the web portal, CMP has begun to syndicate video and associated content and form marketing partnerships with blue chip media outlets and travel organizations, positioning themselves to take advantage of rapidly emerging syndication and marketing opportunities worldwide to generate revenue and drive traffic back to our website. 

Finally, CMP will be launching an OpenRoad.TV television series this fall on public television in the San Francisco market. Soon thereafter, the series will begin syndicating regionally and nationally on public television or commercial television, and perhaps on both. The domestic television series will play major roles in promoting the brand and in driving traffic back to the website while, at the same time, generating revenue.  International television distribution is also being evaluated as well in order to reach the millions of people in Europe and Asia who are intrigued by the West and increasingly have the resources and the freedoms to travel there.

Market and Opportunities

The OpenRoad.TV marketing plan is positioned to capitalize on four significant markets and opportunities in the travel and media industries.

Online Travel Research, Planning and Booking - The way travelers plan and book their trips is changing dramatically as they continue to move away from guidebooks and travel agents to the internet and the use of portable media devices. And although more than 55 million Americans now use the internet to research and arrange their travels (79 percent of the domestic travel population,) many of them are frustrated with the work it entails.  Travelers have not yet found what they are looking for, a single online source that: 

• Is trusted
• Is rich in professional audio-visual media
• Covers a broad area in-depth
• Marries expert knowledge with user-generated content to create a dynamic, interactive community for travelers to join and help shape
• Helps travelers discover what they don't know
• Is easy to use
• Helps them make the most of their vacation time and money

Online Video - A recent USA Today article was headlined "Ad Spending in Internet Videos to Skyrocket."  The April 4, 2008 cover story then went on to report:  "You don't need a pan and a stream in California to join the next gold rush.  A video camera, computer and high-speed internet connection will do.  A vast array of professional and semi-professional producers are starting to use those tools to create ad-friendly entertainment and news videos expressly for the web.  The goal is to dramatically change people's video-viewing habits -- and cash in on a potentially enormous business opportunity."  We believe our assets, accomplishments and plans position us ahead of this "gold rush."

Further evidence of the emerging opportunity is found in the estimate that advertising spending on internet videos is expected to rise 455% by 2011 to $4.3 billion -- faster than any other advertising category. [source: eMarketer]

Online Community Building - People love to share their travel experiences and learn from others.  Now in this era of MySpace and Facebook, the technology is in place to greatly enhance the sharing process. OpenRoad.TV encourages and makes it very easy for visitors to send their videos, pictures, stories and tips and engage in discussions on many topics moderated by knowledgeable experts.  While there are a number of successful community-based travel websites such as TripAdvisor, iExplore and Virtual Tourist, www.OpenRoad.TV  alone, combines expert video and knowledge with the contributions of users and concentrates on the West as a whole region.

Mobile Deployment - The rapid deployment of GPS-enabled mobile devices is paving the way for OpenRoad.TV to deliver our expertise, video, and travel planning and support services to travelers while they are on the road. As these new technologies become more widely adopted, CMP will create free and subscriber-based services. As an example, GPS tracking on mobile devices will allow CMP to provide travelers with weather and road condition updates, lodging, meal and entertainment options and other information based upon the users location and time of day.  The application of mobile services advances every day and CMP is positioned to exploit and monetize these emerging applications with our array of assets.

Revenue

One of the most significant aspects of the OpenRoad.TV brand and the products derived from the video library is the ability to take one product and monetize it in a wide variety of markets with little or no modification to the base product. The demand for quality video content is rapidly expanding and the professional reputation of the products of OpenRoad.TV leaves us well positioned to take advantage of that demand in a number of ways. Plans to monetize the brand include:

Web Advertising - Globally, the internet advertising revenue category alone, grew by 35% in 2006 to almost $17 billion and now comprises 5.9% of the total $286 billion spent by advertisers.

Video Syndication - Most likely deals done in exchange for traffic like the Washington Post and TravelChannel.com discussions already in process.

Television Underwriting - Low production cost courtesy of the video library will allow for some margin even with conservative revenue assumptions.

International Television Syndication - Some fee potential but more importantly, expanded exposure for the brand.

Sponsorships - Plan to leverage Bay Area reputation and bundle website and television. The potential exists for product placement on both.

Mobile Media / Subscription Services - New areas where the offerings are still being defined.

Travel Booking - To be done initially via partners.

Newsletter Advertising

Online and in many other media, OpenRoad.TV is built upon two key assets:

• Reputation and Recognition: We have earned reputations and brand recognition for quality, independence and integrity based on our thorough knowledge of the West and our extensive experience as award-winning media producers and storytellers. Bay Area Backroads has been a critical and commercial success for over 15 years and continues with first-run episodes today. McConnell is perceived to be a trusted authority following a lifetime of living, traveling, and reporting throughout the West on television and radio and in print. He is also widely recognized as a devoted conservationist and supporter of efforts to preserve the West's special and vulnerable natural, historical and cultural resources. The domain knowledge and public recognition we have achieved, individually and collectively, while providing independent and unparalleled insights into travel throughout California and the West are significant assets to OpenRoad.TV. The OpenRoad.TV website is already perceived to be a trusted source of information.

• The Video Library: We hold the license rights to all of the video shot for Bay Area Backroads since 1993. The library contains over 5000 hours of original, uncut, broadcast-quality video from throughout the American West, never seen outside the San Francisco Bay Area. The carefully catalogued library contains approximately 400 half-hour episodes, 10 one-hour specials, more than 1000 individual stories, and includes the most extensive video archives of northern California and Hawaii in existence. The library continues to grow as Bay Area Backroads extends production into its fifteenth year.  It is estimated that the cost of trying to replicate this video library in some fashion would be approximately $ 10 million. There is no library remotely equivalent to ours.  No other organization is capable of becoming the integrated media brand for western travel without a huge investment of time and money. Under the terms of the license, all derivative works produced from the archive become the exclusive, permanent property of CMP subject to a minimal royalty. Having full and immediate access to the library provides CMP significant advantages in both time and cost of delivery.

Doug McConnell, Co-Founder and Chief Content Officer has spent a lifetime exploring the open roads of the American West and beyond, both personally and professionally.  For the past fourteen years, he's been the host and senior editor of KRON Television's Bay Area Backroads, the longest-running and most popular regional television series in northern California.  Prior to joining Backroads, Doug hosted, reported and produced many other series, specials and news reports for KPIX Television in San Francisco, KING Television in Seattle, KAKM Public Television in Anchorage, PBS and CBS nationally, the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet nationally and internationally, and numerous other broadcast and cable outlets.  He's received many regional Emmys and other television awards.   Doug has also been recognized as Honorary California State Park Ranger of the Year, Volunteer of the Year by the San Francisco Bay Trail Project, and Humanitarian of the Year by the Marin Humane Society, and he's been given the prestigious Harold Gilliam Award for environmental reporting in northern California.  In addition to his television work, Doug has managed significant communications programs for the President's Commission on Coal, the Governor of Alaska, the University of Alaska, the Institute of Ecology, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and many other institutions.  He holds a B.A. in Government from Pomona College and an M.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University.

Carl Bidleman, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer has created and managed multi-platform media projects since 1979.  As an executive producer at KRON-TV in San Francisco, he was instrumental in transforming Bay Area Backroads from a single-episode weekly television series into a profitable franchise that has included two weekly half-hour television episodes, primetime specials, news stories, sponsored vignettes, an Internet site, a best-selling book of travel essays and photographs, and a commercial radio series.  Prior to joining KRON, Bidleman produced and managed a commercially sponsored public affairs campaign for WDIV (NBC) in his hometown, Detroit, Michigan. Bidleman concluded the campaign by producing a comedy special starring Tim Allen and a national documentary on environmental volunteerism syndicated by Group W Television in 93 U.S. markets. During a five-year stint producing documentaries and newsmagazines for public television, his documentary Miracle on Fort Street was distributed nationally and received critical acclaim from the New York Times.  Bidleman got his start in media management by creating one of the first broadcast-quality media production departments at a non-profit organization. This work at Focus: HOPE, a Detroit civil rights organization, included a documentary that was one of the very first video presentations to be used as testimony before the U.S. Congress. 

Jim Wirth, Vice President Marketing and Community Development co-founded BASE Consulting Group in 1995 ("BASE"), taking advantage of a boom in the data warehousing and business intelligence industry.  BASE was honored as one of the 500 fastest growing private companies in the United States by Inc. Magazine for three consecutive years in 2000, 2001 and 2002.  Wirth's primary role with BASE was in marketing and business development.  Wirth and his partners sold BASE in 2003 to Knightsbridge Solutions, a privately held consulting firm also focused on data warehousing and business intelligence solutions.  As a member of the executive management team of Knightsbridge, Wirth contributed to the rapid growth of Knightsbridge from 2003 to 2006.  Knightsbridge was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006, which allowed Wirth to exit and pursue his interest in funding and advising start-ups and early stage companies.  Prior to co-founding BASE, Wirth was a senior information systems auditor with Price Waterhouse, and then Pacific Bell Directory from 1989 to 1993.  Wirth was an independent consultant from 1993 until the founding of BASE in 1995.  Wirth holds a BA and an MBA in Accounting and Information Systems from Michigan State University.  Wirth served on the board of directors of Junior Achievement of the Bay Area for five years, and is currently involved with several San Francisco Bay Area non-profit organizations.

Paul Schoos, Vice President Finance and Administration has over 25 years of experience in financial management positions with a number of San Francisco Bay Area technology companies including tenure as Chief Financial Officer with Fujitsu Technology Solutions, Inc. and Workshare Inc. Experienced in a range of environments from large scale computer hardware manufacturing to personal software development, Paul brings organizational and planning skills shaped by his participation in three previous start-up ventures. Paul holds a B.S. degree from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and an M.B.A. degree from the Anderson School of Business at U.C.L.A.