I’m pleased to present the 521st edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. Colin and I wish all of our listeners a safe and healthy July 4th weekend.

YouTube TV raised its price 30% this week, from $50 per month to $65 per month. On today’s podcast Colin and I explore what’s behind the increase and what its likely impact will be.

From my standpoint, the increase says a lot about how bullish Google now is about using YouTube itself to reach coveted TV ad buyers. That’s due not only to YouTube’s improving content quality but to the adoption of connected TVs as a primary way to consume YouTube content. This dynamic makes YouTube TV less strategic for Google, and therefore diminishes its willingness to subsidize monthly losses.

Meanwhile Colin sees YouTube TV falling into the “big bundle” trap of adding more networks and continually raising rates, that has led to record cord-cutting among traditional providers.

Listen in to learn more!

(As a side note, Colin is participating in an interesting webinar next week on pay-TV providers can help SVOD and AVOD services to succeed. Free registration)
 
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Yesterday YouTube TV raised its monthly rate by 30% from $50 to $65. It’s the fourth rate hike in just the past 2 years, as YouTube TV moved from its introductory rate of $35 to $40 to $50 to the new $65 per month. As recently as March, 2018 it was still possible to sign up for $35 per month and be grandfathered into that rate for a short period.

I’ve been a mostly satisfied YouTube TV subscriber since the early days, and of course, the rate increases have been painful to absorb. The fundamentals of YouTube TV as a pay-TV alternative that were appealing from day one have changed little - strong cross-platform access, unlimited DVR, 6 concurrent users, etc. What has changed is the growth in number of TV networks carried; indeed yesterday’s rate hike was tied to the launch of a group of ViacomCBS networks, just as the previous hike was tied to the addition of Discovery networks.

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Parks Associates has released a new white paper with Applicaster, with research finding that in Q1 ’20 almost one-third of U.S. broadband users said that their smart TV was their primary streaming video device. That’s up from less than 30% in Q1 ’19. That’s almost double the percentage of users citing streaming media players and computers as their primary device. Broadband users are watching more than 20 hours of video on their smart TV per week, up 40% from 2017.

Overall, Parks found that more than half of broadband users in the US report owning at least one smart TV. Parks believes technological advancements in smart TVs have been critical to their adoption. These advancements include:

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I’m pleased to present the 520th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. With the pandemic currently surging in multiple states, we hope all of our listeners are staying safe and healthy.

This week was the IAB NewFronts and I watched some or all of about a dozen of the presentations which are directed toward ad buyers. As usual, I was impressed with how well the presenting companies told their stories, through remarks by executives, talent, creators, partners and others. Presenters highlighted compelling usage data, ad formats and effectiveness, often juxtaposed against traditional TV.

On this week’s podcast we discuss key takeaways and common themes. The migration from linear TV to OTT video was already well underway, but the pandemic has accelerated the shift, making NewFronts presentations even more important, especially for advertisers trying to reach cord-cutters and cord-nevers.

Listen in to learn more!

 
Click here to listen to the podcast (24 minutes, 32 seconds)

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The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!