VideoNuze Posts

We’re all consuming more and more video in our personal lives, so it’s no surprise that businesses are realizing that they too should be using video to connect with target audiences in multiple ways. To get a better sense of how businesses are scaling up their video efforts, Wistia, a platform for business videos, released its first “State of Video for Business” report.

Wistia has over 300,000 business customers in 50 countries which uploaded 6.7 million videos so far in 2017 totaling nearly 60 million minutes. Total minutes uploaded have increased from 18.1 million in Q1 to 21.3 million in Q3. There are lots of different internal and external ways that businesses use video these days, and in Wistia’s gallery, 5 main categories are identified with examples of each: Marketing, Support, Sales, HR/Culture and Product.

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The program and initial group of over 25 speakers for SHIFT // 2017 Programmatic Video & TV Ad Summit on Wednesday, November 29th in NYC are now available on the SHIFT web site. The program includes 12 sessions that will dig into all aspects of programmatic video & TV. There are keynote interviews, fireside chats, research presentations and discussion sessions all meant to enhance attendees’ understanding of the burgeoning programmatic video & TV landscape.

Our initial group of speakers come from leading advertisers, agencies, content providers/publishers, technology providers and investors. Our keynoters are Mike Rosen, EVP, Portfolio Sales and Strategy, NBCUniversal, who will talk about how the company is raising the bar for programmatic and Jon Stimmel, Chief Investment Officer, Universal McCann who will address agency opportunities in programmatic video and TV.

Other speakers are from A+E Networks, Amplifi, Beachfront Media, Cedato, eMarketer, Essence, Fox, FreeWheel, IAB, IBM Watson, MediaLink, Meredith, SintecMedia/Operative, Prohaska Consulting, Roku, SpotX, Time, Turner Ad Sales, VertaMedia, The Vertere Group, Videology, with many others to be announced soon.

Reminder that all paid registrants will be entered to win 1 of 3 Roku Ultra 4K streaming players, generously provided by Roku. In addition, early bird registrants save $100 off the regular rates. Further discounts are available on 5-packs and 10-packs. And, startups and students can register for the reduced $245 ticket (contact me for the code).

Learn more and register now!

I’m pleased to present the 393rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

It’s been a big week for executive changes in the SVOD world. Hulu’s CEO Mike Hopkins is departing to become chairman of Sony Pictures Television. Randy Freer, president and COO of Fox Networks will take over as Hulu’s new CEO. Colin and I both think Hopkins accomplished a lot in his four years at Hulu and we review the company’s progress. Still, the SVOD space is more competitive than ever and Hulu has a range of challenges ahead of it.

Speaking of executive changes, Amazon Studios is undergoing a brain drain, with its head Roy Price leaving due to sexual harassment charges followed by 3 other senior executives. Amazon Studios was already under pressure to create blockbuster programming and these management changes would seem to only increase the pressure. We dig into what’s happening at Amazon.

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Have you watched any of the first two games of the World Series? If you have, then you’ll undoubtedly agree that YouTube TV, the fledgling skinny bundle, is owning the games so far. Their branding is everywhere - behind home plate, on dugout walls and rails, on the outfield wall, on the end-of-inning scoreboard, on Fox’s “presented by” branding graphic, etc.

And all of that is on top of a 2-minute ad that played immediately prior to the first pitch in game 1, which cleverly started and ended with a live feed of the pre-game action on a mock living room TV (oddly, that 2 minute ad isn’t available in YouTube TV’s own YouTube channel). However a separate 30-second ad YouTube TV has also been running is (see below).

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Hulu announced yesterday that CEO Mike Hopkins will depart after four years running the company. Hopkins is heading to Sony Pictures Television where he’ll become chairman. Taking over as Hulu CEO will be Randy Freer, currently the president and COO of Fox Networks Group and a Hulu board member. Fox is one of the main owners of Hulu.

Hopkins leaves Hulu with a strong record of accomplishment, but with many challenges still looming. He joined Hulu in October, 2013 just a couple of months after the company’s owners reversed course, deciding to invest another $750 million rather than sell it outright.

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It’s a good day for video tech providers with Israeli roots as Wibbitz has announced a $20 million Series C funding and Connatix has raised a $15 million Series A round. The Wibbitz round was led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, with participation from The Weather Channel, The Associated Press, TF1 and existing investors NantMobile, lool Ventures and Horizons Ventures and brings total funding to $30.8 million. The Connatix round was led by Volition Capital.

While the companies have different value propositions, they’re both playing to the broader industry trends of enabling publishers to enrich their properties with more video, which creates more opportunities for video advertising.

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