VideoNuze Posts

I’m pleased to present the 387th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Earlier this week Apple introduced Apple TV 4K, but as Colin notes, it’s really a catch-up product, as Roku, for example has had this capability in its top of the line Ultra since last year. More important to Colin is that Apple’s decision to raise the price of the Apple TV 4K to $179 for the 32GB version means its $80 more than the Ultra and $120 more than the Roku Premiere, which also delivers 4K, but not HDR.

All of this has Colin wondering whether Apple’s strategy is really just to target its loyalists with the Apple TV 4K, rather than aggressively seeking market share, as Roku, Amazon and Google have all done with their devices. Widespread adoption has clear advantages as we discuss.

Staying with the connected TV theme, we then transition to other news this week that Comcast has added YouTube to its X1 set-top box as it continues its “aggregator of aggregators” strategy. I’ve given it a spin and share a quick review of how it adds value to the X1 experience.

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Early bird discounted registration is now available for VideoNuze’s SHIFT // 2017 Programmatic Video & TV Advertising Summit on Wednesday, November 29th in NYC. This will be our 3rd annual SHIFT conference, with last year’s event drawing 400+ attendees and 50 executive speakers.

Twelve industry-leading companies are on board as sponsors, including Title Partner FreeWheel; Premier Partners  SpotX, VertaMedia and Videology; Headline Partners 4C Insights, Beachfront Media, Cadent, Cedato, SintecMedia, Smart AdServer and Vemba plus Branding Partner Roku.

I’m very grateful that all of these companies are supporting SHIFT. There are additional sponsorship opportunities available; please contact me if you’d like to learn more.

SHIFT is entirely focused on how data-enablement and automation are revolutionizing video and TV advertising. eMarketer estimates that spending on programmatic video and TV (including addressable ads) will reach nearly $16 billion in 2018. Every macro industry trend suggests that for video advertising to be sustainable, it must become more targeted, efficient and effective. This is why programmatic approaches are gaining momentum.

The SHIFT program will include a mix of keynote interviews, panel discussions, fireside chats and research presentations. The goal is to provide attendees with insights and data that are valuable in both day-to-day and longer-range planning. Stay tuned for more information about the program and our initial group of speakers.

Learn more and register now!

It’s no secret that millennials and younger audiences are shifting their viewing to online sources. Periodically I see research that helps to quantify just how significant these shifts and emerging preferences are. Yesterday, 2 new research reports hit my radar, one from Adobe and the other from Limelight Networks that shed further light on millennials viewing behavior. Below I have included key highlights from each.

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Comcast announced this morning that YouTube has been launched on its X1 set-top boxes, further supporting Comcast’s strategy of becoming an “aggregator of aggregators.” Comcast integrated Netflix into X1 last November, the first major milestone of wrapping popular online video services into X1, which vastly simplifies viewers’ experiences.

Billions of YouTube videos will now be available to X1 subscribers, equally accessible as Comcast’s own live, on-demand and DVR programming as well as online sources like Netflix. YouTube video will also be filtered into the Xfinity On Demand menu, and be available via the X1 voice remote. X1 users can search YouTube by voice or text by topic (beauty, cooking, music, etc.), by specific names of talent, shows and by live-streams.

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Though it won’t launch until late 2019, anticipation for Disney’s entertainment-focused OTT service further increased last week when CEO Bob Iger said at the Bank of America investor conference that the Marvel and Star Wars films would be a part of the service. Whether they too would move over from Netflix was a key unanswered question when Disney initially announced the OTT plan last month.

Iger also detailed everything that’s intended to be included in the service: the entire output of the Disney studio plus Pixar and Marvel, 4-5 original live-action movies exclusively for OTT, a library of 400-500 films, 4-5 original Disney-branded TV series and 3-4 TV movies per year, 7,000 episodes of Disney branded TV, including recent seasons of Disney Channel programming (though not in-season episodes) and thousands of shorts.

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I’m pleased to present the 386th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

After taking a couple weeks off from the podcast, Colin and I are back, and today we discuss 4 different industry stories that have caught our attention. First up, just before Labor Day, Roku filed its S-1 IPO document, sharing financial details for the first time. Colin and I are both struck by the strength of Roku’s “platform revenues” and believe the company’s strategy of innovating with low-priced streaming devices to gain market share has opened up many revenue options (though Colin’s a bit worried about Roku losing its valuable neutrality position in the wake of launching the Roku Channel this week).

We then move on to T-Mobile’s plan to give away Netflix to its unlimited family plan subscribers. It’s the latest “video as bait” play by a wireless carrier, and we both see this trend accelerating. Another interesting bundle play this week was the $5/mo promotion from Hulu and Spotify. We discuss its potential to extend beyond the initial college student target.

Finally, Colin and I were both intrigued by a plan unveiled by Newsy, a popular millennial-focused news app, to create a linear TV channel by taking over Retirement Living TV’s pay-TV subscribers. It’s a relatively unusual move given most TV networks are launching OTT apps these days.

Listen in to learn more!
 
Click here to listen to the podcast (22 minutes, 55 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts.

Click here to add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

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

OpenSlate, which helps online video ad buyers understand YouTube content in order to plan and optimize their ad spending, has released a post-campaign brand safety auditing solution. The new solution leverages the same data set OpenSlate has collected on 350 million plus YouTube videos, allowing buyers to close the loop and better understand how their campaigns delivered against brand safety parameters.

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Here’s a somewhat counter-intuitive move: Newsy, a millennial-focused OTT news property, is buying the pay-TV carriage agreements of Retirement Living Television covering around 26 million multichannel TV subscribers in order to get a position on the cable dial. The deal will cost Newsy’s owner E.W. Scripps approximately $23 million, or 93 cents per RLTV subscriber. Newsy also expects to get to 40 million pay-TV subscribers by the end of 2018.

The deal is predicated on developing Newsy into a “prominent multi-platform news network with dual revenue streams,” according to Scripps president and CEO Adam Symson. Newsy already has carriage deals with skinny bundles YouTube TV and Sling TV and clearly believes it can extend its audience reach and advertising potential by being available in multichannel bundles. Scripps also sees Newsy’s programming as helping pay-TV operators appeal to younger audiences.

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