VideoNuze Posts

The WSJ is reporting that Facebook has signed deals with almost 140 media companies and celebrities, committing $50 million for guaranteed live-streaming content for Facebook Live. A straight average would value each partner’s deal at over $350K, but as expected, certain partners are getting a disproportionate share.

According the paper, the top 15 providers account for $21.4 million, or almost 43% of the total $50 million. At the top of the list are BuzzFeed ($3.1 million), NY Times ($3 million) and CNN ($2.5 million). I’d guess there are others at the bottom of the list whose deals are in the low 5 figures.

I’ve been enthusiastic about Facebook Live and see at least 5 reasons why the company investing $50 million (which is chump change given 2015 revenue of nearly $18 billion) is so smart:

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JW Player announced yesterday that it has added Univision as a new enterprise customer in the first quarter, a significant win for the company. JW Player’s platform is being used in part to support Univision’s streaming of the high-profile Copa America Centenario matches this month, including on its mobile apps.

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Over the past 60 days Altitude Digital has added 35 new publishers to its Altitude ARENA programmatic video platform and has integrated 15 new demand-side platforms (DSPs). Altitude ARENA was launched as a self-service video platform this past April. Altitude’s CMO Joe Grover brought me up to speed on what’s behind the quick adoption.

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News Corp. announced this morning at Cannes Lions the availability of a new viewable vertical video ad for mobile devices that can be bought initially on The Sun and The New York Post. The ad is an outstream format against vertical video content, plays only when in view and can be scrolled past. The ad appears with audio off, which viewers can toggle on. Viewability is measured by Moat per MRC standards.

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I'm pleased to present the 327th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This week, Ellation, which is backed by Otter Media, itself a joint venture of The Chernin Group and AT&T, announced a new SVOD service called VRV (pronounced “Verve”). VRV is targeted mainly to the gamer/geek audience with a mix of anime, animation, gaming, comedy, fantasy and technology content.

While VRV has multiple content partners already signed up to participate, Crunchyroll, the anime SVOD service in which Otter Media holds a majority stake, is clearly the anchor tenant of VRV. Crunchyroll is perhaps the most successful niche SVOD service, with approximately 750K paying subscribers, plus a larger free ad-supported audience.

To learn more about VRV, Colin was briefed by Ellation’s head of marketing and distribution Arlen Marmel and I was briefed by CEO Tom Pickett. Colin is very enthusiastic about how VRV will leverage Crunchyroll and believes VRV’s freemium approach will find success with its target audience. While I like VRV’s parallels to Amazon’s Streaming Partners Program, I’m more cautious in my outlook, mainly because it’s not quite clear to me how VRV’s pricing/value proposition for a la carte channels vs. its bundle offer will work until VRV launches later this year.

Stepping back, VRV represents further innovation in business models and user experiences for video services and is part of a broader trend toward SVOD curation/aggregation that we envision gaining momentum.

Listen now to learn more!

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We had a hugely successful 6th annual VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit this past Tuesday in NYC, with over 425 industry colleagues attending. 50 executives participated on 13 sessions focused around our theme of how TV and online video advertising are converging.

All of the sessions were video-recorded and I’ll be posting the videos with summaries over the next couple weeks as they’re edited. I received tons of great feedback on the sessions. There are countless insights about the current landscape for online video advertising currently and where things are heading.

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Video marketing tech provider Eyeview has raised a $21.5 million Series D round led by Qumra Capital and including existing investors Marker LLC, Innovation Endeavors, Nauta Capital, Gemini Israel Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. With the new financing, total invested capital in the company is now $56.8 million. Investments in video ad and marketing tech providers have slowed significantly over the past year, but Eyeview’s raise shows there’s interest in companies that can demonstrate video ROI for brand advertisers.

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The 6th annual VideoNuze Online Video Ad Summit is tomorrow, Tuesday, June 14th in NYC. So if you've been debating whether to attend, it’s time to get off the fence! Here are some highlights of what to expect:

50 industry executives speaking on 13 different sessions. The overarching theme of the Video Ad Summit is the convergence between online video advertising and TV advertising. The program includes multiple sessions that will address the subject from different angles and in different formats. Additional sessions will focus on capitalizing on mobile video, finding video success in the “platform economy,” optimizing video ad targeting through data, what’s ahead for programmatic video and TV, unlocking video’s value in the OTT era and lots more.

2 fantastic keynote sessions. Our morning keynote interview is with Marc Debevoise, EVP/GM of CBS Digital Media, who I will interview about how CBS is embracing a new world of video opportunities. Then in the afternoon, Charlie Chappell, Head of Global Integrated Media at Hershey’s will discuss how the company is adapting to a new media landscape, in an interview with MediaLink SVP Matt Spiegel. Both sessions promise executive level insights and best practices sharing.

Superb networking with hundreds of industry colleagues. As always the Video Ad Summit provides some of the best networking around, with colleagues from throughout the ecosystem. The day will wrap up with an hour of cocktails.

Learning from our sponsors. I’m extremely grateful to the Video Ad Summit’s 17 fabulous sponsors, who will have table-tops and staff attending. They’re all doing cool stuff and the Video Ad Summit is premier opportunity to learn from them and understand how they’re moving the industry forward.  

Join us by registering now!