VideoNuze Posts

I'm pleased to present the 176th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. In the past 2 weeks, Aereo has touched off an escalating war of words between it, the broadcast TV industry and other interested parties. Today Colin and I review some of the recent back-and-forth in this battle.

News Corp. COO Chase Carey kicked things off in remarks at the NABShow last week, threatening to move Fox to cable if Aereo was deemed legal. CBS and Univision later backed him. This week broadcasters petitioned for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to hold a full or "en banc" review of their decision, a strategy my colleague Howard Homonoff suggested they could pursue in a contributed piece on Tuesday. In the petition, broadcasters stated that "unless reversed, (the court's prior decision for Aereo) would wreak commercial havoc" on the  industry.

For its part, Aereo took the extraordinary step of taking out a full page ad in the NY Times on Tuesday, in which it said "54 million Americans use some sort of antenna to watch TV." Aereo is appealing directly to consumers, essentially trying to paint the broadcasters as stifling innovation and being anti-consumer. Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia also said this week that broadcasters would face a serious policy fight if they tried switching to cable.

Last but not least, the dispute got personal as well, as Leo Hindery, a former cable executive, and now media industry investor, called Aereo lead investor Barry Diller's involvement "despicable" and "tawdry." That was after he labeled Aereo a "pissant little company" that is stealing copyrighted material because it's not paying retransmission consent fees.

All of this over a company that hasn't yet even demonstrated its value proposition resonates with consumers! Imagine what happens if/when it does.

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(Apologies in advance, Colin's audio isn't very good this week.)

The cloud continues to create more flexibility in both video production and distribution, with the latest example being "Reach Engine Stage," a video/media management system that allows producers at multiple sites to collaborate more efficiently. Reach Engine Stage was developed by Levels Beyond, a privately-held company based in Denver with deep roots in video workflows.

At the NABShow, Levels Beyond's co-found Danny Gold stopped by the VideoNuze booth to explain Reach Engine Stage and give more background on the company. Levels Beyond has been low-key, but recently raised a round of funding and is now used by a number of major media companies for their online video workflows.

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LiveU, which pioneered the bonding of cellular broadband cards to enable flexible live mobile broadcasting, has gained a huge following among TV networks and stations. Now it has introduced a new, even lighter-weight backpack unit that enables any content provider - no matter how small - to affordably become a live mobile broadcaster.  

At the recent NABShow, Ken Zamkow, director of sales and marketing for LiveU, brought one of the new backpacks, the LU40-2 ("LU40 squared") by the VideoNuze booth and showed it off. It weighs less than 10 pounds and is very compact, allowing up to 13 cellular channels and controllable through a smartphone interface.

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Last week at the NABShow I did a short video interview with Kurt Michel, Akamai's director of product marketing - media solutions. Akamai has always been known primarily as a content delivery network, but as Kurt explains, it is broadening its positioning to become an online media platform.

Akamai is responding to what it is hearing from its media customers, that they're experiencing unprecedented challenges given the proliferation of devices, formats, networks and bandwidth variability. As a result, Akamai has expanded beyond delivery to also offer content preparation and workflow solutions under its Sola Vision branding.

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Here's another great reason to sign up for an early bird discounted ticket to the June 4th VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit in NYC on June 4th: all early bird registrants will be eligible to win a Samsung 40-inch Smart TV, presented by VideoHub. As has become the custom at VideoNuze events, we'll be doing the drawing right before lunch. The drawing is always one of the highlights of the day, and I'm grateful to VideoHub for their support this year.

This will be the 3rd Video Ad Summit and it's shaping up to be a high-impact day of learning and networking. At last year's event, 350+ executives from around the video ecosystem of content providers, agencies, brands and technology companies attended and I expect similar attendance this year. I have begun posting some of the sessions and will provide more details in the next week or two.

I'm extremely grateful to all of the 16 industry-leading companies that are supporting this year's Video Ad Summit: Premier Partners Adap.TV, Adobe, Akamai, TubeMogul, ValueClick and YuMe; Headline Partners Altitude Digital, BlackArrow, Collective, Innovid, LiveRail, VideoHub and Videology, plus Branding Partners EXPO, Extreme Reach and Mixpo. All of them will have representatives at the event and it will be a great opportunity to engage with them.

(Note: if you've already registered, you're eligible)

I look forward to seeing you on June 4th!

Learn more and register now

At the NABShow last week I did a short video interview with Albert Lai, Brightcove's CTO for Media and Broadcast. In the interview, Albert explained Brightcove's expanded TV Everywhere integrations with Adobe Pass and Akamai's Sola Vision Identity Services.

It's well understood that if content providers are to distribute to multiple devices via TV Everywhere, security and authentication are paramount. By integrating with Adobe and Akamai, Brightcove is trying to provide its content customers with multiple authentication choices depending on their preferences, helping reduce friction in TVE rollouts.

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Today, I'm pleased to introduce Howard Homonoff as the newest VideoNuze contributor. Howard is Principal/Managing Director of Homonoff Media Group LLC, a management consulting firm focused on traditional and digital media content distribution, social media analytics and regulatory strategy. He is a frequent industry speaker and producer/host of Media Reporter, starting soon on cable systems throughout New York City.


Here Are Aereo's Legal, Policy and Business Paths Forward
By Howard Homonoff

If you're an Aereo follower, then no doubt you're aware of the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in favor of the company in the WNET v. Aereo case.  So now that the court has spoken, we can all be happy to have that legal stuff out of the way, right? Well…sorry, but at best, we’re at the end of the beginning (and maybe not even that) of the legal, policy and business confusion surrounding Aereo and its implications.  Having seen the music business lowered as a canary into the mine of digital content disputes years ago, we should be prepared for a long, complex, multi-jurisdictional battle on these issues.  

So what might we expect now in the post-2d Circuit environment? Let’s look at this through the 3 key venues where this will play out: the courts, the policy arena, and the negotiating table:

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At the NABShow last week, NeuLion and Deluxe Digital Distribution announced a partnership creating the "NeuLion TVE Platform with Deluxe OnDemand" which enables customers to deliver branded online movie stores. Targeted customers include retailers, service providers and content owners who can tap into Deluxe's catalog of 50K movie and TV show titles.

At NABShow I did a video interview with Chris Wagner, NeuLion's EVP and co-founder, who explains the deal and its potential.

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