VideoNuze Posts

I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 142nd edition of the VideoNuze-TDG Report podcast. In this week's podcast Colin and I first discuss NBC's Olympics video streaming. Despite some high profile criticism, we agree that NBC has actually done a pretty good job and has laid a foundation for live streaming to be an expected part of all Olympics coverage in the future.

Next we review Q2 '12 results from some of the largest pay-TV operators. Video subscriber losses continue, although Q2 is historically a soft quarter. Colin notes that recent TDG research shows the pay-TV value proposition is increasingly challenged and he believes that means higher churn is ahead, with bigger opportunities for OTT options.

Speaking of those options, Aereo announced new low-cost plans and both Colin and I agree that they're a clever way to reduce entry barriers and increase viewing flexibility. It's still early, but we like Aereo's odds of success.

Last up, we note the early demise of the Nexus Q media streaming device, a product that both us called a dud a couple of weeks ago.  

Listen in to learn more.

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The Olympics is currently dominating the sports world's attention, but have a look at comScore's first half 2012 data (chart below), and what jumps out is that 2 of the top 4 properties aren't well-known branded destinations, but rather little-known video syndicators, Perform Sports and CineSport.  

Perform is #2, with 14.6 million average monthly unique viewers, trailing predictable leader ESPN, which has 20.5 million. And CineSport is #4 with 11.4 million average monthly unique viewers, behind #3 Yahoo Sports, which has 12.4 million. Following them are properties you'd expect to see on any top 10 list: Turner Sports, MLB, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, NFL and CBS Sports.

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Recognizing that online video isn't just for big media brands, last year Google and American Express teamed up to create "My Business Story," a video tool for small businesses to create and post free videos that connect them with new and existing customers. At the recent VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit, Lauren Goody, Google's Group Manager, Account Solutions and Rachel Chan, American Express's Director, US Media & Integrated Marketing Platforms discussed the initiative's success with Mark Robertson, founder and publisher of ReelSEO.

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Comcast reported strong 2nd quarter results this morning, adding another 156K broadband subscribers, while losing 176K video subscribers, an improvement over the 238K it lost in Q2 '11. It's the seventh straight quarter Comcast has improved its video subscriber losses, while driving the average monthly revenue per subscriber up another 8% to $148.57.

At the recent VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit, I did a fireside chat with Matt Strauss, Comcast's SVP, Digital and Emerging Platforms, who articulated Comcast's strategy for meeting consumers' ever-higher video expectations. Matt observed that "you have to envision a world where video will be everywhere." This seems to be the rallying theme for all of Comcast's recent video efforts. Matt describes how the company has reorganized itself to collapse traditional boundaries between linear, on-demand and online groups, including now having just one user experience team.

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Fanhattan, the slick iOS video discovery app, has broken into the TV Everywhere world, adding content from HBO and Cinemax. Fanhattan users can now discover HBO programs and movies within Fanhattan and click through to view them if they are authenticated as HBO subscribers. Fanhattan is announcing the addition of HBO and Cinemax, plus NBC and CW programs this morning. Fanhattan now has 175K TV programs and movies from 14 premium entertainment apps discoverable, up from 4 apps at launch last year.

Fanhattan is also unveiling a new "WatchList" feature, which allows users to add a movie or TV show and be alerted when it becomes available on any of the 14 sources. For users, WatchList eliminates the confusion around where, how and when premium content is available, as it passes through multiple distribution windows and models.

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Independent online video production is flourishing, helped along by investments from major players like YouTube, Yahoo, AOL and others, and the enthusiasm of thousands of mom and pop creators looking to carve out a valuable niche audience. But unlike the pay-TV business, where content is supported by advertising and distributor fees, virtually all online video relies solely on advertising. Independents face the acute challenge of conveying the value of their content and audiences to media buyers who are increasingly overwhelmed by the choices in front of them.

To address this problem, this morning Outrigger Media is announcing the beta launch of OpenSlate, a marketplace for online video that uses a proprietary "SlateScore" to consistently measure the value of over 10,000 different video productions. SlateScore measures a video's reach, engagement, influence and consistency - attributes that buyers look for when assessing "premium content" - by ingesting and analyzing thousands of data points about the videos' viewer behavior.

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Tremor Video announced earlier today that in June it served 98.3% of its in-stream video ads in players that were 400 pixels or bigger. Tremor has found that the bigger-sized players drive double the engagement rate and also boost completion rates for ads. Based on its own analytics, Tremor found that for ads appearing in 400-500 pixel players, 62% of viewers watched to completion and for ads appearing in a 500-700 pixel player, completion jumped to 75%.

Tremor believes that as player sizes get bigger the viewing experience becomes more TV-like, therefore inducing users to relax and be more prone to sit through ads. Looking ahead, this bodes well for ads on connected TVs, where the content and ads are seen in full screen. Tremor said that it is advising publishing partners to increase the size of their players in order to deliver improved ad performance.

Related, Hulu must also be finding similar results; back in March it increased the size of its video player by 55% to a beefy 900x500.

As exciting as Google Fiber's next-generation, gigabit per second broadband project in Kansas City is, last week's launch details underscore how out of synch its rollout plan is with the realities of typical consumer technology adoption. That's not a big surprise given Google's famously engineering-centric culture. However, it likely means that Google Fiber is going to fall well short of its objectives.

As it stands, Google Fiber is very much a classic early adopter service. It offers a discontinuous benefit of 100 times the average 10 megabit per second speed of incumbent ISPs, appealing to heavy users' appetite for the cutting edge. It is also unproven, therefore requiring early users to be guinea pigs, dealing with first-time installers and plenty of inevitable service bugs.

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