VideoNuze Posts

One of the things I was listening hard for throughout the sessions at this past Tuesday's VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit was whether speakers and attendees believe a convergence is coming between TV advertising and online video advertising models. To date the two have been siloed with different user experiences, back-end technologies, measurement systems (or lack thereof), ad loads, etc. In fact, the most frequent touch point between the two may well be on the creative side, where many of today's pre-roll ads remain re-purposed TV spots.

Yet with premium video proliferating online and connected devices like the iPad, Xbox and Smart TVs driving more consumption of entertainment, the formerly bright line distinguishing a viewer's online video experience from their TV experience is becoming increasingly blurry. For viewers this causes confusion around what degree and type of advertising to expect when they watch. And for content providers it likely means monetization is not being fully optimized across platforms.

At the heart of the issue, I believe, is whether video advertising should continue to be impression-based, as it always has been with TV, or engagement-based, as online has become, primarily due to the rise of search as online's dominant category.

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Today's VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit was a huge success, with hundreds of attendees joining for an immersive day of learning and networking. There are tons of tweets at #VideoAdSummit as well as various posts around the web.

All of the sessions were video-recorded and I'll be posting them in the coming weeks, as they're edited and available. In addition, I'll be posting all of the speakers' presentations. I'm re-grouping on Wednesday and will be begin posting highlights on Thursday.

Over 500 industry executives will converge on the VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit tomorrow in NYC. Registration spans brand marketers, agencies, content publishers, technology providers and others in the ecosystem. There are 18 sessions scheduled with 40 different speakers, ensuring an immersive learning experience for all, in addition to plenty of time for networking.

There's still time to sign up, but if you're not able to join us, we'll be tweeting updates throughout the day at @VideoNuze and #VideoAdSummit. I'll be back online posting later this week.

The Summit is generously supported by Title sponsors Adobe/Auditude and YuMe, plus Adap.tv, The AOL On Network, Collective, Conviva, Eyeview, Innovid, LiveRail, Jivox, Mixpo, TubeMogul, VideoHub, and Videology.

I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 137th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG Report podcast.

First up this week, Colin and I discuss this week's news that the Department of Justice is investigating whether cable TV companies are acting to suppress online video. As I wrote on Wednesday, it's good for the government to be vigilant, but for now anyway I don't believe online video providers or consumers are being impacted (rather I suggested if the DOJ wants to address a REAL way consumers are being harmed it should look into the multi-billion dollar per year subsidy non sports fans are forced to pay for expensive sports networks).

Colin disagrees with me. As he's stated in the past, he believes the use of "private networks" to deliver video traffic to connected devices that doesn't count against data caps creates preferred broadband lanes and are inappropriate (Colin believes Comcast is doing this with its recent plan to deliver video services to the Xbox).

Wrapping up, Colin shares observations from Cisco Live a big analyst event he attended earlier this week and I do some shameless plugging for next Tuesday's VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit.

Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 36 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

The VideoNuze-TDG Report podcast is available in iTunes...subscribe today!

Peter Stern, Chief Strategy Officer of Time Warner Cable, the second-largest cable operator in the U.S., spent time with me at the recent Cable Show, explaining a concept guiding the company's content distribution strategy he calls the "4 Any's." This refers to any content, any device, any time and anywhere. In the interview, Peter discusses how TWC is executing against each of the 4 any's and why they're so important.

In particular, Peter notes that all 255 linear cable networks TWC carries are now available for streaming within subscriber homes to certain devices. Next up is layering on VOD and out-of-home access. Peter talks about the roles of TWC's app for aggregated viewing experiences vs. how "super-fans" will gravitate to the networks' own apps (e.g HBO GO, WatchESPN, etc.).

Beyond content distribution, Peter also describes the strategy behind "CableWiFi," a new roaming collaboration announced at the Cable Show among 5 cable operators, totaling 50K hotspots nationwide (note WiFi usage is uncapped, which TWC believes is a real differentiator relative to wireless services) as well as why business services is a growing part of TWC's services portfolio.  Watch the interview (7 minutes, 34 seconds).

Watch the interview

At the recent Cable Show I caught up with Michael Quigley, VP Business Development and Multi-Platform Distribution for Turner Networks. Turner has arguably been the most aggressive of all the cable TV networks in pursuing TV Everywhere distribution, and Michael explain why. Turner has now integrated with 13 different pay-TV operators for TV Everywhere distribution covering 77 million U.S. homes. It also makes authenticated content available on 6 of its networks' sites, with over 500 hours of VOD.

One of the key decisions Turner made was to invest in TV Everywhere before the measurement systems from Nielsen and others were fully in place. That's a risk Michael says Turner was willing to take in order to push the TV Everywhere experience forward and draw other networks in. In the interview Michael also discusses ongoing challenges for TV Everywhere's rollout. Watch the interview below (9 minutes, 46 seconds).

Watch the interview

The WSJ has broken a big story this morning that the Department of Justice is apparently pursuing an antitrust investigation into whether cable TV companies are taking steps to limit the rise of online video usage. The DOJ is primarily looking into the role of data caps, the use of private networks for delivery of certain programming to connected devices, the use of TV Everywhere authentication, and even the model of most-favored nations clauses between cable TV networks and pay-TV distributors.

While it's generally a good thing for the government to keep an eye on how business is conducted (the recent financial crisis demonstrates what happens when it doesn't), to my mind none of these issues are really hurting consumers, yet anyway. Rather, if the government truly wanted to focus on an immediate, huge, and worsening consumer problem in the pay-TV business, it should be focused squarely on sports, and more specifically the multi-billion dollar annual subsidy that non-sports fans are required to pay due to current cable network bundling practices.

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If you've ever used video-on-demand from your pay-TV operator, you no doubt agree that trying to find and then navigate to what you'd like to watch feels like a Soviet-era experience. The problem is the set-top box's processing limitations have hamstrung pay-TV operators from delivering a more web-like VOD experience.

The company looking to change all that is ActiveVideo Networks, and yesterday it got a big boost as Comcast, the largest pay-TV operator in the U.S., licensed ActiveVideo's CloudTV H5 platform for a trial in its Chattanooga, TN market. If the trial goes well and Comcast rolls CloudTV H5 out nationally, the VOD experience is going to dramatically improve for millions of viewers, in turn making it more competitive with web-based OTT VOD providers.

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