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Is Microsoft Planning to Join the Pay-TV Party?
Reuters is reporting this morning that Microsoft is exploring a range of options to get into the pay-TV business through a new over-the-top service. The article points to a potential "virtual cable provider" model whereby Microsoft would license multiple networks, which would be delivered to Xbox gaming consoles and other devices. Also under consideration are creating "content silos" to sell specific premium channels.
If Microsoft were to join the pay-TV business aggressively it would further alter industry dynamics. The number one issue in play right now is whether consumers are forsaking traditionally packaged pay-TV services and instead opting for some mix of free and paid online-delivered alternatives. Yet while Internet options are gaining in popularity (with Netflix's explosive growth to nearly 17 million subscribers at the end of Q3 the primary beneficiary), hard data supporting cord-cutting is still scarce.
Categories: Broadcasters, Cable Networks, Cable TV Operators, Devices
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"Demystifying 2011" Complimentary Webinar on Wed., December 15th
With Thanksgiving upon us, it's time to start thinking about the year ahead. To help you understand what to expect in 2011, Colin Dixon from The Diffusion Group and I are hosting our final complimentary webinar of the year, "Demystifying 2011: Key Trends in Online and Mobile Video" on Wed., Dec. 15th at 11am PT / 2pm ET.
2010 has been a breakout year for online and mobile video, and all indicators suggest that 2011 is going to be even bigger as the content, devices, technology, monetization models and consumer behavior in online and mobile video continue to grow and mature.
In 2011 what will happen with online and mobile issues like cord-cutting/cord-shaving, over-the-top services growth, net neutrality, TV Everywhere rollouts, Netflix's Hollywood clout as it approaches 20 million subscribers, the rollouts of super-fast LTE/4G mobile networks, the tablet computing craze, advertising and paid monetization, and lots more? In the webinar Colin and I will discuss these and take a stand on how things will play out next year. There will be plenty of time for audience Q&A so bring your questions! Learn more and register for this complimentary webinar.
And if you're looking for a deep dive discussion on how connected and mobile video devices are transforming the video landscape, join me at the next VideoSchmooze breakfast/panel discussion, coming up 1 week from today on Wed., Dec. 1st at the Samsung Experience in NYC. We have a huge crowd and it promises to be both educational and lots of fun. Learn more and register for VideoSchmooze.
In the meantime, have a Happy Thanksgiving!Categories: Events
Topics: VideoSchmooze, Webinar
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British OVP vzaar Gets Investment From Oliver Stone
vzaar, an online video platform company based in England has announced the director Oliver Stone has invested an undisclosed sum as part of its most recent financing round. Stone was so enthusiastic about the company that he recorded a short commercial for no fee (see below) in which he says that "vzaar is one of those lightning bolts that hit me right between the eyes" in a serious yet somewhat menacing tone.
vzaar's CEO Stephen McCluskey told me that Stone got involved via one of vzaar's key investors John Moreton. Stephen himself joined the company in March of this year and turned its focus onto profession and mid-sized users in vertical markets including fashion, media, corporate communications, sports and government, as well as for direct marketing applications. The company recently raised its entry tier from $15/mo to $49/mo and 60% of its customers are in the U.S. Stephen said that monthly revenue is growing by 20-30% and is already more than the whole of last year.
Categories: Deals & Financings, International, Technology
Topics: Oliver Stone, vzaar
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Digitalsmiths Acquires Gotuit in Bid to Become Video Metadata Powerhouse
Video metadata solution provider Digitalsmiths has acquired Gotuit Media, another player in the video metadata space. Digitalsmiths' CEO Ben Weinberger explained to me over the weekend that the combined company will have the most comprehensive solution for video indexing and metadata management/monetization for multi-platform distribution of various content types. To date Digitalsmiths has been mainly focused on library TV and movie content while Gotuit has concentrated on live sports and news.
Metadata is crucial to online and mobile video because it's what enables search, recommendations and higher-value monetization. It's especially important given the proliferation of short-form clips created out of longer-form content which need to be indexed and easily searchable. Accurate metadata is hard to produce and Digitalsmiths and Gotuit have used different approaches that will be complimentary as part of the new solution. Ben said that the goal is to introduce the comprehensive solution to each customer set to deepen existing relationships, while developing new opportunities based on the comprehensive approach.
Categories: Deals & Financings, Technology
Topics: Digitalsmiths, Gotuit Media
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6 Thoughts on Netflix's New Streaming-Only Plan and DVD Plan Price Hikes
In rolling out a streaming-only service tier this morning, priced at $7.99/mo, Netflix made good on what it has said it would do for months. It's also a logical step given the streaming-only service it introduced 2 months ago in Canada. What was more surprising in today's announcement was the price hikes Netflix is implementing on all of its DVD rental plans, which of course include unlimited streaming. Here are 6 thoughts on today's news:
Categories: Aggregators
Topics: Netflix
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Are Live Sports Pay-TV's Firewall or Its Albatross?
I've long assumed that live sports carried on cable TV networks (e.g. ESPN, Fox Sports, TNT, TBS, NFL Network, regional sports networks, etc.) would be a key firewall against cord-cutting since the games they air are unavailable online. In other words, if you're a sports fan, dropping your pay-TV subscription would be unthinkable. While I still believe that's mostly true, recently I've started wondering if it's possible that sports actually may also be an albatross for pay-TV operators, limiting their ability to effectively compete with online-only alternatives.
I use the word albatross because pay-TV providers actually have very little flexibility to offer non-sports fans lower-priced packages that don't include sports-oriented channels. In fact, the most surprising aspect of last week's announcement by Time Warner Cable of a new lower-priced tier called "TV Essentials" it's testing is that it will exclude ESPN, which is virtually unheard-of in pay-TV packaging. Because the underlying deals that cable networks have with sports leagues and rights-holders are so expensive, the networks try to get carried on the most popular pay-TV service tiers, thereby ensuring the highest number of subscriber homes (basic cable networks are paid by distributors on a per subscriber basis, so the more subscriber homes, the higher their revenue).
Categories: Cable Networks, Cable TV Operators, Satellite, Sports, Telcos
Topics: ESPN, Fox Sports, NFL Network, TBS, Time Warner Cable, TNT
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5 Items of Interest for the Week of Nov. 15th
After a short break, VideoNuze's Friday feature of curating 5-6 interesting online/mobile video industry news items that we weren't able to cover this week, returns today. Read them now or take them with you this weekend!
Time Warner Cable Experiments With Lower Tier Video Package
It's a rare day when a cable operator announces a lower-priced offering, but that's what Time Warner Cable did yesterday, unveiling a test of what it's calling "TV Essentials." The new tier, priced between $30-$40, will most notably exclude ESPN, the most expensive channel in the cable universe, meaning right away TV Essentials isn't targeted to sports fans. I've argued for a while now that pay-TV operators have ceded the low-priced/value-oriented end of the video market to Netflix (and others), which given the ongoing recession is a mistake. It will be interesting to see how the new bargain service fares; 2 things that will limit its appeal though are that no channels will be offered in HD, and that it appears those with broadband Internet and telephone services won't benefit from typical package discounts.
Nielsen study: We're still a nation of couch pumpkins
More evidence this week that despite all the deserved enthusiasm over online and mobile delivery, good old-fashioned TV viewing still rules in terms of hours of consumption. Nielsen said that the average person watched 143 hours of TV per month in Q2, essentially flat vs. a year ago. For homes with DVRs, hours of time watched on them nudged up a bit to about 24 1/2 hours. On a related note, this week comScore released its online video viewing data for October, which showed average viewing of 15.1 hours per person. While online video has made huge progress in the last few years, it still has a ton of room to grow to catch up with TV.
More Videos Ads, More User Acceptance
Speaking of the comparison between online video and TV, this week brought some interesting new data on monetization patterns for premium online video. Online video ad manager FreeWheel released data that showed mid-roll ads are the fastest-growing category of ads (up 693% since Q1), and now represent 8% of its ad volume. Completion rates have increased for pre, mid and post-roll ads this year, but notably mid-rolls have the highest completion rate, at 90%. FreeWheel's conclusion is that monetization of premium online video is starting to look a lot like TV, with ad pods inserted throughout. Going a step further, if viewer acceptance of mid-rolls stays high, then this represents a valuable opportunity for TV networks in particular to combat DVR-based ad-skipping.
Startup Claims To Have Set-Top Hulu Can't Block
It was inevitable that Hulu's decision to block access to its programs would set off a game of whack-a-mole, with various devices springing up to do end-arounds. Sure enough, the $99 Orb TV debuted this week, prominently positioning itself as the device that can bring Hulu (among other content) to your TV. One catch is that Orb streams video from your computer and only does so in standard definition. It addresses the "keyboard in the living room" challenge by also including a smartphone app to control the device. It's not a perfect solution, but it does provide a glimpse into the PR-unfriendly dynamic that Hulu, and the broadcast networks, have created for themselves by blocking access to their content by Google TV and others. No doubt there will be plenty more Orb-like devices to come to market in the months ahead, all positioning themselves as solving the blocking problem.
Comcast's Top Digital Exec Amy Banse to Open New Silicon Valley Equity Fund for Cable Giant and NBC
As Comcast enters the final stages of approval for its NBCU deal, the company this week announced a new NBCU management structure. One item that wasn't formally announced yet, but was reported by AllThingsD earlier this week was that Amy Banse, formerly head of Comcast Interactive Media (now headed by Matt Strauss), will be heading to Silicon Valley to run the combined operations of Comcast's current Comcast Interactive Capital venture arm, and NBCU's current Peacock Equity (a JV with GE). With all the distribution, technology and content assets that will be under the Comcast roof, the fund will be at the top of any online/mobile video startup's list of strategic investors. I've known Amy for a while and have enjoyed having her on industry panels; she'll be a huge asset to Comcast in the Valley venture world.Categories: Advertising, Cable Networks, Cable TV Operators, Deals & Financings, Devices
Topics: Comcast, comScore, ESPN, FreeWheel, Hulu, NBCU, Nielsen, Orb, Time Warner Cable
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VideoNuze Report Podcast #80 - Nov. 19, 2010
Daisy Whitney and I are back this week for the 80th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for November 19, 2010. Before getting started, congratulations to Daisy on the release of "The Mockingbirds," her first fiction book, for young adult readers. It debuted 2 weeks ago and is published by Little Brown. In addition to writing the book, Daisy has put together a clever social media campaign which has lifted the book's visibility. Congrats Daisy!
This week Daisy and I discuss my post from yesterday, "Broadcast TV Networks Are Wrong to Block Google TV - Part 2" in which I laid out the case for why the networks are using a backwards-looking strategy in their decision to block their programs from access by Google TV and other browser-based connected devices.
To their credit, the networks have actually been quite forward-looking in releasing many of their programs for free viewing on their web sites and on Hulu. But now, by creating an artificial distinction between computer-based and TV-based viewing of online-delivered content, they are violating one of the most basic rules of the Internet era: don't create friction between the product and the customer. While that may help them win retransmission consent deals in the short term, I believe that in the long term it will hurt them. Listen in to learn more.
Click here to listen to the podcast (11 minutes, 43 seconds)
Click here for previous podcasts
The VideoNuze Report is available in iTunes...subscribe today!Categories: Broadcasters, Devices, Podcasts
Topics: ABC, CBS, FOX, Google TV, Hulu, NBC, Podcast
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