VideoNuze Posts

CBS Sports announced yesterday that it will extend unauthenticated streaming of Super Bowl LIII to mobile devices. The move means that viewers do not need to have a pay-TV subscription in order to watch the game on mobile, nor do they need to have wireless service with Verizon, as has been required in past years.

It also means that mobile streaming will be on the same footing as desktop and connected TV viewing, both of which had unauthenticated access the last time CBS had the Super Bowl rights, in 2016. The game will also be available to CBS All Access subscribers.

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I’m pleased to present the 434th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

First up this week, Amazon is said to be planning a free ad-supported video service, similar to Roku’s The Roku Channel. The new service, dubbed Free Dive, would be targeted to the nearly 50 million Fire TV users. Colin and I both like the move a lot, as we see multiple promotional and new revenue benefits, especially if Amazon can attract TV ad dollars. However, a key challenge is finding enough compelling content to make Free Dive interesting to audiences.

We then transition to talking about Hulu. Colin has developed a forecast for subscriber and revenue growth for Hulu through 2020 which he explains. He sees much of Hulu’s revenue growth coming from its Live skinny bundle service, although its profitability will remain challenged due to high programming costs.

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Add Amazon to the growing list of companies that are gunning for their share of TV ad dollars. According to a report in The Information, Amazon is planning to launch a free, ad-supported video service for its Fire TV users that may be called Free Dive. As described, Free Dive looks to be very similar to Roku’s The Roku Channel, which is available to Roku users and as of a few weeks ago also on the web.

For Amazon, the move makes perfect sense in a number of different ways. First, it’s a great complement to the growing array of paid video options Amazon offers (TV programs/movies in Prime, SVOD services in Amazon Channels, transactional, etc.). Free, ad-supported video gives Amazon its own inventory to promote all of these paid services in various ways.

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Major SVOD services’ popularity continues to expand, with new research from Leichtman Research Group finding that 69% of U.S. households now subscribe to either Netflix, Amazon Prime and/or Hulu. That’s up from 64% last year and 47% in 2014.

Also noteworthy is the rise of multi SVOD service households. LRG found that among SVOD households, 63% now access more than 1 SVOD service, which is up from 38% in 2015. That means that 43% of U.S. households now access more than one SVOD service, more than double the 20% rate from 2015.

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I’m pleased to present the 433rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

First up this week we discuss new research showing that 50% of Facebook users haven’t heard of Facebook Watch and another 24% have heard of it, but never used it. The anemic interest demonstrates to us how difficult it is to shift how people customarily use a product (Newsfeed in Facebook’s case) to something totally different (Watch).

We then switch gears to explore how  AI is being innovatively used in video. Colin shares several examples, the most interesting of which is the BBC’s upcoming BBC 4.1 on the evenings of Sept. 4th and 5th. On these nights BBC is using AI to mine its archives in order to find “hidden gems” from past years.

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Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 3 seconds)

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New research from The Diffusion Group highlights that usage and awareness of Facebook Watch is minimal, a year following its launch. TDG found that 50% of users haven’t heard of Watch and another 24% have heard of it but have never used it. Just 6% of Facebook users use Watch daily, with another 8% using it weekly.

The low usage and awareness are striking given that the Watch icon sits prominently at the bottom of the Facebook app, right alongside News Feed, friend requests and notifications. It also demonstrates how significantly different Watch is from the way Facebook users typically experience the service, via the News Feed and how difficult it’s proving for Facebook to migrate its users from News Feed.

continue reading on VideoNuze iQ

I’m pleased to present the 432nd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Colin is eating some crow on this week’s podcast, because he’s finally (!) come around to understanding the value of video downloading, which I’ve been promoting for nearly 6 years. Colin has a new white paper out in which he cites his research finding 55% of U.S. and 58% of U.K. viewers saying downloading functionality is very important to them. We discuss all aspects of downloading’s value proposition.

Then we segue to talking about Verizon’s announcement this week that when it rolls out 5G to 4 U.S. cities later this year it will include an Apple TV and discounted YouTube TV (exact terms weren’t released). Noting the caveat that we haven’t seen 5G perform, we both believe it has a ton of potential to disrupt the wired broadband business which cable TV operators have dominated. As Verizon’s announcement shows, it also presents interesting opportunities to bundle pay-TV with 5G and wireless service.

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Click here to listen to the podcast (23 minutes, 13 seconds)

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The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!