VideoNuze Posts

Clearleap, which powers multiscreen distribution for many TV networks and pay-TV providers, has announced another big new customer, A+E Networks. Under the deal, Clearleap will enable on-demand access to A+E's portfolio of cable TV network brands across multiple devices.

Until relatively recently, the primary distribution model for cable TV networks was pretty straightforward - virtually all linear and all through their pay-TV partners. But now, with the explosion of both on-demand and digital opportunities, the complexity of managing distribution and business models has soared.

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Video ad platform Teads has raised $30 million, half of which is an equity investment from existing investors Gimv, Partech, Elaia and BPI, with the other half in a mid-term line of credit from Bank of China, HSBC, BNPP and BPI. The new funds are intended to accelerate technology development and expand in the U.S. plus new areas including Brazil, Russia, South Korea and Japan.

Teads is a supply side platform, which counts among its customers The Washington Post, Reuters, Forbes, The Telegraph, The Guardian and many others. Advertisers that have used Teads include AT&T, Cartier, Gucci, Microsoft, Nestle, P&G, Samsung and Volkswagen, among others.

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In yet another sign of how SVOD is upending the traditional TV industry, Amazon has announced this morning that renowned film director Woody Allen has signed on to create his first-ever TV series. Amazon ordered a full season of the half-hour series, named "Untitled Woody Allen Project." It will available in Prime Instant Video in the U.S., U.K. and Germany at launch. No additional information on release date, casting or subject matter was released.

In typical Woody Allen fashion, he is quoted in the press release saying "I don't know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I'm not sure where to begin. My guess is that (VP of Amazon Studios) Roy Price will regret this."

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At last night's Golden Globe awards, Amazon's series "Transparent" won Best Comedy, with its star Jeffrey Tambor winning best actor - TV Comedy, while Netflix's "House of Cards" star Kevin Spacey won for best actor - TV drama. Granted, it's just one awards show, and just two programs, but the Amazon and Netflix wins further legitimize OTT as a bona fide alternative source of high-quality programming to broadcast and cable TV.

The operative word here is "alternative." Note that for years, Netflix in particular has characterized itself as "supplemental" to broadcast and cable TV. And to be sure, with around 37 million Netflix subscribers in the U.S. and cord-cutting still relatively muted, the reality is that today Netflix still is mostly a "supplemental" service.

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I'm pleased to present the 255th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

First up this week we assess the prospects for Dish Network's upcoming Sling TV OTT service, which Colin and I each wrote about earlier this week (here and here). We both see Sling TV's slim programming selection as its biggest challenge. Dish is confronting the challenge that both broadcast and cable TV networks are very expensive to carry and so, to the extent Dish wants to keep Sling TV as affordable as possible, it must severely limit what's included.

We then recap some of the news out of CES that caught our attention including several announcements around 4K TV, the Cisco-Charter partnership for cloud delivery/security and FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's plan to regulate broadband under Title II.

Listen in to learn more!



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Akamai has released its Q3 2014 State of the Internet Report, its compendium of global connection speeds and broadband adoption for fixed and mobile networks, along with 4K readiness, attack traffic and IPv4/IPv6 updates. Among the highlights are that broadband adoption rate reached 60% globally, a 1% increase vs. Q2 '14. (Broadband is defined as an average connection speed of greater than 4 mbps.)

South Korea once again led all countries with 96% adoption above 4 mbps, followed by Bulgaria (95%), Switzerland (93%) and Israel (92%). South Korea also had the highest percentage (81%) of adoption of "high broadband" (defined as average connection speed above 10 mbps), followed by Hong Kong and Japan (both at 55%) and Switzerland (54%).

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Digital purchases of movies in the U.S. boomed in 2014, to $1.55 billion, up 30% from $1.19 billion in 2013, according to new data from the Digital Entertainment Group. However, the $360 million increase was more than offset by a decline in purchases of physical movies (DVD and Blu-ray) of $844 million in 2014, to $6.93 billion, an 11% drop. In fact, as the chart below shows, physical sales have declined by over $2 billion since 2011 when they were nearly $9 billion. 

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