VideoNuze Posts

I'm pleased to present the 159th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group. Today we count down and explain our picks for the top 10 online video stories of 2012, with a bonus of naming our top "non-story" of the year.

2012 was an incredibly busy year in online video, so choosing the top 10 wasn't easy. No doubt you'll have your own selections, and we welcome your ideas in the comments section. Next week we'll do our last podcast of the year, in which we'll look ahead to 2013 and make a few predictions about what to expect.

Click here to listen to the podcast (29 minutes, 40 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

Comcast has announced that Xfinity TV subscribers who use the Xfinity TV Player app on their Android and iOS mobile devices can now download certain TV shows and movies, so they can watch when they're not connected to a broadband network. The download option closely mirrors TiVo's recently announced "Stream" device, which also allows downloading.

As I wrote in my review of TiVo Stream, I think the offline viewing use case is a killer app. Despite the proliferation of 4G services, the reality is there are still plenty of times when connectivity is sub-par or non-existent, particularly in transit situations (e.g. airplanes, cars, trains, etc.). Further, the elimination of unlimited data plans by wireless carriers makes streaming long-form content prohibitively expensive. As a result, the download option is very attractive, especially for travelers.

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Below is the full video of last week's VideoSchmooze session, "Cracking the Code on Multiplatform Success," which included Peter Dolchin (VP, Viacom Media Networks), Jason Forbes (EVP, zeebox), Ran Harnevo (SVP, AOL On Network), Chris Smith (VP, Collective), with Olivier Manuel (Principal, Accretive) moderating.

The group covered a lot of ground, sharing insights on what their companies are doing with multi-platform and how they view multi-platform unfolding. Among the specific topics they discussed included:

- What is the definition of a "TV" in the online video age?

- What do marketers want - unified measurement for media buying, or separation by platform? And what do incumbent linear networks and upstart online-only programmers want?

- What is the difference between "TV Everywhere" and "Video Everywhere?" How are new programmers challenging incumbents to force more audience fragmentation and how is the ad community valuing this programming?

- Can online-only originals be financing solely on ads or do they need a dual revenue stream with subscriptions, like cable?

- Does premium content that was produced for the web get TV-style premium CPMs or will it be considered low-cost web content? How important is targeting matter and what other factors matter?

- Do ad formats need to be different on TV, mobile and online?

- How can business models align with user behaviors, and who's succeeding in doing this today?

- What lessons does mobile, with the dominance of iOS and Android, offer to connected TV space? Will a "connected TV operating system" emerge and if so, who will drive that?

- How does social help the discovery process and combat DVR usage?

And much more!

Watch the session video

YouTube has posted a gallery of the top 20 most-viewed ads of 2012. Topping the list, with almost 21 million views is "Nike Football: My Time Is Now," the 3-minute plus film which debuted for last summer's Eurocup. My personal favorite, with 17.7 million views and in the #3 position, is "The Bark Side," (see below) Volkswagen's 2012 Super Bowl teaser spin on its clever 2011 Super Bowl ad, "The Force" which is now up to 55 million views itself. The top 20 ads have over 200 million views combined.

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If you think your monthly pay-TV bill is already pretty expensive, then brace yourself for rate increases that will definitely be happening over the next several years, particularly in certain geographic areas of the U.S. Why? Because the cost of programming continues to spiral, led by sports. In fact, over the past 24 months, at least $80 billion has been committed by broadcast and cable TV networks to televise sports in the U.S. (note this includes $6 billion, the minimum either News Corp. or Time Warner Cable will likely pay for TV rights to the L.A. Dodgers' games).

The chart below itemizes all of the deals that I'm aware of; no doubt there are others as well that aren't included. Also not included are the expected increased costs of renewals for some of sports' highest-profile events like the Super Bowl and NCAA March Madness in coming years.

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Below is the full video of the opening session at last week's VideoSchmooze, which featured 3 of Wall Street's top pay-TV/broadband/media/advertising analysts, Laura Martin (Needham & Co.), Craig Moffett (Sanford Bernstein) and Michael Nathanson (Nomura) along with me moderating. The group had a spirited discussion that was packed with data and touched on virtually every major topic industry. Some of the highlights include:

- The evidence that there is a gap of approximately 600K-800K U.S. households per year that are either cord-cutters or cord-nevers and what's causing this.

- TV networks' strategy to protect existing revenue streams and not have online delivery undermine their business models.

- Implications of mobile video usage on traditional TV usage.

- Changing consumer viewing behaviors and adoption of new devices, particularly among younger audiences, and what this means for the TV ecosystem.

- The runaway cost of sports rights and whether this will drive more cord-cutting and cord-nevering.

- How upstart programmers like YouTube can succeed with niche content approaches.

- How TV's upfront advertising will change due to online video alternatives.

- What's ahead in 2013.

And much more.

Watch the session video

Late yesterday NBC Sports and Yahoo announced a content sharing and promotional partnership that further cements Yahoo's role as a video syndication magnet for big media companies. In addition to the new NBC Sports deal, over the past year, other major media partnering with Yahoo include ABC News, CBS Television Distribution, Wenner Media, Clear Channel, CNBC, Fox Digital Entertainment/DirecTV and others, as each has sought to extend its online video presence beyond their own properties and to generate new ad revenues.

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I'm pleased to present the 158th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group. Colin and I each back in the office, after being together at VideoSchmooze in NYC.

(Apologies in advance, the audio quality this week is diminished because we couldn't get Skype working on both ends, so I had to use a cell phone connection.)

On the opening session at VideoSchmooze with the 3 Wall Street analysts, Laura Martin, Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson, Craig made a point that cable operators are, in his opinion, "infrastructure providers," not video providers. He means that because they now supply both video, broadband and other services over the same networks, their real business is maximizing the ROI derived from subscribers' total payments for all services delivered.

To the extent that large numbers of video subscribers may cut the cord at some point down the road to use OTT services instead, cable operators would respond by trying to recapture lost revenue and margin via increased, "usage-based" pricing on broadband for heavier OTT users. Craig believes there's approximately $50/month/video subscriber of video profit margin that would need to be recouped.

In our discussion, Colin and I discuss the concept generally, and in particular whether this type of revenue shifting is feasible. Colin is skeptical whether this can happen, pointing to competitive, regulatory and consumer demand obstacles. I'm more in Craig's camp, and believe that operators would certainly try their best to accomplish this, as it's a natural thing any business would try to do.

Putting all of this into context however, it's still a largely hypothetical discussion. There isn't yet cord-cutting to an extent that operators feel the need to recoup profits through broadband. And where data caps exist they're still high enough that few subscribers need to buy more bandwidth to accommodate their OTT viewing.

Still, it's interesting to speculate on the topic, as higher broadband pricing would make OTT services like Netflix, Hulu and others relatively more expensive, therefore making them less attractive relative to pay-TV video services.

Click here to listen to the podcast (18 minutes, 18 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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