VideoNuze Posts

It’s no secret that millennials and younger audiences are shifting their viewing to online sources. Periodically I see research that helps to quantify just how significant these shifts and emerging preferences are. Yesterday, 2 new research reports hit my radar, one from Adobe and the other from Limelight Networks that shed further light on millennials viewing behavior. Below I have included key highlights from each.

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Comcast announced this morning that YouTube has been launched on its X1 set-top boxes, further supporting Comcast’s strategy of becoming an “aggregator of aggregators.” Comcast integrated Netflix into X1 last November, the first major milestone of wrapping popular online video services into X1, which vastly simplifies viewers’ experiences.

Billions of YouTube videos will now be available to X1 subscribers, equally accessible as Comcast’s own live, on-demand and DVR programming as well as online sources like Netflix. YouTube video will also be filtered into the Xfinity On Demand menu, and be available via the X1 voice remote. X1 users can search YouTube by voice or text by topic (beauty, cooking, music, etc.), by specific names of talent, shows and by live-streams.

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Though it won’t launch until late 2019, anticipation for Disney’s entertainment-focused OTT service further increased last week when CEO Bob Iger said at the Bank of America investor conference that the Marvel and Star Wars films would be a part of the service. Whether they too would move over from Netflix was a key unanswered question when Disney initially announced the OTT plan last month.

Iger also detailed everything that’s intended to be included in the service: the entire output of the Disney studio plus Pixar and Marvel, 4-5 original live-action movies exclusively for OTT, a library of 400-500 films, 4-5 original Disney-branded TV series and 3-4 TV movies per year, 7,000 episodes of Disney branded TV, including recent seasons of Disney Channel programming (though not in-season episodes) and thousands of shorts.

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I’m pleased to present the 386th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

After taking a couple weeks off from the podcast, Colin and I are back, and today we discuss 4 different industry stories that have caught our attention. First up, just before Labor Day, Roku filed its S-1 IPO document, sharing financial details for the first time. Colin and I are both struck by the strength of Roku’s “platform revenues” and believe the company’s strategy of innovating with low-priced streaming devices to gain market share has opened up many revenue options (though Colin’s a bit worried about Roku losing its valuable neutrality position in the wake of launching the Roku Channel this week).

We then move on to T-Mobile’s plan to give away Netflix to its unlimited family plan subscribers. It’s the latest “video as bait” play by a wireless carrier, and we both see this trend accelerating. Another interesting bundle play this week was the $5/mo promotion from Hulu and Spotify. We discuss its potential to extend beyond the initial college student target.

Finally, Colin and I were both intrigued by a plan unveiled by Newsy, a popular millennial-focused news app, to create a linear TV channel by taking over Retirement Living TV’s pay-TV subscribers. It’s a relatively unusual move given most TV networks are launching OTT apps these days.

Listen in to learn more!
 
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OpenSlate, which helps online video ad buyers understand YouTube content in order to plan and optimize their ad spending, has released a post-campaign brand safety auditing solution. The new solution leverages the same data set OpenSlate has collected on 350 million plus YouTube videos, allowing buyers to close the loop and better understand how their campaigns delivered against brand safety parameters.

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Here’s a somewhat counter-intuitive move: Newsy, a millennial-focused OTT news property, is buying the pay-TV carriage agreements of Retirement Living Television covering around 26 million multichannel TV subscribers in order to get a position on the cable dial. The deal will cost Newsy’s owner E.W. Scripps approximately $23 million, or 93 cents per RLTV subscriber. Newsy also expects to get to 40 million pay-TV subscribers by the end of 2018.

The deal is predicated on developing Newsy into a “prominent multi-platform news network with dual revenue streams,” according to Scripps president and CEO Adam Symson. Newsy already has carriage deals with skinny bundles YouTube TV and Sling TV and clearly believes it can extend its audience reach and advertising potential by being available in multichannel bundles. Scripps also sees Newsy’s programming as helping pay-TV operators appeal to younger audiences.

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There’s plenty of M&A and financing activity in the video adtech space, with the latest news coming this morning with RhythmOne acquiring YuMe for $185 million. The deal had been rumored for a while and unites YuMe’s demand-side capabilities with RhythmOne’s supply-side and programmatic platform. YuMe was one of the earliest video adtech players to go public, back in 2013, but has had a bumpy ride as the industry rapidly evolved.

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Sports are where you’ll find a lot of the most innovative online video activity happening. In fact, sports have always been a leader in online video, with marque events like the NCAA basketball tournaments and Olympics driving some of the biggest live and on-demand audiences. For fans, online and mobile delivery have brought unprecedented access and immersion - watching sports has never been as much fun and convenient as it is these days.

To better understand the rapid innovation in streaming sports, what lies ahead and the key challenges that remain, my weekly podcasting partner Colin Dixon, of nScreenMedia, and I recently interviewed eight sports leaders for a thought-leadership report presented by Akamai. The report, “Game On! How Streaming Sports is Heating Up,” is available for complimentary download.

The executives we interviewed are from Sling TV, NBC Sports Digital/PlayMaker Media, Fox Sports, NeuLion, ETN Media/Street League, Tennis Channel, Whistle Sports and Akamai. Their companies participate in all facets of sports online - networks, rights-holders, technologists and service providers, leveraging various business models. The interviews provide invaluable insights into what’s working well today and what still must be improved for streaming sports to make further gains.

In addition to the report, we’re also planning a webinar to further explore the topic. Date is TBD, but coming soon.

Enjoy!

(Note: Akamai is a VideoNuze sponsor)