VideoNuze Posts

Yesterday, the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball Advanced Media announced a multi-faceted 6-year deal in which MLBAM will pay $600 million to take over distribution and operations of NHL’s GameCenter LIVE and Center Ice online subscription services (including via pay-TV operators), manage all of NHL’s web sites, manage all of NHL Network’s operations (including taking over ad sales) and jointly develop new digital products. As part of the deal, NHL is reportedly getting a 7%-10% stake in MLBAM, which is also reportedly going to be spun off (finally) from Major League Baseball. (clarification, per MLBAM spokesman, NHL's stake is in BAM Tech, the technology arm of MLBAM)

That’s a mouthful, but what it amounts to is a major expansion in MLBAM’s scope of business, instantly morphing the company from being primarily a provider of technology services supporting rights-holders to being a multi-platform distribution company in its own right. As such, MLBAM may have just become the most disruptive force in sports TV, signaling to every broadcast and cable TV network which has an interest in sports TV -  from CBS, ABC, NBC, ESPN and on down the line - that the ground just shifted underneath them. Here’s why.

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Research released late last week by Parks Associates, which revealed high levels of churn for many smaller SVOD services, reinforced for me that many of these services are at risk of being seen as little more than transactional VOD opportunities by consumers. If this occurs it would have huge implications for both the SVOD services and larger ecosystem.

First, to review the research, Parks found that for SVOD services other than Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, the churn rate over the past 12 months was equal to 60% of those who subscribed to such services. For Hulu Plus, 7% of U.S. broadband subscribers cancelled their subscription in the past 12 months (equaling churn of half or more of Hulu Plus’s subscribers). Parks estimated Amazon’s churn at around 25% (though that’s clouded by value of the overall Prime service). Only Netflix fared well, with churn in the past 12 months running around 9% of its subscriber base. Note, none of these SVOD services publicly disclose their churn rates.

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A new partnership announced by video ad buying platform AudienceScience and programmatic video supply-side provider SpotXchange aims to accelerate video advertising on the mobile web and in mobile apps. The companies have completed an OpenRTB integration enabling advertisers using AudienceScience’s Helios system to access mobile video inventory that publishers manage using SpotXchange.

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I'm pleased to present the 284th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This week we turn our attention to ESPN, which was prominently in the news on Monday, when Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that he believes it’s inevitable that long term ESPN will be sold directly to consumers, instead of in the traditional multichannel bundle. To be fair though, Iger wasn’t ready to put any timeline on this move, so it’s clearly not happening any time soon.

As Colin and I discuss, there are many online video trends unfolding that make ESPN’s world more complicated. These include a decline in the number of ESPN subscribers over the past few years due to the proliferation of OTT entertainment apps that are diminishing the appeal of the multichannel bundle,  pushback by pay-TV operators focused on cost containment and skinny bundles (e.g. Verizon’s Custom TV), the aggressive moves by leagues to roll out their own online-only streaming packages, the wide availability of sports-related information online and more.

We hash out what all of this means to ESPN and where things are likely heading from here.

Listen in to learn more!

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Connected TVs are soaring in popularity due to plummeting prices of smart TVs and the proliferation of inexpensive devices like Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast and others. As more homes adopt connected TV devices and long-form online viewership shifts to them, there’s a huge opportunity for advertising.

This was the topic of discussion for the Video Ad Summit session, “Connected TVs and Advertising: A Match Made in the Living Room,” which included Tal Chalozin (CTO and Co-Founder, Innovid), Ashish Chordia (CEO and Founder, Alphonso), Josh Mallalieu (VP, Partner, Portfolio Management, Universal McCann) and Scott Rosenberg (VP, Advertising, Roku) with Colin Dixon (Chief Analyst and Founder, nScreenMedia) moderating.

The session touched on what types of video ad units are working best on connected TVs, how advertisers are using data to target audiences on connected TVs, why mobile is benefiting connected TVs, how the ad experience on connected TVs is becoming richer and much more.

Watch the session video now (30 minutes, 51 seconds)

In a bid to grow its market share among independent online video publishers, JW Player is announcing this morning that it is making the Pro version of its video player free. Important Pro version features include full control over player branding, 9 pre-built skins, social sharing, related video overlays, 5 GB hosting and 25 GB streaming, analytics and player/platform APIs.

Over 1 million organizations currently using the free JW version will be upgraded to Pro. The move applies for all new Pro customers. Existing Pro customers will receive a complimentary upgrade to the JW Premium tier.

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Yesterday Variety reported that for Super Bowl 50 in February, 2016, CBS will run all of the same ads from its broadcast of the game in its live-stream of the game. In effect, Super Bowl advertisers will be required to buy the online spots, which CBS is using in part to justify higher rates vs. what NBC charged in 2015. The approach is a departure from the past few Super Bowls which have been streamed, but where the broadcast TV network sold the online spots separately from the TV spots.

It’s tempting to see CBS’s move as a coming-of-age for live-streaming and a “Big Moment” for online video advertising. But as I see it there are at least 5 reasons why this is actually neither, and in reality actually has some drawbacks and carries some risk:

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"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…"

If you’re looking for a stark illustration of the diverging fortunes of the online video and pay-TV industries - as well as the generational attention/passion gap between the two - then comparing the buzz out of last week’s 6th annual VidCon with the poor early Q2 video subscriber numbers from big pay-TV operators is about as good as it gets.

For those not familiar with VidCon, it’s the annual convention of YouTube creators, fans and increasingly advertisers that want to weave themselves into this community. This year VidCon drew somewhere between 20K-30K attendees (up from 1,200 just 5 years ago) to the Anaheim Convention Center, with the vast majority being teenagers seeking to get up close to their favorite YouTube celebrities for a coveted selfie.

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