VideoNuze Posts

Here's a great example of how convoluted the media ecosystem has become: if you visit NYTimes.com today, you'll notice that upstart Vice News has taken over the masthead ad position. I check NYTimes.com every day and this is the first time I've noticed the Vice News ad though it's possible it has run previously. Vice News positions itself as "an international news organization created by and for a connected generation" and still carries a "beta" label.

The ad itself runs a series of protest scenes from what looks like Ukraine, with periodic statements interspersed like "You go to both sides of the front line," "Look beyond the headlines," "Follow the story wherever it leads" and "Don't just watch the news." Clicking "Watch Now" starts a loop with similar scenes and statements. There is a click through to the Vice News site on YouTube and ability to subscribe (the counter shows 588,220 subscribers so far).

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A new survey by rich media ad provider Jivox has found that 75% of advertisers are running multi-screen ad campaigns, with 83% of the remainder planning to do so in 2014. The top reason for not currently running multi-screen campaigns, cited by 51% of respondents, was lack of technology. The survey included 130 executives at leading ad agencies.

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Viewability has emerged as one of the hottest topics in the online video industry this year, for good reason - video ads that aren't seen diminish the advertiser's ROI and undermine the integrity of the market.

However, the industry is addressing viewability and at the recent Video Ad Summit, IAB presented a session that dug into the details. Participants included Rob Brett (Viacom), Tal Chalozin (Innovid), David Gunzerath (MRC) and Julian Zilberbrand (Zenith Optimedia) with Matt Prohaska moderating.

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Bright House Networks, the sixth largest cable TV operator in the US, with 2.5 million subscribers, has announced that will use BlackArrow for dynamic video ad insertion (DAI) for on-demand and multi-screen delivery. As viewers continue to embrace both VOD and myriad viewing devices - and operators make more content and TV Everywhere options available - effectively monetizing these streams is becoming more and more essential.

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I'm pleased to present the 236th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This week we discuss the demise of two online video businesses that were short-lived, Qplay and Xbox Entertainment Studios. Qplay was founded by 2 TiVo founders and backed by blue-chip venture capitalists, but lasted in the market just 6 months. Colin provides a cogent analysis of the 4 key challenges the company faced, which it couldn't surmount.

Xbox Studios was shut down for completely different reasons, and, as I wrote last week, it is just the latest lesson in how difficult it is to create high-quality, long-form content.

Listen in to learn more!

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One of the highlights of the recent Video Ad Summit was a session including Jackie Kulesza, SVP, Director, Video, Starcom MediaVest and Adam Shlachter, Head of Media Activation, Digitas LBi, focused on the NewFronts, Upfronts and future of video ad budgets. The discussion was driven by Jim Nail, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research.

Adam and Jackie provided a wealth of insights into how video ad buying has evolved at their agencies and how they believe the market will work down the road. They provide perspectives on the NewFronts, where video ad budgets are being sourced from, how clients' strategies are changing and much more. For anyone looking for the agency perspective on online video advertising, it's a very worthwhile 35 minutes.

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At last month's Video Ad Summit, mobile video was a big topic of conversation. Kicking off the day, eMarketer's principal analyst, David Hallerman, walked the audience through his firm's online video ad forecast, including the mobile component, which it estimates will quadruple to $5.44 billion by 2018, over 44% of of total online video ad spending (the full forecast is available for complimentary download here).

Later in the day, Jim Spencer, president and founder of Newsy (an ad-supported mobile video news app acquired earlier this year by E.W. Scripps) led a spirited panel on how media and technology companies are keeping up with mobile video's surging adoption. Joining him on the session were Ashish Chordia (founder & CEO, Alphonso), Jason Krebs (head of sales, Maker Studios), Rebecca Paoletti (CEO and co-founder, CakeWorks LLC) and Canaan Schladale-Zink (VP, Sales North America, Sizmek).

Videos of each of the sessions follow below.

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I'm pleased to present the 235th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

First up this week, Colin recaps how well the recently wrapped-up World Cup did with live-streaming. As Colin notes, the final game delivered 1.8 million concurrent live viewers. Also interesting was how mainstream streaming mid-day games seemed to become. Unlike March Madness games, which have always been streamed in the workplace somewhat surreptitiously, World Cup streaming seemed completely acceptable.

Continuing our sports theme, we then turn to a WSJ article this week which revealed that the NBA is seeking to double the approximately $930 million per year in TV rights fees it receives from Disney/ESPN and Time Warner/Turner when these deals expire after the 2015/2016 season.

If the NBA were to succeed, and gain $2 billion or so in fees, that would translate into around $20 per year for each of the approximately 100 million U.S. pay-TV subscribers (even more when you factor in the pay-TV operator's retail margin).

The dirty little secret of these super-expensive sports deals is that ALL subscribers pay - whether you're a fan or not - meaning the "sports tax" on non-fans is getting bigger all the time. With escalating pay-TV bills, the big question is whether non-fans will become heavier cord-nevers and cord-cutters.

Listen in to learn more!



Click here for previous podcasts

Click here to add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

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