VideoNuze Posts

I'm pleased to present the 212th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Earlier this week, Roku CEO and founder Anthony Wood, who I interviewed at NATPE, described his long-term vision for Roku to replace pay-TV operators' set-top boxes. Anthony believes that as online video apps become more prevalent, and pay-TV operators want to seamlessly offer them, the logistics for doing so will be so complex, that alternative approaches like using Roku, will become more attractive. Colin and I debate the pros and cons of this vision.

Then Colin walks us through Comcast's stellar Q4 '13 results, announced earlier this week. Of particular note, Comcast added video subscribers in the quarter, the first time in over 6 years. Colin has crunched the numbers and concludes that Comcast will likely have more broadband subscribers than video subscribers by mid-to-late 2014, a stunning development. We explore what this means.

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Yesterday the NFL announced a new video initiative called "NFL Now," which will offer fans a trove of short-form videos in a highly personalizable experience. Brian Rolapp, the NFL's EVP of Media told Adweek that the current shortage of mobile video ad inventory was "one of the biggest reasons we are doing this." I'd go one step further - I think capturing mobile video ad dollars is THE reason the NFL is launching NFL Now.

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FOX Sports Digital (FSD) partnered with YouTube to create the FOX Sports Digital VideoFest, a great example of how established media can tap into YouTube's vast online video talent pool. For the Digital VideoFest, YouTube selected 12 of its channel creators and brought them together for several days at YouTube Space LA. Creators were challenged to produce a pilot for a potential web series, with the winner chosen by a panel of 4 FSD executives. The Digital VideoFest was sponsored by Ford Fusion, with the winner receiving a $1 million development deal.

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TiVo's acquisition of Digitalsmiths for $135 million, announced yesterday, is further evidence of the cloud's increasingly important role in powering video discovery on TVs and devices. According to Jeff Klugman, TiVo's EVP/GM of Products/Revenue, who shared background on the deal with me, Digitalsmiths' leading cloud-based content discovery and recommendations technology will give TiVo greater flexibility to serve pay-TV operators with branded and white label solutions independent of TiVo's hardware.

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A new report from research firm GfK has found that 56% of U.S. pay-TV subscribers now use VOD or a TV Everywhere offering from their provider, with 41% saying they use OTT subscription streaming services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime. However, of those that use both, 44% rated streaming services “better” than VOD, while 27% said they preferred VOD, and 29% said the two are equal. The good news for VOD is that this preference flips for those that use VOD more than once a week, with 43% preferring VOD, 30% OTT streaming and 27% equal.

In addition, for these regular VOD users, 57% said VOD has "excellent" or "very good" content variety compared to 55% for streaming. But those who use VOD less than once a week thought that streaming services were highly superior in content choice - 67% vs. 28%.

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Roku CEO Anthony Wood shared company updates and his views on the broader video market in an interview with me at NATPE in Miami Beach on Monday. 2013 was a strong year for the company with 8 million cumulative units sold to date (about 3 million in 2013). Roku delivered 1.7 billion hours of video in 2013.

Interestingly, Anthony said that sales accelerated when Chromecast was introduced. He cited the trio of Roku, Apple TV and Chromecast as now dominating the connected TV device space, each with a relatively well-defined prospective customer.

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Comcast reported its Q4 '13 and full-year results this morning, which included the company adding 43K video subscribers vs. a loss of 7K in Q4 '12. It was the first time Comcast added video subscribers since Q1 '07. When the biggest pay-TV operator in the U.S. reports a glimmer of health in its core video business, the question begs, are fears about cord-cutting reduced?

While I've always believed that cord-cutting was over-hyped, the reality is that Comcast's positive move does not in and of itself mean concerns about cord-cutting are lessened. That's because Comcast's gain likely says less about cord-cutting dynamics than it does about pay-TV industry share-shifting. For years, the industry pattern has been that telcos and satellite operators have been taking video subscribers from cable TV operators.

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Beachfront Media announced earlier today that its Beachfront.iO video ad platform has been extended to deliver ads to connected TVs/devices including LG, Samsung, Google and Roku. This means that video content/app providers can tap into ads from multiple sources and manage them across smartphones, tablets, desktop and now connected TVs within one dashboard.

Primarily the extension allows content/app providers to maximize their revenues, improve targeting and achieve better time to market. Frank provided more details in a short video interview today at NATPE, see below.

watch the video interview