VideoNuze Posts

I’m pleased to present the 353rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

There are lots of reasons to be optimistic about mobile video’s upcoming growth and on this week’s podcast, Colin and I explore them. 2017 is setting up as a major year of change for mobile video, with numerous positive catalysts.

These include wireless carriers zero-rating their video services and investing in content, mobile data plans becoming more flexible, cable operators entering the wireless market, Facebook emphasizing video, smartphones’ enhanced capabilities, a more conducive regulatory environment and much more. (Colin and I also wrote about these earlier this week here and here)

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Talk about showing up late to the party: the WSJ is reporting that Apple is now planning to invest in original scripted TV shows and movies. Whether the move actually materializes though is unclear. But if it does, it would be happening years after countless false starts and rumors about the company’s plans to build out a content strategy. Importantly, it would also happen as the number of scripted TV shows rocketed to over 450 in 2016, marked by “Peak TV’s” escalating budgets and intense competition.

According the WSJ article, Apple is engaged with various producers and could be offering scripted TV shows by the end of 2017. Apple’s commitment still seems modest by the standards of Netflix, Amazon and numerous TV networks, with just a handful of productions planned.

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Videology has released its “2017 TV & Video Outlook,” a series of interviews with ad industry executives from AT&T AdWorks, Bell Media, CNN International, comScore, GroupM, LiveRamp, MediaCom, Nielsen, OMG, Oracle, WhiteOps and others. The executives provide their insights and analysis on TV/video ad convergence, programmatic, targeting/data, mobile, measurement, fraud and lots more.

Reading through the interviews, it’s clear the proliferation of viewing devices and fragmentation of audiences are critical market drivers (no surprise!). That makes efficiently targeting specific audiences with ads, using data and automation a big opportunity. But many of the executives are pragmatic about where data-driven targeting currently stands and what still needs to be done. Overall the tone is both optimistic and realistic.

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In an interview at Lionsgate’s first investor day, Liberty Media chairman John Malone praised Netflix as having a “nirvana business model” while calling out traditional pay-TV distributors for being “asleep at the switch” as their legacy “toll gate” video business models were disrupted. Malone highlighted Netflix’s direct-to-consumer, global scale and complete control as key benefits.

However, Malone wasn’t all doom and gloom about traditional pay-TV distributors, which he sees as morphing from being “video delivery businesses” to “connectivity businesses.” Malone thinks this change in mindset will lead to distributors breaking with tradition and offering premium networks such as Starz in combination with broadband, as opposed to being available only on top of multichannel bundles. But he would not provide any timetable for when this shift might occur.

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It was 10 years ago today that Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that even Jobs could have imagined how profound and far-reaching the iPhone’s impact would be. One short decade later, there is arguably not a single Internet application that hasn’t been impacted by mobile. Meanwhile, many new applications have been created solely as a result of the mobile phenomenon.

Mobile video is certainly one application that was essentially created by the iPhone and subsequent smartphones. Watching video on smartphones is now a completely mainstream behavior, which countless millions of people engage with regularly. But despite mobile video’s already impressive growth, there are at least 7 reasons mobile video is now at a tipping point, with the biggest growth still ahead:

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Happy New Year! I’m pleased to present the 352nd edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This week Colin and I share our top predictions for the video industry in 2017. We also look back at our predictions for 2016 and rate how we did, which was pretty good.

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Comcast Technology Solutions, a division of Comcast Cable which was formed last Fall, has announced an expansion of its the Video Platform solution to support multiple monetization models as well as complete video processing, management, multi-CDN distribution and playout. In addition, the Video Platform includes out-of-the-box templates for front-end user experience with partners Accedo and You.i TV, which can be fully customized.

The Video Platform builds on capabilities of thePlatform, which Comcast acquired back in 2006, along with multiple other technologies now under the Comcast Technology Solutions roof.

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Roku’s strategy of powering TV manufacturers’ smart TVs is meeting with success as the company announced yesterday that its Roku TVs accounted for 13% of smart TV sales in the U.S. as of December, 2016 according to IHS. So naturally Roku’s success is attracting others to the model, with Amazon announcing yesterday that it has partnered with 3 Chinese brands, Seiki, Westinghouse Electronics and Element Electronics to integrate Fire TV functionality into multiple new 4K TVs.

The Amazon integrations mean that the Fire TV experience, including all of its 7,000 apps, will be available on the new TVs without needing an external connected TV device. This is the same benefit of Roku TVs - all the functionality of a Roku, but without the box. This type of integration makes it more straightforward for users to access OTT content alongside broadcast and cable TV content from separate sources. The Amazon integrations also feature voice search powered by Alexa to search content, launch apps, play music, etc.

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