VideoNuze Posts

Facebook and other big platforms are facing lots of scrutiny about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. So on last week’s Q3 ’17 earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg opened with a long statement about the investments the company is making in security and ad transparency. These investments will contribute to a 45%-60% increase in Facebook’s 2018 expenses.

One might have expected that Wall Street analysts on the call would then focus their questions mainly on understanding these topics further and their impact to Facebook’s business. And while several did ask for details, 8 of the 11 analysts who asked questions instead focused on Facebook’s video strategy (which was the second main topic Zuckerberg discussed in his opening comments).

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I’m pleased to present the 394th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Pay-TV operators are likely to have lost around a million video subscribers in Q3, while skinny bundles (or virtual MVPDs as Colin likes to call them) may have gained around 900K. In this week’s podcast Colin and I talk about these dynamics and what kinds of consumer behaviors are driving these changes.

For the skinny bundles, a big part of the growth is AT&T’s deep discounting of DirecTV Now to support its wireless service. Among others, YouTube TV, with its widespread broadcast coverage and major World Series promotion, is also poised to grow strongly.

But how much of skinny bundles’ gain is coming at pay-TV’s loss is still murky. No doubt some people are swapping, but I question how much they’re actually saving per month, and whether churn will ultimately be high as they realize certain networks aren’t included. Conversely, Colin sees these as “good enough” solutions when combined with SVOD services.

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Late last week Videology announced DETVgo, a free product that allows ad buyers to begin using data-enabled TV advertising to target specific audiences and then build and optimize media plans. Stacy Daft, Videology’s GM, Enterprise Business Development, told me in a briefing that DETVgo gives ad buyers a low barrier path for trying data-enabled TV ad buying.

All of the major TV networks are investing heavily in data enablement of their ad inventory to help buyers more precisely target audiences. This is a critical step as big digital players, including Google and Facebook, have ramped up their video initiatives to grab a share of TV ad spending.

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We’re all consuming more and more video in our personal lives, so it’s no surprise that businesses are realizing that they too should be using video to connect with target audiences in multiple ways. To get a better sense of how businesses are scaling up their video efforts, Wistia, a platform for business videos, released its first “State of Video for Business” report.

Wistia has over 300,000 business customers in 50 countries which uploaded 6.7 million videos so far in 2017 totaling nearly 60 million minutes. Total minutes uploaded have increased from 18.1 million in Q1 to 21.3 million in Q3. There are lots of different internal and external ways that businesses use video these days, and in Wistia’s gallery, 5 main categories are identified with examples of each: Marketing, Support, Sales, HR/Culture and Product.

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The program and initial group of over 25 speakers for SHIFT // 2017 Programmatic Video & TV Ad Summit on Wednesday, November 29th in NYC are now available on the SHIFT web site. The program includes 12 sessions that will dig into all aspects of programmatic video & TV. There are keynote interviews, fireside chats, research presentations and discussion sessions all meant to enhance attendees’ understanding of the burgeoning programmatic video & TV landscape.

Our initial group of speakers come from leading advertisers, agencies, content providers/publishers, technology providers and investors. Our keynoters are Mike Rosen, EVP, Portfolio Sales and Strategy, NBCUniversal, who will talk about how the company is raising the bar for programmatic and Jon Stimmel, Chief Investment Officer, Universal McCann who will address agency opportunities in programmatic video and TV.

Other speakers are from A+E Networks, Amplifi, Beachfront Media, Cedato, eMarketer, Essence, Fox, FreeWheel, IAB, IBM Watson, MediaLink, Meredith, SintecMedia/Operative, Prohaska Consulting, Roku, SpotX, Time, Turner Ad Sales, VertaMedia, The Vertere Group, Videology, with many others to be announced soon.

Reminder that all paid registrants will be entered to win 1 of 3 Roku Ultra 4K streaming players, generously provided by Roku. In addition, early bird registrants save $100 off the regular rates. Further discounts are available on 5-packs and 10-packs. And, startups and students can register for the reduced $245 ticket (contact me for the code).

Learn more and register now!

I’m pleased to present the 393rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

It’s been a big week for executive changes in the SVOD world. Hulu’s CEO Mike Hopkins is departing to become chairman of Sony Pictures Television. Randy Freer, president and COO of Fox Networks will take over as Hulu’s new CEO. Colin and I both think Hopkins accomplished a lot in his four years at Hulu and we review the company’s progress. Still, the SVOD space is more competitive than ever and Hulu has a range of challenges ahead of it.

Speaking of executive changes, Amazon Studios is undergoing a brain drain, with its head Roy Price leaving due to sexual harassment charges followed by 3 other senior executives. Amazon Studios was already under pressure to create blockbuster programming and these management changes would seem to only increase the pressure. We dig into what’s happening at Amazon.

Listen in to learn more!
 
Click here to listen to the podcast (23 minutes, 50 seconds)

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

Have you watched any of the first two games of the World Series? If you have, then you’ll undoubtedly agree that YouTube TV, the fledgling skinny bundle, is owning the games so far. Their branding is everywhere - behind home plate, on dugout walls and rails, on the outfield wall, on the end-of-inning scoreboard, on Fox’s “presented by” branding graphic, etc.

And all of that is on top of a 2-minute ad that played immediately prior to the first pitch in game 1, which cleverly started and ended with a live feed of the pre-game action on a mock living room TV (oddly, that 2 minute ad isn’t available in YouTube TV’s own YouTube channel). However a separate 30-second ad YouTube TV has also been running is (see below).

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