VideoNuze Posts

I'm pleased to present the 295th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

First up this week we dig into Yahoo’s decision to write off $42 million related to 3 of its long-form original programs, including the high-profile “Community.” As Colin and I explain, Yahoo faced a lot of headwinds from the start in making these a success. Yahoo’s bellyflop is actually not a big surprise and it’s a yellow flag for others interested in providing long-form content.

We then transition to talking about why HBO Now’s distribution with large pay-TV operators / broadband ISPs is stymied. At the WSJD conference this week, HBO CEO Richard Plepler lamented the company’s lack of progress. But as I explain, HBO Now represents more cord-cutting risk than upside opportunity to most operators (for more color on that, see here). Colin disagrees and thinks operators should be more aggressive. We have a healthy debate.

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What’s a viewer’s willingness to pay in order to have an ad-free video experience? The question is in focus yet again with yesterday’s announcement of YouTube Red, the company’s long-rumored $9.99/month ad-free service. Unfortunately for YouTube Red, in its case, willingness to pay is going to be heavily influenced by the fact that YouTube has arguably the most viewer (and advertiser) friendly video ad model, which will undoubtedly impact interest in paying for YouTube Red.

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Facebook is poised to dominate “social TV” according to a new report from The Diffusion Group, authored by veteran industry analyst Alan Wolk. Social TV is defined as using social media platforms to discuss, comment on, or enhance the television experience.

While Facebook’s importance grows, TDG sees Twitter’s role in social TV declining, though it is still significant today. Two main forces are at work: (1) a continued decline in live viewing, thereby making real-time platforms like Twitter less relevant and (2) a shift from fan-driven social TV activity to paid promotional placements by TV networks.

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AOL has released its 2015 U.S. State of the Video Industry report, finding, among other things, that 91% of media buyers surveyed said they’re now buying some of their online video ads programmatically, up from 53% in 2012. AOL found that 68% of advertisers have either brought programmatic video buying in-house or plan to next year. They’re doing so primarily to achieve greater buying efficiencies and because they’re skeptical of their agencies’ programmatic expertise.

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Magid has released new research commissioned by Watchwith finding that in-program native video ads have higher levels of unaided ad recall and improved brand metrics vs. traditional TV ads.

Watchwith recently unveiled the in-program native ad format which is an interactive overlay placed on a TV program streamed to a desktop, mobile device or connected TV. The ads can be contextually relevant to the underlying program itself using frame-by-frame metadata. Watchwith is positioning these ads as creating new, high-value inventory for TV networks to monetize their streamed TV programs.

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Looking to help publishers tap into high-CPM video advertising, 33Across has launched Real Video outstream and interstitial 15 and 30-second ad units, which can be run against text, image and other non-video inventory (see examples here). The units are sold programmatically and are 100% autoplay and viewable because they appear fully in view for a minimum of 5 seconds before a user is able to close and skip them.

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