VideoNuze Posts

With talk of cord-cutting everywhere these days, independent ad-supported cable TV network Tennis Channel is showing early signs of success with a compelling new model in which linear, TV Everywhere and OTT converge to super-serve audiences and reinforce the value of sports on pay-TV.

At the 2014 French Open, Tennis Channel launched "Tennis Channel Plus" which runs $12/month or $80/year. Tennis Channel Plus now provides access to over 650 live events per year and over 1,000 hours of on-demand viewing. This means Tennis Channel adds broader coverage of tournaments it already broadcasts on linear, plus streaming of tournaments it hasn't previously covered.

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thePlatform has introduced Unified Ingest Service, a streamlined process for pay-TV operators to manage video and metadata for distribution across set-top boxes and connected/mobile devices.

thePlatform's co-CEO Marty Roberts told me that while operators are highly motivated to increase the breadth of their content offerings, they are challenged by the fact that ingest is still a largely siloed process depending on distribution channel (e.g. linear, VOD, IP video, etc.). As an example, Marty noted that in one operator's case, it is now taking in up to 16 different files for the exact same piece of content.

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Teads has announced this morning that its "outstream" video ads are now compatible with Apple's iOS for mobile web. Teads' outstream video ad units can be inserted in text articles on the mobile web and begin to play as the user scrolls the page. They stop playing when the user scrolls past them. This results in 100% viewability.

This past March Teads released its mobile SDK allowing outstream ads to run in mobile apps. But until now outstream ads could not run on mobile web in iOS because the device's full screen native player is force-launched, rather than allowing video ads to be viewed in-page.

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I'm pleased to present the 278th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This week Colin and dig into why data is taking center stage for video content providers and advertisers. We completely agree with the point Videology Chairman and CEO Scott Ferber made in his opening presentation at this past Tuesday's Video Ad Summit, that "The One With the Data Rules" in the converged world.

There is growing recognition that data is the glue that will guide multiscreen strategies and executions, in both content development and advertising. We discuss how companies like Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV and others are already capitalizing on data. Yet, it's still early days for exploiting data's full potential.

As our Video Ad Summit morning keynoter, David Cohen, Chief Investment Officer of Universal McCann said very well, we're in a phase where advertisers are trying to re-aggregate audiences across platforms and services at a scale comparable to what was available on TV not that long ago. Doing so is incredibly difficult, but data is the key to ultimately enabling this.

Listen in to learn more!

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YouTube has launched YouTube Newswire, powered by Storyful, where journalists can access eyewitness user-generated videos to incorporate into their reporting. Storyful, a social news agency startup that News Corp. acquired in December, 2013, verifies and curates the videos. YouTube Newswire is free, and includes global and regional feeds covering news, weather and politics.

Eyewitness videos have become a huge part of news reporting because of the mass proliferation of smartphones, which allow for spontaneous video capture often well ahead of the arrival of established news organizations. Social media has amplified the reach of these videos. But with all this video floating around the challenge becomes finding it, verifying it, organizing it and gaining the rights to use it - all prerequisites for it being used by established news outlets.

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Hundreds of industry executives turned out for yesterday's 5th annual VideoNuze Online Video Ad Summit for a jam-packed day of learning and networking. I'll be posting all of the session video recordings over the next few weeks as soon as they're edited.

Scott Ferber, chairman and CEO of Videology (the Video Ad Summit's Title Partner), kicked off the day with a presentation titled "TV and Video: A Year of Convergence" in which he articulated why convergence is not about "either/or" but rather is about "more" - essentially good news for TV advertising. Scott shared a number of relevant data points supporting the case and then moderated a session which dug deeper into the issues.

For today, I have embedded Scott's slides below, which perfectly set the stage for the Video Ad Summit's program. As you'll see, Scott's "golden rule" for the converging world  is "The One with the DATA Rules." This was echoed throughout every session of the day, with participants repeatedly reinforcing this point, while observing a key challenge is distilling the key data that really matters into actionable insights.

I'll have lots more on the Video Ad Summit in the coming weeks. It was an amazing day and I'm incredibly grateful to our 55 executive speakers and 21 sponsors!

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