VideoNuze Posts

I'm pleased to present the 167th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. Today Colin and I assess the prospects for Intel Media's forthcoming over-the-top / pay-TV alternative service, which Erik Huggers described at this week's D: Dive Into Media conference.

Colin and I have very different perspectives on this. I believe that the ground rules of how major TV programmers negotiate their distribution deals (i.e. bundling disparate channels together) essentially eliminates the opportunity for pay-TV operators (or aspiring operators like Intel) to actually innovate with subscription packages. Further, by not addressing consumers' main problem with pay-TV, which is its high cost, Intel is going to have a hard time even getting 98% of consumers' attention in the first place.

Conversely, Colin believes that Erik wouldn't have been on stage at D unless he already had confidence he could get the kind of programming flexibility required to deliver on what he described. With that flexibility, Colin has faith that Intel can offer finer-grained packages, in turn delivering higher value to prospective consumers. However, absent more details, he's reluctant to be too optimistic.

Listen in to learn more!

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I attended the D: Dive Into Media conference earlier this week for the first time. It is mainly a series of one-on-one interviews with senior executives from a variety of media and technology companies, plus networking. Overall it was a great conference, and it's hard to beat a couple of days in beautiful Dana Point, CA, especially when coming off a blizzard in Boston.

My main interest was the video-related sessions, and from those I had 6 takeaways which I share below (along with selected session video clips), in no particular order:

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At NATPE, Greg Smith, GM of VideoHub, a unit of Tremor Video, shared observations on the online video advertising market and how VideoHub is differentiating itself. Some of the highlights of what Greg is seeing:

- Segmentation among ad buyers - some that want a full-service model, like the one Tremor Video offers, and some that want a lower-cost, self-service model like what VideoHub offers

- Strong interest in real-time bidding and ongoing desire by publishers and advertisers to figure out how to value inventory

- An explosion in online original video programming that will be monetized through advertising

And more.

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Video ad technology provider Videology has released its Q4 '12 U.S. video infographic, continuing to break down into fine detail which industries are using online video advertising, how/who their campaigns target and performance. The data is based on nearly 2.4 billion video ad impressions Videology served in Q4, and it offers extremely rich insights for anyone looking for a deeper dive into the surging online video ad market.

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FreeWheel has released its full year and Q4 2012 video monetization report, showing that video ad loads and ad completion rates hit their all-time highs since the first report in 2010. From Q4 '11 to Q4 '12, ads per video in long-form content (20+ minutes) were up from 6.92 to 9.4; in mid-form (5-20 minutes) were up from 1.22 to 1.27 and for short-form (under 5 minutes) were up from .54 to .66.

Despite the increase in ad loads, their completion rates were up across the board as well in Q4 '12 vs. a year earlier as well: long-form up from 88% to 93%, mid-form up from 68% to 81% and short-form up from 54% to 68%. (see both charts below) For now at least, consumers continue to show a strong willingness to sit through ads in order to view free, professional content, on which the FreeWheel report is based.

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Last week Olympic champion Lindsey Vonn crashed horrifically in the Super G at the 2013 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, tearing two ligaments and ending her season. Terrifying though it was, it's exactly the kind of video clip (see below) that the skiing world and Vonn's fans want to be able to see immediately.

In this particular situation, Universal Sports, which had the championship's broadcast rights, was able to deliver, posting the clip, which includes audio of Vonn's agonizing cries, within minutes of the incident. As Universal Sports' VP/GM, Digital Media, Elliott Gordon and Director, Streaming Operations, Gus Elliott, explained to me, fast time-to-market drives numerous benefits for the sports network and is enabled by a relatively new relationship with SnappyTV.

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Online video ad buying continues to shift toward, but also improve upon, conventional TV ad buying, with the latest evidence that Adap.tv is now optimizing audience targeting against data from Nielsen and comScore.

As Toby Gabriner, Adap.tv's president, explained to me, the process starts with an algorithm the company has developed to predict a publisher's audience composition. The algorithm is based on numerous data "signals" (e.g. content type, time of day, browsing behavior, 3rd party profiling, etc.) that are continuously updated. The audience profiles are then used to focus on impressions that should index high against Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) and comScore Validated Campaign Essentials (VCE).

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I'm pleased to present the 166th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week Cisco released its VNI Mobile Data Forecast, which Colin and I both wrote about (here and here). Each of us was particularly focused on the role of mobile video, which Cisco forecasts will account for 66% of all mobile data by '17.

Colin and I discuss the critical role of wireless carriers' tiered data plans as the big driver of what happens with mobile video adoption. To the extent that caps remain relatively low and plans quite expensive, video usage on carrier networks will be suppressed. However, users are already savvy about moving video usage to WiFi networks, typically within the home. As a result, "portable" video (as we think of it) - is soaring.

Both of us share a number of specific data points we're seeing and hearing about which support the shift to video viewing on smartphones and tablets. Although we agree it's still a bit of a murky picture, we both believe strongly that consumer behavior is clearly shifting to watching video on smartphones and tablets. Over which types of networks they will do so going forward is an issue to be tracked closely.

Click here to listen to the podcast (19 minutes, 49 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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