VideoNuze Posts

I'm pleased to present the 328th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

It’s been a milestone week for live-streaming, starting with news that Facebook is spending $50 million with media partners to create content for Facebook Live. Then there was C-SPAN live-streaming the Democrats’ gun protest sit-in via Facebook Live and Periscope after C-SPAN’s cameras were shut down.

Meanwhile, adding more momentum to live-streaming this week, Tumblr announced that it would support live-streaming via YouNow, Kanvas, Upclose and YouTube. And then just yesterday, YouTube announced that it will soon introduce mobile live-streaming within the YouTube app - arguably a catch-up move given Periscope, Meerkat and others already enabling this for a while - but significant given YouTube’s massive scale. Last but not least, game 7 of the NBA finals garnered WatchESPN its largest audience ever for an NBA game, with nearly 1.8 million viewers.

In today’s podcast we discuss Facebook’s live-streaming moves and the industry’s broader opportunity. I continue to be very bullish on live-streaming’s potential and believe we’ll see a lot of interesting applications of it going forward.

Listen now to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (22 minutes, 31 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

Click here to add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

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

Yesterday morning, just after I posted “5 Reasons Why Facebook Spending $50 Million on Live-Streaming Content is So Smart,” C-SPAN’s cameras in the U.S. House of Representatives were turned off by House Speaker Paul Ryan as Democrats began a sit-in to protest gun control legislation not being brought to a vote. But then, an extraordinary thing happened: various Democratic Representatives began live-streaming the protest via Facebook Live and Periscope, with C-SPAN picking up the feeds.

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The WSJ is reporting that Facebook has signed deals with almost 140 media companies and celebrities, committing $50 million for guaranteed live-streaming content for Facebook Live. A straight average would value each partner’s deal at over $350K, but as expected, certain partners are getting a disproportionate share.

According the paper, the top 15 providers account for $21.4 million, or almost 43% of the total $50 million. At the top of the list are BuzzFeed ($3.1 million), NY Times ($3 million) and CNN ($2.5 million). I’d guess there are others at the bottom of the list whose deals are in the low 5 figures.

I’ve been enthusiastic about Facebook Live and see at least 5 reasons why the company investing $50 million (which is chump change given 2015 revenue of nearly $18 billion) is so smart:

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JW Player announced yesterday that it has added Univision as a new enterprise customer in the first quarter, a significant win for the company. JW Player’s platform is being used in part to support Univision’s streaming of the high-profile Copa America Centenario matches this month, including on its mobile apps.

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Over the past 60 days Altitude Digital has added 35 new publishers to its Altitude ARENA programmatic video platform and has integrated 15 new demand-side platforms (DSPs). Altitude ARENA was launched as a self-service video platform this past April. Altitude’s CMO Joe Grover brought me up to speed on what’s behind the quick adoption.

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News Corp. announced this morning at Cannes Lions the availability of a new viewable vertical video ad for mobile devices that can be bought initially on The Sun and The New York Post. The ad is an outstream format against vertical video content, plays only when in view and can be scrolled past. The ad appears with audio off, which viewers can toggle on. Viewability is measured by Moat per MRC standards.

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I'm pleased to present the 327th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This week, Ellation, which is backed by Otter Media, itself a joint venture of The Chernin Group and AT&T, announced a new SVOD service called VRV (pronounced “Verve”). VRV is targeted mainly to the gamer/geek audience with a mix of anime, animation, gaming, comedy, fantasy and technology content.

While VRV has multiple content partners already signed up to participate, Crunchyroll, the anime SVOD service in which Otter Media holds a majority stake, is clearly the anchor tenant of VRV. Crunchyroll is perhaps the most successful niche SVOD service, with approximately 750K paying subscribers, plus a larger free ad-supported audience.

To learn more about VRV, Colin was briefed by Ellation’s head of marketing and distribution Arlen Marmel and I was briefed by CEO Tom Pickett. Colin is very enthusiastic about how VRV will leverage Crunchyroll and believes VRV’s freemium approach will find success with its target audience. While I like VRV’s parallels to Amazon’s Streaming Partners Program, I’m more cautious in my outlook, mainly because it’s not quite clear to me how VRV’s pricing/value proposition for a la carte channels vs. its bundle offer will work until VRV launches later this year.

Stepping back, VRV represents further innovation in business models and user experiences for video services and is part of a broader trend toward SVOD curation/aggregation that we envision gaining momentum.

Listen now to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (22 minutes, 9 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

Click here to add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today! (note the link has been updated)