VideoNuze Posts

Odd as it may seem on the surface, the intersection of broadcast TV and the DVR has become a hotbed of innovation. Yesterday brought the latest player in this space, Boxee TV, which followed news earlier this week that Simple.TV has begun shipping, which itself followed the launch earlier this year of Aereo.

While each has its own unique approach, they all fundamentally provide viewers more flexibility to record and play back broadcast TV programs by leveraging over-the-top, broadband delivery, while seeking to undercut the price of a monthly subscription to pay-TV. They are all segmenting the consumer market, pursuing a cohort of "cord-cutters" and "cord-nevers" open to alternatives to pricey multichannel TV bundles.

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Advertising on connected TVs is continuing to improve, as Rovi late last week announced a new polling feature in its Rovi Advertising Network. Jeff Siegel, SVP, Global Media Sales, told me that this is one of the top capabilities advertisers have been asking for. Advertisers will typically seek a viewer's opinion on something and as a reward will offer a coupon or other incentive.

Rovi is a key player in the budding connected TV advertising market, as it both powers and sells ads for connected TV manufacturers Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic. NPD recently estimated that 27% of TVs shipped in Q1 '12 had Internet connectivity. However that number can be a little deceiving, since not all these buyers will actually connect their TVs. Jeff explained that Rovi breaks the TV market into four buckets: total number of TV sets shipped, the percent of these that are connectable, the percent of these that are actually connected, and finally what they are used for.

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Yesterday marked another milestone in online video's continuing evolution as 8 million concurrent live streams of Felix Baumgartner's Red Bull Stratos Mission were delivered (note that's according to YouTube, but has not yet been independently verified). I was one of those live streams, gathered with my family around my Mac watching the jump unfold on YouTube in full screen mode.

I figured a lot of people were also watching, so what really hit me was the quality of the stream - no buffering, no audio/video synch issues, no pixelation, nothing. Just a seamless high-quality feed for the full hour we watched. In my experience, that would be noteworthy even if only a small audience was tuned in and it was on-demand. The fact that it was done with 8M live concurrent streams seems quite significant.

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Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group and I are back for the 151st edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast. This week Colin and I first discuss YouTube's curation plans which I wrote about yesterday. I've received a number of emails about my post, with most readers intrigued by the idea, and wanting to learn more. Colin likes YouTube's curation direction too, seeing it as a reminder of the value of programming.

Colin then walks us through some of the interesting reactions he got on a panel he moderated at the TV Next conference, "The Rise of the Next-Gen Operator." He asked the question - imagine its 2022, what does a pay-TV operator look like? Listen in to learn more.

Last but not least, Colin is moderating a session for Ooyala at next week's Digital Hollywood. Ooyala is offering complimentary admission to the conference in exchange for completing the form located here.

Click here to listen to the podcast (21 minutes, 15 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

YouTube has gained a huge amount of publicity for its original channels initiative, which was expanded internationally earlier this week. Now, according to an article by Magnify.net's CEO Steve Rosenbaum in Forbes yesterday, another critical and emerging YouTube strategy is "curation."

YouTube is the 800 pound gorilla for video uploads - with 72 hours added every minute - and the idea behind curation is to get users to cull through that massive video library to either add to their own channels and/or to build new ones, using others' videos.

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Here's a pretty eye-opening update of how pay-TV operators' VOD movies options are faring compared with OTT services like Netflix, Redbox, Amazon and others: just 22% of pay-TV subscribers order at least 1 VOD movie per month, whereas half of them use an OTT service. The data is according to a new study by Digitalsmiths of 2,000 pay-TV subscribers in North America over age 18 and speaks to the business opportunity in on-demand movies that pay-TV operators have left open for OTT competitors.

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Early bird discounted registration for the next VideoSchmooze: Online Video Leadership Forum, on Wed. morning, Dec. 5th, is now open. This will be the 9th VideoSchmooze and it promises to be the highest impact one yet, packed with lots of learning and networking with industry leaders. VideoSchmooze will run from 7:30am-12 noon at the McGraw-Hill conference center in NYC. Last year's VideoSchmooze sold out, so don't delay registering.

Following the networking breakfast, the program will begin with a discussion, "Digging Into Video's Tectonic Shifts" with 4 of Wall Street's top video industry analysts (including Craig Moffett, the #1 ranked cable/broadband analyst and Michael Nathanson, the #1 ranked entertainment analyst). Nobody understands the video industry's underlying financial and strategic drivers better than this group and it's a privilege to have them join us. Expect a detailed, data-driven discussion of topics including over-the-top competition, TV Everywhere, cord-cutting, content licensing, connected and mobile devices, changes in consumer behavior and 2013 trends.

Next is a in-depth discussion of TV Everywhere, the pay-TV industry's top strategic priority to deliver more value to subscribers and blunt the appeal of OTT services like Netflix. We'll explore all of TV Everywhere's key opportunities and challenges from the pay-TV operator, TV network and technology perspectives. Complimenting this session will be a brief presentation from Adobe, whose "Project Primetime" platform has become integral to TV Everywhere's rollout.

Following will be a case study discussion on innovation in the video ecosystem with Aereo's founder and CEO Chet Kanojia. Aereo is arguably the hottest online video startup of 2012, raising $20.5 million from Barry Diller's IAC in February. While a lot of Aereo's media coverage has been on its relationship to the broadcast TV industry, we'll use this session to focus on how Aereo is innovating at the intersection of broadband delivery, cloud computing, storage, connected devices and consumer changes. For incumbents and startups alike, there will be valuable lessons in what's fueling disruptive new services.

The final session is "Cracking the Code on Multi-Platform Success," featuring Ran Harnevo, SVP of Video at AOL (the fastest growing major video site in 2012), Ernesto Schmitt, CEO and co-founder of zeebox (the red-hot social TV provider with recent investments from Comcast, NBCU and Viacom) and Chris Smith, VP of Video and Mobile at Collective (a leading cross-platform advertising management provider), plus one other participant. It's no secret the world is going multi-platform; the panelists will share insights about how to succeed.

The lead sponsors for this 9th VideoSchmooze are Adobe, AOL, Collective and thePlatform, with supporting sponsors Akamai and Undertone (additional supporting sponsorship opportunities are available, please contact me if interested). I'm extremely grateful for these companies' support in making VideoSchmooze possible. The video landscape in more complicated than ever, making VideoSchmooze a must-attend event for executives who need to filter the noise and understand what's really going on.

I look forward to seeing you on Dec. 5th!

LEARN MORE AND REGISTER NOW!

This past Saturday night's "Rumble 2012," a half-serious, half-comedic live-streaming debate between Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Fox News' Bill O'Reilly was another great example of online video's potential, but also its peril. Here was a situation where the bustling online video medium provided two of TV's biggest stars an unfettered creative and business opportunity, only to be undermined by technical snafus.

In case you weren't following this closely, Rumble 2012 was an online-only live-streaming event staged at George Washington University. Even though many viewers registered in advance, paying the $4.95 fee to watch the live-stream - and therefore indicating to the organizers how much server capacity would be required - a last minute server crash left many viewers unable to watch. I don't quite understand why this occurred, as any high-quality CDN would likely have been able to avoid such a problem. Be that as it may, organizers haven't shared any further details.

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