VideoNuze Posts

The 2012 presidential election is already in full swing, and in early primary states that's meant a barrage of TV ads from well-funded candidates. But with viewer behaviors shifting away from traditional TV, the Internet has become an increasingly important way of reaching voters. And with online video usage surging, the latest battleground is how to leverage this new medium to their advantage. Enter the new "Jivox Political Ad Kit," an interactive, multi-screen, social media-enabled product from video ad technology provider Jivox.

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There's little subtlety in Adap.tv's current placeholder web site that asks the question, "What does it take to destroy the inefficiencies in TV and video advertising?" Unlike other online video ad technology providers who are positioning themselves to complement the current TV ad buying process, Adap.tv is looking to blow up the traditional approach, replacing it with what CEO/founder Amir Ashkenazi's calls a "programmatic" technology-based alternative. Last week I caught up with Amir to learn more about Adap.tv's mission, and also how it landed as the number 2 video ad provider (just behind Hulu) in comScore's December, '11 ranking, with over 1.1 billion ads served.

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The first-ever streaming Super Bowl attracted over 2.1 million unique viewers, who consumed 78.6 million minutes. That surpassed NBC's expectations, according to Kevin Monaghan, SVP, Business Development and Managing Director of Digital Media at NBC Sports Group, who said that usage increased throughout the game and peaked in Q4 during the Giants' final touchdown drive. According to Omniture and mDialog data, it was the most-viewed live-streamed single game ever.

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Think the world has moved on entirely from renting DVDs to streaming? Think again. Coinstar reported strong Q4 earnings late yesterday, with its Redbox DVD kiosk unit showing 39.5% revenue growth for the quarter. Coinstar attributed Redbox's performance to new kiosks, popularity of new releases and the price increase that went into effect on Oct. 31st.

Coinstar management is also bullish for 2012, forecasting Q1 revenue of $530M-$555M, exceeding analysts' average expectations of $517M. And it's betting further on DVDs' continued strength, also announcing yesterday that it is acquiring NCR's 10,000 Blockbuster Express DVD kiosks for approximately $100M, which will help it build out its international business.

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Verizon and Redbox parent Coinstar announced their much-rumored joint venture this morning, promising a "new single-source, national multi-platform" service to be launched in the second half of 2012. The new service is squarely aimed at competing with Netflix. However, neither the press release nor a 5-minute press call revealed any substantive details about the service (e.g. content available, pricing, geographic availability, etc.). Verizon will own 65% of the JV, with Coinstar owning the remainder.

On the surface the alliance makes sense, marrying streaming and DVD rentals. Verizon brings its massive wireless footprint and tens of millions of subscriber relationships to the JV, a huge promotional platform. Also, via its FiOS roll-outs, it has relationships with key content providers. For its part, Redbox brings its 35,000+ rental kiosks along with its own Hollywood relationships. Theoretically, some combination of the two could yield a compelling offering.

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Video stream optimization and analytics provider Conviva has raised a $15 million Series D round, led by Time Warner Investments. With the financing, Conviva has raised $59 million to date. The new funding is earmarked for international expansion and headcount growth.

Conviva's client-side software takes the "pulse" of video streams, and depending on problems detected, will preemptively modify the stream's bit rate and its source, switching CDNs on the fly. The result is a much-improved user experience.  Content providers are able to use the Conviva dashboard to analyze delivery, playback and of their video, along with viewer engagement.  Conviva optimizes streams for Time Warner divisions HBO and Turner Broadcasting, among other customers including ESPN, Netflix, Fox, NBCU and others. In total, Conviva is optimizing over 1 billion streams per month.

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I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 119th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Feb. 3, 2012. In this week's podcast we discuss YouTube's original channels strategy.

As I wrote earlier this week, I think YouTube's approach is quite compelling, and although it's still very early, the disruptive potential is high. In a sense I see YouTube as trying to "out-cable cable," by introducing niche and micro-niche programming that leverage its low-cost, interactive distribution platform reaching a global audience of 800 million viewers each month. It's awfully tempting for incumbent broadcasters and cable networks to dismiss the efforts as lower quality and therefore not competitive, but history shows things that start modestly often have a way of improving dramatically (take ESPN's evolution as one great example).

Colin zeroes in on YouTube's interactive attributes and the favorable economics of online video delivery as being a key differentiators from today's TV landscape. As one who worked on so called interactive TV (or "ITV") efforts in its early days, Colin has a great perspective on this. He thinks YouTube's programming can be distinctive because, by definition, it can capitalize on its inherent connected Internet platform. That, combined with YouTube's native engaged user base, gives YouTube a whole new opportunity to change viewing experiences. Colin highlights a recent TDG survey of iPad users that revealed YouTube as the most used app (by 64% of users), which surpassed even iTunes (53% of users).

Listen in to learn more!

Note, this week YouTube head Salar Kamangar did a great on-stage interview with Peter Kafka at the D: Dive Into Media conference where he articulated YouTube's strategy. And for another perspective on YouTube's strength, see this fascinating article about RayWJ, a YouTube-only comedian who's reportedly pulling in $1 million a year from his channel.

Click here to listen to the podcast (21 minutes, 14 seconds)
 

Click here for previous podcasts

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The power of the video syndication model is on full display in the online sports category, where 2 of the top 3 properties in December, 2011 were little known, early stage video syndicators, rather than well-known media brands and sports leagues. As the chart below shows, the #2 slot belonged to CineSport, a company I wrote about 6 months ago, with 15.7 million unique viewers while the #3 position went to Perform Sports, a year-old entrant, with 14.6 million unique viewers. Both trailed ESPN with 24.7 million unique viewers, but were still well ahead of stalwarts like CBS, Turner and Fox. Earlier this week I spoke to Juan Delgado, Managing Director of Perform Americas to learn more about its syndication formula.

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