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VideoNuze Report Podcast #87 - Feb. 11, 2011
Daisy Whitney and I are pleased to present the 87th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for February 11, 2011.
In this podcast, Daisy and I do a deep dive into the role of sports in pay-TV packaging, based on my post from Monday, "Not A Sports Fan? Then You're Getting Sacked For At Least $2 Billion Per Year." I think this is a fascinating topic and something that has been under-reported even though it has huge implications for pay-TV subscription rates as over-the-top services gain awareness.
The basic premise of my post was that since a relatively small cluster of sports-oriented channels (e.g. ESPN, TNT, Regional Sports Networks and others) collectively cost pay-TV operators $10 per month, then the charges being incurred by non-fans and casual who fans who rarely, if ever watch these channels, could amount to at least $2 billion per year. Since writing the post and gaining feedback from various sources, it's actually quite possible that the annual charges incurred in exchange for little-to-no value could exceed $3 billion. Whatever the number is, it's very large, and effectively represents a massive subsidy that non-fans and casual fans pay each year because of escalating sports TV rights deals and astronomical player compensation.
Click here to listen to the podcast (17 minutes, 8 seconds)
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Categories: Cable Networks, Cable TV Operators, Podcasts, Satellite, Sports, Telcos
Topics: Comcast SportsNet, ESPN, Hulu, NESN, Netflix, Podcast, RSN, TNT
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Panache Goes Social With New Ad Format
Online video ad provider Panache launched a clever new format today called the "Social Offer" which responds to the number one request it receives from brands: what can we do in social? Panache's VP of Marketing Jill Druschke brought me up to speed on how the ad format works and what its objectives are.
The Social Offer format takes existing pre-roll creative and integrates it with social features from Twitter, Facebook and others that offer an API. The goal is to drive more engagement and increase CPMs. In a sample ad for Coke (see below), an overlay pops up that prompts the viewer to receive Coke Rewards points by tweeting about the ad. When the viewer clicks and authorizes a connection to Twitter, a pre-populated tweet appears with a hashtag for the campaign. The tweet is completed, the video then continues to roll and the viewer receives a message with the reward code.
Categories: Advertising
Topics: Panache
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Options For Moving Video From Smartphones/Tablets to TVs Keep Growing
Have you ever had the experience of watching video on your smartphone or tablet and feel like you'd prefer to watch it on your big TV? If so, there is a growing range of options to help make this happen, including:
Skifta - an Android app from Qualcomm that lets you play local or cloud-based media on any DLNA-certified device.
AirPlay - a relatively new feature in Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod) running iOS 4.2 or later with one-click ability send media to other connected Apple devices (e.g. Apple TV, AirPlay-ready devices, etc.).
Rovi Connected Platform - Rovi, the digital entertainment infrastructure provider, just announced yesterday a new Android solution for CE manufacturers to allow their devices to move media around the home to connected devices.
SnapStick - the intriguing start-up that lets users of any mobile device to "snap" their media over to the TV by gently flicking the device in the TV's direction.
Categories: Devices
Topics: AirPlay, Comcast, Microsoft, Rovi, Skifta, SnapStick, Sonos
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Sharethrough Is On A Roll As Brands' Social Video Surges
Sharethrough, the social video ad platform and distribution network, is on a roll as brands of all sizes are shifting some of their focus to creating their own immersive video experiences that go far beyond traditional 15 and 30-second TV spots. Sharethrough's role is to help get branded content into the social media slipstream, to be viewed and shared by target audiences. Earlier this week Sharethrough's CEO and founder Dan Greenberg brought me up to speed on the company's progress and also the changes he's seeing in the market.
Dan reports that in 2010 Sharethrough grew its agency client base by 43%, adding to its roster firms such as Pereira & O'Dell, Universal McCann, Evolution Bureau and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. As Dan explained, agencies are increasingly being called upon by their brand clients to create distinctive video campaigns that capitalize on the trends toward online video and social media. In this way brands themselves are becoming content creators, moving from an "interrupter mindset" to an "entertainment mindset." For the agency creative teams, this shift is extremely liberating; the expanded format lets them flex their creative muscles to a much greater extent. A terrific recent example of this is the gorgeous 2-minute Chrysler "Imported from Detroit" spot with Eminem that aired during the Super Bowl (already with 4.5 million YouTube views). It feels totally different than any car ad and much more like a short film.
Categories: Branded Entertainment, Social Media
Topics: Sharethrough
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Miniweb's Woomi Now Live on Samsung Devices in U.K., Coming Soon to U.S.
An item from late last week missed my radar: Woomi, the cloud-based content services platform for connected devices from Miniweb, officially went live on Samsung connected TVs and devices in the U.K. I wrote about Woomi
last October and was impressed with how its approach skirted the "browser vs. no browser" choice most connected devices are making, instead focusing on bringing content in via their app. I caught up with Miniweb's CEO Jerome de Vitry yesterday to learn more about the U.K. launch and upcoming plans.
Jerome said that Samsung believes it has around 500K connected devices deployed in the U.K. with the majority of them March, 2010 or later vintage, capable of handling the Woomi service. Of these, Samsung estimates about half of them have been connected (remarkably, a lot of people who buy connected devices don't actually connect them; go figure). Though it's very early on, Jerome said that about 5K people have already accessed the Woomi app, which is featured on the home Internet@TV screen, alongside Netflix, Pandora, Amazon VOD, etc.
Categories: Devices
Topics: Miniweb, Samsung, Woomi
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Not a Sports Fan? Then You're Getting Sacked For At Least $2 Billion Per Year
Last night 100 million plus people tuned into the Super Bowl, once again highlighting the game's singular popularity. But aside from this huge once per year spike in sports enthusiasm, a simple fact remains: if you subscribe to pay-TV services and are not a sports fan (or are just a casual one), you are paying a lot of money each month for very expensive sports-oriented cable TV channels which you mostly don't watch. This degree of wasteful overspending, which could amount to at least $2 billion every year (as I'll detail below), creates a mile-wide opportunity for entertainment-oriented over-the-top entrants to prosper.
The value of sports programming was a topic we tackled last week at the MIT Enterprise Forum (panelists included Mark Cuban, Avner Ronen, Paul Sagan and me). Moderator Woody Benson challenged us at the start with how he could reduce his current $260/mo cable bill. As part of the discussion, Mark volunteered that pay-TV operators probably spend around $10 per month in licensing fees just for sports-oriented cable channels (these include channels like ESPN and its sister networks, TNT, and Regional Sports Networks, "RSNs" like NESN and Comcast SportsNet here in the Boston area and others). Mark estimated that this adds up to about 25% of the total monthly amount pay-TV operators spend on programming. My sense is that Mark's $10 per month amount might be a little high, but since he owns the NBA's Mavericks and sees the TV deals, he's in a good position to know.
(The video starts with about 40 minutes of one-on-one discussion between Mark and Woody and then shifts to the full panel)
Categories: Sports
Topics: Comcast SportsNet, ESPN, NESN, Netflix, RSN, TNT
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Quite a Week for M&A In Online/Mobile Video
It's been quite a week for M&A in online and mobile video. On Monday, KIT Digital announced it was acquiring Kewego, KickApps and Kyte. Then today Cisco bought Inlet Technologies to flesh out their Videoscape platform and Tremor Media reportedly acquired mobile ad manager Transpera. That's a lot of activity for just one week, and points to how key players are jockeying for bigger slices of the online and mobile video market. The trend will no doubt continue.
What do you think? Post a comment now (no sign-in required).
Categories: Deals & Financings
Topics: Cisco, Inlet, Kewego, KickApps, KIT Digital, Kyte, Transpera, Tremor Media
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Hey Jason Kilar: You Should Go Back to Amazon and Compete Against Netflix
Not that Hulu's CEO Jason Kilar has asked for or needs my career advice, but in light of his controversial "speaking truth to power" blog post on the future of TV, which has wags all over the industry saying his tenure at Hulu is all but over, I'll offer it up anyway: he should go back to Amazon (where he was prior to Hulu) and run their soon-to-be-launched video subscription business that will compete directly against Netflix.
Categories: Aggregators, People
Topics: Amazon, Hulu, Jason Kilar, Netflix
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