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ESPN Continues Dampening Cord-Cutting Fears
ESPN released the its latest round of research on cord-cutting this week, finding that a tiny .18% of American homes with both pay-TV service and a
broadband connection dropped their video service between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011. ESPN said the .18% is actually lower than the .28% it found in its prior period research and is fully offset by a comparable number of people who upgraded from a "broadcast-only" service level to a full pay-TV package. Not surprisingly, ESPN said that among medium-to-heavy sports viewers there was zero cord-cutting.
Categories: Sports
Topics: ESPN, Nielsen, SNL Kagan
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NCAA MMOD Runs Home Page Takeover Ad On NYTimes.com
Speaking of sports, here's how big a deal live streaming of March Madness on Demand (MMOD) has become for the NCAA and its TV partners CBS and Turner Sports: yesterday, which was the tournament's big kickoff, the parties ran a pricey full-page, rich media takeover ad on the NYTimes.com home page (see below). MMOD has developed into the highest-profile live online video sporting event of the year. It's hard to believe any real college hoops fan doesn't know about MMOD's availability, but with the NYTimes ad, clearly the parties weren't taking any chances.
Categories: Broadcasters, Cable Networks, Newspapers, Sports
Topics: CBS, MMOD, NCAA, NYTimes, Turner Sports
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NeuLion Gets In the Game With NAIA Hoops Online
NCAA MMOD wasn't the only online college basketball story this week, as video platform provider NeuLion announced that it is powering the NAIA's men's
and women's basketball tournament, also now underway. But whereas NCAA MMOD has pursued a free, ad-supported model, the NAIA games are only available through a subscription, with the full package running $40.
Categories: Sports
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VideoNuze Report Podcast #92 - Mar. 18, 2011
I'm pleased to present the 92nd edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for March 18, 2011.
In this week's podcast, Daisy Whitney and I discuss Netflix's rumored $100 million deal for first-run rights to "House of Cards," a new TV series directed by David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey. As I wrote earlier this week, the deal would be a very significant shift in strategy for Netflix, and Daisy and I get into some of the details.
On a related note, yesterday I posted the audio recording of an interview I did with Netflix's chief content officer Ted Sarandos at the NATPE conference in January. Ted didn't allude to any first-run deals in that interview, but he did talk about his interest in bidding against HBO for the rights to Warner Bros. films when their deal was up for renewal among other topics.
Click here to listen to the podcast (13 minutes, 12 seconds)
Click here for previous podcasts
The VideoNuze Report is available in iTunes...subscribe today!Categories: Aggregators, Podcasts
Topics: HBO, Netflix, Podcast, Warner Bros.
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Audio Interview With Netflix's Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos
I'm pleased to provide an audio recording of an on-stage one-on-one interview I did with Netflix's chief content officer Ted Sarandos, at the NATPE Market conference on January 25th. I've been meaning to post this for a while, but experienced a few technical issues in getting it done. The interview is particularly timely given news this week that Netflix may be looking to distribute its first original TV series, "House of Cards," directed by David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey.
In this wide-ranging interview, Ted and I discuss topics such as Netflix's content acquisition strategy, how it decides how much to spend on licensing, the critical role that data plays in informing Netflix's decision-making, the future of the DVD business and lots more. Of note, this is the interview in which Ted said that Netflix would bid against HBO for Warner Bros. films when those parties' distribution deal comes up for renewal in a couple of years and that Netflix had the resources to fully compete. That declaration was a departure from Netflix's traditional public posture about working closely with premium cable networks rather than disrupting them, and set off a raft of media coverage.
Categories: Aggregators, People
Topics: HBO, Netflix, Warner Bros.
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Will Cable TV Networks Kill Their Golden Goose?
I've been dismayed, though not entirely surprised, by reactions from cable TV networks over the launch of Time Warner Cable's new iPad app earlier this week. A pair of articles, in Adweek and the WSJ summarize various networks' protestations about the new iPad app, namely that it is an unauthorized use of their content by Time Warner Cable, per their interpretations of their affiliation agreements with TWC.
That may well be the case, and TWC may well be pushing the edge of the envelope in this implementation of its larger TV Everywhere goals. However, in my opinion the bigger question that cable network heads should be asking themselves is whether, by resisting initiatives such as these, they want to risk contributing to killing their golden goose, or whether they want to do their part in helping usher in the future? What they decide to do is at the heart of what role the pay-TV industry will play in the online video era.
Categories: Cable Networks, Cable TV Operators, Devices
Topics: iPad, Time Warner Cable
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Advanced Advertising Media Project Looks to Kickstart VOD Revenues
A new research initiative aimed at measuring the impact of advertising in free VOD streams and hastening its deployment is being unveiled today. The
Advanced Advertising Media Project ("AAMP") is being spearheaded by the 4A's and BlackArrow, an advertising technology provider, with participation from A&E, CBS, Comcast, Digitas, Discovery, Horizon Media, NDS, Rainbow Media and others. Last week Nick Troiano, president of BlackArrow gave me an overview of AAMP and its progress so far.
AAMP's key objective is to discern what kinds of ads will be acceptable in VOD streams, and how these can be the basis for viable business models for content providers. While VOD has grown to approximately 7 billion views per year, with 4 billion delivered by Comcast alone, advertising has been severely under-optimized. As I recently wrote, online video advertising has lapped addressable TV advertising and then some. Whereas online video advertising has benefited from web-based standards to drive massive innovation and investment, addressable TV advertising on the other hand, including VOD, has been held back by a lack of robust infrastructure, under-investment by key players and anemic advertiser interest. Tune into VOD on any given night, and the lack of targeted ads, running repeatedly, demonstrates VOD's current lack of dynamic insertion, which is common in online video.
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A Netflix Deal For "House of Cards" Would Be a Big Shift In Its Strategy
A report late yesterday by Deadline.com, that Netflix is potentially going to bid $100 million to stream/broadcast the new David Fincher/Kevin Spacey TV series "House of Cards" has been ricocheting around the Internet like a pinball since. Deadline also reported that Netflix is bidding against HBO and AMC and could take the unusual step of not even piloting the series before making this huge financial commitment. As a close observer of Netflix's rise over the past several years, the move would break with several key tenets of the company's success formula. Though I've learned to never say never, following are a few Netflix strategies that would be changed with a deal for "House of Cards":
Categories: Aggregators
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