VideoNuze Posts

I'm pleased to present the 155th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group, who joins from London. First up this week, we discuss AOL's video success and the larger concept of video syndication. Earlier this week, AOL revealed that its video revenues jumped from $10 million 2 years ago to $100 million in 2012, largely due to syndication. Colin and I dig into why syndication is so compelling and what's ahead.

Next up, Colin shares insights he gained from a presentation at the OTTTv World Summit in London by Marina Kalkanis, Head of the BBC's Programmes OnDemand Core Services team, which is responsible for the media and metadata services supporting BBC online. Marina's team oversaw BBC's online simulcast and on demand streaming of the London Olympics.

Colin was impressed by the scale of the BBC's Olympics operation and how video was consumed online and on mobile devices. One key takeaway - BBC found online/mobile complimenting linear TV, similar to NBC's experience in the U.S.

Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 11 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

Talk to any pay-TV operator executive these days and you'll get an earful on the relentless rise in their programming costs - what they pay to deliver both cable and broadcast TV networks into their subscribers' homes. Programming costs drive up subscribers' rates, in turn exacerbating pay-TV's affordability crisis, which in turn exposes the industry to cord-cutting, cord-shaving and over-the-top alternatives.

As I've written numerous times, scratch the surface of the programming cost issue and the focus quickly turns to sports networks and more specifically Regional Sports Networks ("RSNs") which have the geographic rights to air their local professional teams' games. One pay-TV executive who's attempting to take a hard line on RSNs' escalating costs is Michael White, CEO of DirecTV, who, on the company's earnings call on Tuesday, once again said that "regional sports networks' structure in the industry is broken" and that "we are taxing most of our customers who wouldn't be willing to pay for that content."

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I've been devoting a lot of ink to AOL recently because its success has made it the poster child for the power of online video syndication and monetization. In yesterday's Q3 '12 earnings report, AOL delivered the most resounding evidence yet of syndication's value - CEO Tim Armstrong said AOL's video ad revenue jumped from $10 million 2 years ago to a projected $100 million in 2012, with more growth ahead in 2013. The results are mainly due to video syndication, powered by AOL's acquisition of 5Min in 2010.

Simply put, AOL is capitalizing on the concept of the "syndicated video economy" that I first began discussing 4 1/2 years ago. On the call, Armstrong described how AOL's large video syndication library (which has grown from 30K videos to 450K today) feeds both its owned and operated properties and its network of 30K publishers. All of these sites are hungry for video for 2 important reasons: they meet users' increasingly video-oriented expectations and their adjacent ad inventory is monetized at far better rates than traditional display.

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Don't miss VideoSchmooze: Online Video Leadership Forum coming up on Wed., Dec. 5th in NYC. Early bird discounted registration for $95 per ticket ($85 for NATPE and CTAM members) is open until Nov. 16th and as a reminder everyone who signs up by then will be entered to win an $850 Samsung 40-inch LED Smart TV, generously provided by NeuLion.

This is the 9th VideoSchmooze and it promises to be the best yet. VideoSchmooze attendees know these events are all about high-impact learning from thought-leaders and high-quality networking with colleagues. The program kicks off with 4 of the top Wall St. broadband/cable/Internet/media analysts discussing the tectonic shifts that are rocking the video industry. It's the first time to my knowledge that this group has come together and it will be a super-insightful discussion into what's really driving the industry and what to expect in 2013.

Following the analyst discussion, there are 4 sessions during which we'll delve into the hottest topics including the OTT landscape, TV Everywhere, multi-platform distribution, monetization, innovation/technology enablers, changing consumer behaviors, devices, mobile video and more. Industry leaders on the front lines of innovation from AOL, Aereo, Adobe, zeebox, Discovery, Collective and others will be sharing their experiences and insights. There will be ample time for audience Q&A.

Register now for the early bird discount and an opportunity to win the Samsung Smart TV!

In my post last Tuesday, I cited comScore data showing that YouTube's share of online video views had dropped to 33.2% in Sept. '12, its lowest level in the 3+ years since I've been keeping track. On our weekly podcast last Friday, Colin Dixon from The Diffusion Group noted that while YouTube's view count was down, its time spent per viewer (sometimes referred to as "engagement") had increased during the past year.

Colin's point was consistent with YouTube's own goals; in response to my post, a YouTube spokesperson had directed me to a company blog post from August, in which Eric Meyerson, head of creator marketing communications, described changes the company had made to "encourage people to spend more time watching, interacting and sharing with the community."

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I'm pleased to present the 154th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group. This week finds Colin in Copenhagen, in the middle of the Nordic region which is seeing a lot of OTT activity from Netflix, HBO Nordic and others. Colin provides an update on what he's learned.

In addition, we discuss YouTube's declining market share, which in September stood at 33.2%, down from 53.1% as recently as July. I delved deeply into all of the year-over-year data this past Monday. Colin adds another dimension to the analysis, saying that this reflects a shift away from viewing short clips, toward longer-form viewing.  

Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 8 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

It may be a fool's errand to question the thinking of an investor who's worth $14 billion, but after listening to Bloomberg's interview with Carl Icahn yesterday (embedded below) concerning his newly disclosed 10% stake in Netflix, it's hard not to conclude his understanding of the company is a mile wide and an inch deep. Unless he has some big vision for the company up his sleeve that he's not disclosing, Icahn seems more interested in a short-term bet on driving Netflix into a larger company's arms, than in positively influencing Netflix's murky strategic direction.

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In a brief interview in AdWeek yesterday, Mark Cuban said "if Apple released a set-top box that supported authentication for multichannel video programming distributors (like cable and satellite companies), it would be a huge success." I agree with him - and that's exactly why such a product won't see the light of day.

As I asserted in August ("Apple to Make Cable Set-Top Boxes? Not. Going. To. Happen."), if pay-TV operators invited Apple to make set-tops it would be like letting the proverbial fox into the henhouse. They would be turning over their user experience to Apple, allowing the company to drive the UI and therefore reshape the video experience as it determined, just as it has done in music with iTunes. While there might be some short-term benefits (e.g. lower capex, etc.), the pay-TV industry's ability to sustain its multi-channel bundle long-term would be undermined.

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