VideoNuze Posts

I'm pleased to present the 249th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This week we tackle a topic that has gained a lot of recent attention - whether SVOD services (e.g. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.) are starting to bite into broadcast and cable TV networks' ratings and advertising revenues. The mantra from TV network executives and their studio brethren over the past few years has been that SVOD licensing revenue was purely incremental to their ad revenue.

But a slew of Q3 data, including large declines in C3 viewing (especially among under 49 year-olds), flat-to-down TV ad revenues being reported by TV networks and excellent new analysis from researchers at Bernstein, MoffettNathanson and elsewhere suggest that we may actually be at the beginning of structural audience shift from linear/TV to SVOD, with TV advertising dollars leaking over to digital and online video.

This would obviously be significant new challenge for TV networks/studios, all the more so because their own content licensing deals are the key enabler of SVOD services' appeal in the first place - and thus the shift.

It's a fascinating topic with many long-term implications…listen in to learn more!

(And note, we will dig deep into this topic at the Dec. 4th VideoSchmooze NYC in our opening session with Nielsen's SVP, Client Insights Dounia Turrill and Leichtman Research Group's President and Principal Analyst Bruce Leichtman. Register now to save and to win a TiVo Roamio Plus with Lifetime service!)

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The program is now complete for the half-day December 4th VideoSchmooze in NYC (just 4 weeks from today!) and I'm really excited about the lineup of sessions and industry executives participating.

The final session added is "Best Practices for Great Video User Experiences," which will include Bloomberg Media's Global Head of Digital Video Paul Marcum, comScore's SVP, Global Marketing Strategy Anne Hunter, Brightcove's Sr. Director of Digital Media Solutions Mike Green and one more speaker TBD, moderated by Jesse Redniss, co-founder of BRaVe Ventures and formerly SVP of Digital at USA Networks. The session will dig into best practices around content, monetization and viewer engagement.

I'm also pleased to share that NBCU's SVP, Consumer Product Strategy, TV Everywhere Dina Juliano and FreeWheel's Director, Advisory Services Brian Dutt, will join the "Sports' Pivotal Role in Driving TV Everywhere's Adoption" panel, which also includes executives from Comcast and FOX Sports and will be moderated by Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Last but not least, Kaltura's VP, Product Ariel Hitron will join the "TV, Disrupted: Online Originals Hit Their Stride" panel, alongside executives from Fullscreen, Vimeo, DEFY Media and Tubefilter.

Kaltura is also on-board as a Lead sponsor for VideoSchmooze in addition to Brightcove, and Branding sponsors Digitalsmiths, Tremor Video and FreeWheel. I am grateful to all of them for their generous support.

All in all, VideoSchmooze is going to be a jam-packed morning of learning and networking, covering many of the hottest trends in the industry today. If you need to cut through the noisy headlines and find out what's really going on, VideoSchmooze is a must-attend event.

Early bird tickets are $95, with 5-packs for $430 and 10-packs for $760. As an extra incentive, all early bird registrants will be entered to win a TiVo Roamio Plus DVR with Lifetime service, a $1,000 value, generously provided by TiVo.

REGISTER NOW AND SAVE!

Cloud-based encoding company Encoding.com has raised a $3.5 million Series B round led by video infrastructure provider Harmonic, with participation by existing investors. The new round brings to $8 million the total capital raised by the company.  

The investment follows a partnership announced last April between the companies in which Encoding.com integrated Harmonic's ProMedia Carbon transcoding solution. That deal allows content providers and distributors who already use Carbon on-premise to tap into Encoding.com's Carbon deployment to meet transcoding demand spikes.

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Dish Network has been very public about its interest in launching an over-the-top pay-TV service (a virtual pay-TV operator or "vPop") this year. But on Dish's Q3 '14 earnings call yesterday, company chairman Charlie Ergen provided an update on its progress, tamping down short-term expectations for the vPop service and its likely market impact. More importantly, as I explain below, Ergen's comments highlight some of the vPop's conflicting goals and significant challenges.

Following are Ergen's initial comments on the call about the vPop service (from the transcript at Seeking Alpha), in which he speaks candidly about the complexity and uncertainty involved with the launch:

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If you have kids that love to gorge themselves on Disney, Pixar and Marvel movies, then today's news that Disney Movies Anywhere (DMA) has been integrated with Google Play, allowing Android users full access to their purchased movies, is a huge win.

Since February, when Disney Movies Anywhere launched, movies have only been viewable on the web, in iTunes and on iOS devices. Given the close Disney-Apple relationship, it made a ton of sense for Disney to launch DMA with iTunes. However, there's a big mobile world beyond Apple devices, with comScore reporting Android accounted for 51.5% of smartphones in July '14 and IDC recently reporting that iPad market share has dropped to less than 23%. Getting beyond Apple was clearly an imperative for DMA.

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Online video ad platform Eyeview is now enabling advertisers to dynamically serve personalized video ads based on current weather conditions. The new "Eyeview Weather Tracker" monitors weather in an advertiser's target markets and based on this data, updates and delivers ads appropriate for the conditions.

Weather Tracker is geared toward retailers, whose in-store traffic and sales are greatly affected by inclement weather. Eyeview cited data indicating that last winter's freezing cold and storms depressed Q1 retail sales, which in turn heavily contributed to a broader economic downturn in the quarter.

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Discovery and analytics provider Rovi has announced its acquisition of Fanhattan, a startup offering cloud-based discovery solutions as well as the innovative Fan TV connected TV device. Fanhattan combines live TV, VOD and OTT in one search experience powered from the cloud, which is available to viewers either through the web, an iOS device or the Fan TV.  

Omar Javaid, SVP/GM of Rovi's Discovery group told me the primary motivation for the deal was Fanhattan's cloud-based unified discovery technology, its team and the products. Fanhattan augments Rovi's existing next-generation discovery products. Rovi's customers include many pay-TV operators (Charter, Dish, etc.), device manufacturers (Apple, Samsung, Sharp, etc.) and online entertainment services (Shazam, Facebook, MTV, etc.).

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