VideoNuze Posts

Amazon will acquire Twitch, the live-streaming video game platform, for $970 million. Until very recently Google was heavily rumored to be acquiring Twitch. Twitch is Amazon's 2nd-biggest acquisition ever, after its $1.2 billion purchase of Zappos in 2009. Twitch enables users to live-stream and record themselves playing video games, which tens of millions of monthly visitors watch.

Twitch is Amazon's biggest investment in online video to date and follows other video initiatives including Prime Instant Videos, an escalating slate of original programs, numerous high-profile licensing deals (including for various HBO programs and for the PBS drama "Downton Abbey") as well as the recent launch of the Fire TV connected TV device.

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Innovid has released results of a study that concludes placing video ads with relevant video content helps to boost ad engagement. Innovid analyzed 3 campaigns using its iRoll format with the Innovid Atom Verification solution. Innovid measured number of ad impressions, verified video content categories and engagement rates.

Specifically, the study compared a campaign's engagement rate for ads served with relevant video vs. the engagement rate for overall impressions. Engagement rates were 1.9x and 1.4x higher respectively, for 2 of the campaigns, travel and auto, when the ad vertical aligned with the content category. However for the 3rd campaign (for pharma) it was 2.3x higher than overall when running against sports video specifically.

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For anyone who has ever endured seeing the same ad over and over again when watching an on-demand TV program, here's welcome news: ad tech provider BlackArrow has introduced a new audience-based frequency capping feature that enables advertisers to manage the number of times an ad is seen by a unique household, audience segment or device. The feature is part of the newest release of the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System.

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Broadband Internet access is a booming business in the U.S., especially for cable TV operators. According to data released last Friday by Leichtman Research Group, the top U.S broadband ISPs (accounting for 93% of the market) added nearly 384K subscribers in Q2 '14, the most since Q2 '09.  Q2 '14 additions were 29% higher than those in Q2 '13 and 16% higher than those in Q2 '12.

Because the law of large numbers is working against broadband ISPs, adding even the same number of subscribers year-over-year is impressive, while adding more is even harder to do. For example, at the end of Q2 '12 there were 80.3 million broadband subscribers in the U.S., while at the end of Q2 '14 there were 85.9 million.

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I'm pleased to present the 239th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Today we dig deeper into FreeWheel's Q2 '14 Video Monetization Report. Yesterday I briefly highlighted the data around TV Everywhere, and first we discuss that, with Colin adding data from other sources that tempers the picture a bit.

We're also both intrigued by the lengthening ad loads FreeWheel found and discuss viewers' tolerance levels for more ads. Finally we examine the distribution of viewing devices FreeWheel found, including a comparison to distribution in the UK and other data Colin shares.

Once again the report can be downloaded here.

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TV Everywhere proponents will find a lot to like in FreeWheel's newly released Q2 2014 Video Monetization Report. Ad views on authenticated on demand long-form plus live-streaming content grew 619% vs. Q2 '13. Fully 38% of these content formats' ad views now come via authentication, up from just 8% a year ago.

Live content was up 201% year-over-year, with 81% of live ad views attributable to sports. Q2 included marquee events like World Cup, NBA and NHL playoffs. The share of live content's ad views vs. total ad views increased from 8.1% in Q2 '13 to 18.3% in Q2 '14.

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EchoStar, which is DISH Network's main technology partner, has selected Conviva to guarantee video quality of DISH Network's 2 main TV Everywhere services, DISH Anywhere and DishWorld. The former provides live and on-demand access to DISH's programming while the latter is focused on international programming delivered online.

EchoStar will use Conviva's Intelligent Control Platform to optimize streaming video quality in real-time, on a per user basis. Conviva's platform monitors stream quality at an the individual user level, anticipating problems and preemptively optimizing by adjusting the bitrate, content delivery network and other parameters. An analytics suite gives content providers insight into the performance and viewership of their video.

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