VideoNuze Posts

FreeWheel has released its quarterly Video Monetization Report for Q2 2013, and among other things, it shows a gap in video ads viewed on smartphones vs. videos viewed on them. Per the chart below, FreeWheel found that although 13.2% of videos were viewed on smartphones, just 5.6% of video ads were viewed on them. Tablets had a gap too, albeit smaller, with 4.3% of video views and 3% of ad views, while the ration of connected TV device views to ads was in-line at 1.2%-1.3%. Only desktop ad views surpassed video views in relative viewership.

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There was an eye-opening data point in VEVO's viewership report for the first half of 2013, published this week: 50% of its U.S. video views now come from mobile, tablet and connected TV devices. In fact, in an interview on Bloomberg in late August (see below), VEVO CEO Rio Caraeff said non-desktop U.S. views are now over 500 million per month, more than half of its approximately 1 billion U.S. monthly views. He also characterized non-desktop as the fastest growing part of VEVO's business.

The 50% non-desktop number is the highest I've seen disclosed by any online video content provider. Over the past year, when I've informally asked content providers about mobile/connected TV views, I've typically heard 25%-30%. By comparison, YouTube (note, VEVO is the largest partner) says on its site that mobile is 25% of its global watch time.

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T3Media has integrated its cloud-based T3 Library Manager content management solution with Amazon Web Services (AWS), so that common clients can seamlessly connect to their Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier accounts. Mark Lemmons, T3Media's CTO, explained to me that the company's content provider clients gain a new level of scale and control over their storage and compute resources with the Amazon integration.

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Mobile is emerging as the locus of innovation in the video user experience, with yesterday's unveiling of the new Yahoo Screen app as the latest evidence. Content providers appear to have realized that the tablet, in particular, offers a new navigation canvas that enables elegant design and graphics with intuitive touch-based interactivity. Combined, the user can be immersed in content to an unprecedented level.

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An interesting nugget of data in TubeMogul's quarterly research report released last week was that the click-through rate on mobile video pre-roll ads in the U.S. is a robust 4.9%, more than 8 times higher than the .6% CTR that TubeMogul tracked for pre-rolls on non-mobile devices. Of the 5 countries TubeMogul reported on, the U.S. disparity is by far the biggest, with Canada and Australia following with about a 3x higher CTR for mobile vs. non-mobile (see chart below).
 

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I'm pleased to present the 194th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. First up this week we discuss CBS CEO Leslie Moonves' remarks on CNBC essentially declaring victory in the company's retrans dispute with Time Warner Cable because it had preserved its ability to license its programs to Netflix and Amazon. Listeners will recall that 3 weeks ago on the podcast we talked about how OTT licensing was at the heart of the dispute and the consequences for TV Everywhere.

Next we transition to questioning whether there's any real benefit for TV networks and pay-TV operators to stream linear channels to connected TVs. Colin observes that recent data from the BBC indicating very low levels of linear streaming on connected TVs appears to question the value of the Disney-Apple TV and Time Warner Cable-Xbox 360 deals. We speculate that these are mainly meant for 2nd or 3rd TVs that don't have pay-TV set-top boxes.

Last, we chat briefly about the massive 3-part series that the NY Times ran just before Labor Day on ESPN's dominant role in college football - a long, but fascinating read. As I wrote, it's well worth the time for anyone interested in the influence of big time TV money not only on college sports but also on the broader American higher education system.

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In a big win for the company, Jinni has been selected by Microsoft to help power video content discovery solutions on Xbox. Jinni categorizes TV shows and movies using its "Entertainment Genome" project which assigns metadata such as mood, style and plot to each title. In the Xbox implementation, these will be combined with Xbox signals such as viewing history, to build and present content recommendations to users. The deal is for a multi-year period, suggesting Jinni will be a part of Xbox One, launching in November. Microsoft is positioning Xbox One equally as an entertainment device and gaming console.

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Taboola, which now serves 3 billion video and article recommendations per day across a wide network of publisher sites, is unveiling "Taboola Choice" this morning. Taboola Choice allows users to proactively filter out unwanted video and article recommendations, so that these will not be seen on any publisher sites which are subsequently visited. By adding this feedback loop, Taboola's recommendations become more precise over time, resulting in a better user experience and more efficiency for both content providers and publishers.

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