VideoNuze Posts

(Note: below is information about Future of TV Forum, for which VideoNuze is a media partner. VideoNuze readers receive a 20% registration discount.)

Digital Media Wire’s 11th annual Future of Television Forum (FOTV) returns to New York City on September 18. This one-day event, held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, is packed with cutting-edge content and networking opportunities, including 10 panels, 3 roundtables, a keynote conversation and start-up/investor pitch sessions. The keynote speaker for the event is NBC News' Chief Digital Officer Vivian Schiller. Schiller, formerly president and CEO of National Public Radio, takes the speaker spotlight in the morning session alongside interviewer, Mike Vorhaus, President of Magid Advisors.

Other headliners at this year's FOTV include Anthony Wood (CEO & Founder, Roku), Laura Rowley (VP, Video Production and Product, Meredith National Media Group) and Joan Gillman (EVP & COO, Media Services, Time Warner Cable), along with top executives from Showtime, AMC Networks, Innovid, YuMe, Civolution, Hearst Television, Electus, GetGlue, TiVo, and more.

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TV Everywhere is the pay-TV industry's most important strategic priority to combat OTT viewing and enhance the value of expensive monthly subscriptions. In my view, a pretty good proxy for how TV Everywhere adoption is going is subscriber usage of pay-TV operators' tablet apps. According to a new report from Digitalsmiths, there is both good news and bad news on this: usage is increasing, but it remains at a nominal level.

The Digitalsmiths Q2 2013 Video Discovery Trends Report, based on 1,850 adult respondents, shows that of the 29.5% of respondents who say they own a tablet, just 23.8% have downloaded their pay-TV operator's app. Over half (52.4%) don't even know whether their pay-TV operator offers an app. In a bit of good news though, 42.9% of those who have downloaded their pay-TV operator's app say they use the app at least once per week. Indexing to 100 respondents, this would mean approximately 3 respondents, or 3%, use their pay-TV operator's app at least once per week.

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I'm pleased to present the 193rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week Colin and I discuss our experiences with Chromecast, adding details to our respective previous posts (here and here), as well as our initial podcast from a few weeks ago just after the device was announced.

Overall, we're both very positive about Chromecast. Among other things, we like the easy set-up, the "tab-casting" feature, and of course, the low price of $35. We both believe it is hugely strategic for YouTube and other video providers who are outside the pay-TV universe to gain access to the living room. Colin has had a few issues with Netflix crashing his Nexus 4 when trying to use Chromecast (though when it has worked the quality has been strong) and he has had trouble using Chromecast's capability of turning the TV on and off.

I haven't had any problems using Netflix, though the streaming quality feels slightly lower than when I watch on my iPad or via my connected Blu-ray player. I did have problems with Chromecast when trying to watch golf and suspect it would be difficult to watch faster-action sports.

Still, we're both impressed and believe Google deserves lots of credit. We're both expecting big things from Chromecast this holiday season.

On a closing note, we'd like to thank all of you for listening to our weekly podcasts. It's been an incredibly busy summer for online video and we both believe the best is yet to come. For those of you with a long Labor Day weekend ahead, enjoy, and we'll see you in September!


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Startup Cognitive Networks has announced that its Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology has been integrated by LG, making it the first big Smart TV manufacturer to deliver "enhanced TV" experiences.

As Michael Collette, CEO of Cognitive explained to me in a recent briefing, the company makes Smart TVs aware of what content is being displayed on screen instead of being "blind" as they currently are. Cognitive's ACR works by packaging pixel map information from the screen and sending it to the cloud where it is compared to an index of known fingerprints. The resulting data is fed in real time via Cognitive's "ENGAGE" API back to the Smart TV so that app providers can provide interactive experiences to viewers.

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I've been happily using my Chromecast both at home and on the road for 3 weeks now. Chromecast is not quite perfect, but it's an exemplary first version and no doubt destined to get even better. I think there are at least 6 things Google really got right with the device, as follows:

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The NY Times is currently running a huge, 3-part, page 1 expose on ESPN's transformative role in college football. It's a must-read for anyone interested in a behind-the-scenes, in-depth account of how the sports network's massive financial strength has completely changed college football, from game day and time scheduling to conference re-alignments to how star players are created. Even more broadly, the article speaks to the pervasive role college football now plays in American higher education.

A key focus of the first two parts, here and here, is the willingness of particular schools (e.g. Texas Christian, Boise State, Louisville) to play weekday night games in order to provide ESPN live football throughout the week. Various representatives of the schools are quoted recognizing the coverage they received from ESPN as being critical to raising their schools' visibility and profiles. For ESPN, importantly, these mid-week games and assorted promotional activities showcased for still other schools how valuable being a flexible partner for ESPN can be.

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My partner Colin Dixon and I are taking a Friday off from our weekly podcast, but we we'll be back next Friday, August 30th for our 193rd edition, the last one of a very busy summer.

The Internet has been buzzing this week with the idea that Google may bid for the NFL's Sunday Ticket package, which is with DirecTV through the 2014 season. The root of the buzz is a story in AllThingsD that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell met with Google's CEO Larry Page and YouTube's head of content Robert Kyncl and that one of the things they discussed was Sunday Ticket.

Did they seriously discuss Sunday Ticket or was it the last item on a list of things they were spitballing? Who knows. But let's assume for a moment that Google actually WAS interested in Sunday Ticket. Could it happen and does it make sense?

There's certainly no financial impediment for Google. DirecTV pays about $1 billion/year currently. Even if Sunday Ticket's value increased by 50% (which is less than the 60-70% increases the broadcasters and ESPN paid to renew their NFL deals in the past 2 years), it would still be small change for Google. Rather than the money, I see at least 5 big challenges Google (and the NFL) would have to surmount:

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