VideoNuze Posts

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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I'm pleased to present the 248th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Amazon introduced a new connected TV device this week called the Fire TV Stick, priced at $39 ($19 for Amazon Prime members). We discuss where Fire TV Stick fits in the market - will it cannibalize sales of Chromecast and Roku Streaming Stick? Or, as Colin sees things, will it instead cannibalize its sibling the Fire TV, which is priced at $99?   

Next, we turn to YouTube's potential ad-free subscription service, which the company's CEO Susan Wojcicki teased earlier this week. We dig into YouTube's subscription prospects and its challenges. Together with HBO OTT, CBS All Access plus Vimeo and Starz (both of which also announced subscription plans this week), there's been a huge surge of interest in subscriptions, with more likely to come.

Listen in to learn more!

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A reminder that the next VideoSchmooze: Online Video Leadership Forum is on Thursday morning, Dec. 4th at Scholastic Auditorium in NYC. 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 the awesome TiVo Roamio Plus DVR with Lifetime service - $1,000 value, generously provided by TiVo.

The VideoSchmooze program will cover many of the hottest trends in the industry. Leading off will be a deep-dive interview I'll do with 2 leading industry researchers - Dounia Turrill, SVP, Client Insights at Nielsen and Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst at Leichtman Research Group. Dounia and Bruce will provide data and clarify key trends around changing viewer behaviors, cord-cutting, OTT adoption, advertising, mobile plus lots more.

Then Colin Dixon will moderate "Sports' Pivotal Role in Driving TV Everywhere's Adoption" with executives from Comcast, Fox Sports and FreeWheel, which will examine how marquee TVE events like World Cup, Olympics and MMOD are driving the industry forward. Following is a new session, "Personalized Data is the New Big Data" in which Digitalsmiths' Chris Ambrozic will share insights on how stakeholders throughout the ecosystem are using data to deliver standout personalized user experiences and generate new ROIs.

Following the networking break, in "TV, Disrupted: Online Originals Hit Their Stride," we'll dig into one of the biggest trends around and how audiences are fragmenting, with executives from Fullscreen, Vimeo and DEFY Media. Next, Tremor Video's head of market research will share brand-new data on connected TVs and who's actually buying/using them. There will be one more session to round out the morning, TBA.

All in all it promises to be a superb morning of learning and networking with 250+ colleagues from around the ecosystem. I hope you can join us on Dec. 4th!

REGISTER NOW AND SAVE!

Media, finance and automotive brands continue to lead online video advertising adoption, according to new data from MediaRadar. In October, 2014 the product categories were first, second and third respectively, just as they were in October, 2013. MediaRadar found an increase in the number of brands placing online video ads in all 10 of the product categories it measures.

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