VideoNuze Posts

Crackle Plus is expanding its relationship with video supply-side platform SpotX to help monetize new distribution across a variety of free ad-supported streaming TV (“FAST”) services, the companies announced this morning. Crackle Plus is now available on 29 devices and services and has announced deals with fuboTV, Philo, VIDAA, VIZIO and Xumo which it estimates will expose Crackle Plus networks to over 60 million new viewers in 2021.

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If you’re looking to better understand the underlying challenges of unifying buying and selling video advertising across linear TV and streaming TV, FreeWheel released a valuable report last week called “The Definitive Guide to Unified Video.”

The report is especially timely as the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of streaming and linear ratings continue to fall. As a result, advertisers are working harder to build effective campaigns, especially those that can reach younger audiences. TV networks are adapting by delivering their content directly to audiences through digital services, often with ad support. Linear will continue to be a sizable though shrinking part of the viewership pie over time, while streaming will increase. So figuring out how to unify buying and selling across the two during the transition period and beyond is critically important.

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Welcome to the 550th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

ViacomCBS shared more content and pricing details for Paramount+ this week, ahead of its March 4th launch. Colin and I agree that from a content perspective, it’s an “everything but the kitchen sink” strategy, with a strong lineup of 30K+ TV episodes and 2,500 movies, plus sports, kids and originals. ViacomCBS repeatedly referred to the Paramount+ approach as a “mountain of entertainment.”

Paramount+ is also priced aggressively, at $4.99 per month with ads and $9.99 per month without ads. That’s slightly less than Hulu’s comparable tiers and equal to Peacock’s pricing. Colin and I are interested to see what the Paramount+ ad load looks like compared to Hulu and Peacock.

We also discuss Netflix’s new Downloads For You feature, announced earlier this week. Colin has given it a spin and while we agree the feature is a valuable, it is diminished by the content that is recommended, which didn’t match Colin’s tastes.

Listen in to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (23 minutes, 59 seconds)

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Video ad impressions by device were redistributed in 2020 vs 2019 according to Extreme Reach’s new Video Benchmarks Report which is based on ad serving data from the company’s AdBridge platform. The biggest changes included video ad impressions on desktop increasing from 16% share in 2019 to 22% share in 2020, while video ad impressions on CTVs dropped from 49% share in 2019 to 38% share in 2020. ER said the redistribution occurred as “work from home became the norm” due to the pandemic.

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Netflix has introduced “Downloads For You,” a clever feature that automatically downloads recommended TV shows and movies to users’ mobile devices. For now the feature is available on Android devices globally, with iOS devices being tested soon (I’m an iOS user so I haven’t been able to try it out yet). Netflix users opt in to Downloads For You and then choose how much space they want to allocate on their device for recommended downloads - 1GB, 3GB or 5GB. 

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Last Thursday’s Q4 and 2020 earnings reports from The Trade Desk and Roku provide further evidence of connected TV advertising’s surge and also viewers’ significant adoption of streaming video. Because the two companies are heavily invested in connected TV advertising and provide lots of thoughtful insights on their earnings calls (transcripts here and here), their results and sentiments are valuable in gauging the state of the market. Together they provide a holistic picture of the market since The Trade Desk operates on the demand side and Roku on the supply side (primarily).

For some time, The Trade Desk has talked about the rising importance of CTV advertising on its overall business, which continued this quarter with the pandemic accelerating key trends. Founder and CEO Jeff Green said that advertisers’ CTV spending on the platform more than doubled in 2020 (total spend, including CTV, was $4.2 billion with Q4 revenue up 48% to $320 million). Green said “more than 1,000 brands spend at least $100,000 on CTV on our platform” and that “those brands spending more than $1 million on our platform in 2020 more than doubled from a year ago.”

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Welcome to the 549th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

On this week’s podcast, Colin and I dig into Roku’s strong Q4 and full year 2020 results which were reported yesterday. As has been the case for the past several years, “platform” revenue, which includes Roku’s advertising business, led the way. Platform revenue reached  $471.2 million in the quarter, up 81% year-over-year. The Roku Channel was another bright spot for the company in Q4, with 175 ad-supported virtual linear channels now included.

We discuss these and other topics, including whether Roku’s interest in original content could cause conflicts with existing content partners.

Listen in to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (23 minutes, 10 seconds)

Explore all previous podcasts

Add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

The VideoNuze podcast is also available in Apple podcasts, subscribe today!