VideoNuze Posts

Verizon Media announced a number of updates to its platform today to improve video delivery and monetization for its content provider customers.

With monetization, Verizon has unveiled Verizon Media Smartplay Prebid, which better optimizes the value of content providers’ inventory. In a briefing last week, Darren Lepke, Head of Video Product Management, told me that the server-side integration will expose inventory to more demand partners and create more price transparency in the bidding process. Darren said turning it on is a simple checkbox in the platform UI. Verizon Media has also released enhanced advertising data and analytics tools to drive better performance.

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Continuing our series of short interviews with industry leaders sharing their insights about the impact of the coronavirus, below is an exchange with Philip Inghelbrecht, Co-Founder and CEO of Tatari, a data and analytics provider for linear TV and OTT advertising. I hope these interviews are helping readers better understand the state of the market. Please also check out our Coronavirus Video Industry Research Hub, which I'm constantly updating with new industry data and reports.

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I’m pleased to present the 510th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. We’re keeping all of our listeners in mind and hoping everyone is staying well and healthy.

On this week’s podcast we discuss the many options available these days to access free TV and movies, as I've written previously. Some companies are being especially consumer-friendly and aggressive with their promotions. Sling TV is notable to us, and their latest “Happy Hour Across America” looks appealing for a number of reasons. But there’s lots more, with special offers from HBO, Amazon, Roku, Noggin, Apple TV, Peacock and others. We dig into all of these and what changes they could drive in the industry.

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The world has completely changed due to the virus. There are countless examples of this across every industry. In streaming video, one clear example is that Netflix will likely swing from a 50-50 chance of losing subscribers in its UCAN (U.S. plus Canada) segment in Q1 ’20 to gaining subscribers in the period when it reports next Tuesday. One data source that's leading me to change my view is Antenna, a business intelligence startup that has been tracking underlying purchase data on SVOD providers, yielding insights on their subscriber additions and churn rates.

Just to step back for a moment, following Netflix’s Q4 ’19 earnings release that included its Q1 ’20 forecast, some basic calculations I did suggested that Netflix itself was preparing for a loss in UCAN subscribers in Q1 ’20. The company was forecasting global net subscriber additions of 7 million in Q1 ’20, down from 9.6 million in Q1 ’19. In addition to a trending slowdown in 2019, Netflix seemed to also be expecting an adverse impact from the Disney+ launch in Nov. ‘ 19.

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Yesterday, Sling TV unveiled its “Happy Hour Across America” promotion which allows viewers free access to Sling Blue during the 5pm-midnight window. Sling Blue includes 50+ linear TV networks, cloud DVR and a 50K title VOD library. There were already significant macro trends driving cord-cutting of traditional pay-TV. The Happy Hour promotion follows Sling’s prior “Stay in & Sling” initiatives.

Following are some of the reasons why Sling TV’s new Happy Hour promotion could further accelerate cord-cutting:

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Roku shared upbeat estimates on its Q1 ’20 active accounts, streaming hours and profitability yesterday, ahead of its May 7th earnings release. Roku said active accounts were approximately 39.8 million at the end of the quarter, up almost 3 million during the 3 months. That’s 49% higher than the 2 million active accounts it added in Q1 ’19. Roku has nearly doubled its active account base in the past 2 years; back on March 31, 2018 it was 20.8 million.

Streaming hours in Q1 ’20 also surged, to 13.2 billion, up 49% from 8.1 billion in Q1 ’19 and more than double the 5.1 billion hours from Q1 ’18. The increase in streaming hours is noteworthy because Roku said that in Q1 it finished rolling out its “Are you still watching?” feature which prompts the viewer after 4 hours of viewing and will terminate the session if there’s inactivity. The feature would suppress growth in streaming hours because sessions when people have fallen asleep or left the room would not play on indefinitely. The other impact is that for free, ad-supported services being watched on Roku and for Roku itself, ad inventory and monetization would be suppressed.

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I’m pleased to present the 509th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. We wish all our listeners well and hope that everyone is staying healthy.

First up this week, we discuss the success of Disney+ which now has 50 million paid subscribers, less than 5 months since launch. Both Colin and are impressed with the growth, which has been remarkably steady on an average daily basis. Disney+ is clearly way ahead of its forecast of 60-90 million subscribers in September, 2024. Colin thinks there may have been an “under-promise, over-deliver” approach in forecasting. Regardless, Disney+ looks like it’s in a strong position.

We then turn our attention to Quibi, which launched earlier this week. We both like the app and think it’s quite functional. We also recognize that we’re not in the target audience, so the content isn’t necessarily for us. The big issues are that Quibi needs to be on connected TVs to give viewers more flexibility, and also a tier of free content (past the 90-day trial), to serve as an on-ramp for subscriber acquisition. Quibi is competing against an abundance of free alternatives; while it will get many trial sign-ups, conversion to paid will be the key challenge.

Listen in to learn more!
 
Click here to listen to the podcast (24 minutes, 21 seconds)
 

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The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!
 

Disney announced that Disney+ now has 50 million paid subscribers, a little less than 5 months since it launched, on November 13. Disney last reported it had 28.6 million subscribers on February 3rd. So since that date, Disney+ has added another 21.4 million. Beyond the staggering growth - from zero to 50 million subscribers in less than 5 months - what’s also remarkable is that the average daily subscriber growth for Disney+ is highly consistent across the two reporting periods (November 13 to February 3 and February 4 - April 7)

In the first reporting period, which included approximately 84 days, an average of 340,476 subscribers were added per day. In the second reporting period, which included approximately 64 days, an average of 334,375 subscribers were added per day. That’s just a 1.8% average daily decline from period one to period two.

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