VideoNuze Posts

I’m pleased to present the 503rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

First up on this week’s podcast, Colin shares details of Verizon Media’s new research on live sports streaming, which found that 53% of fans are paying for some type of extra subscription service. Also noteworthy is that two-thirds of respondents said DVR is a critical feature and that 39% use the DVR feature to skip ads.

These underscore how different the user experience is becoming between ad-free SVOD viewing and ad-heavy live sports viewing. Lots of fans seem to be willing to watch time-delayed just to avoid the ads. But we agree that connected TV is going to drive lots of innovation in both sports streaming and advertising/monetization going forward. On that topic, we also review Extreme Reach’s latest Video Benchmarks Report. Though CTV ad share settled around 50% in 2019, Colin and I see plenty of growth ahead - and accompanying innovation.

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Extreme Reach has released its Q4 and full year 2019 Video Benchmarks Report, finding, among other things, that connected TV (CTV) has settled into a range of approximately 50% share of all video ad impressions. In Q4 ’19 CTV impression share landed at 47%, slightly down sequentially from 51% in Q3 ’19 (also its peak quarter for the year), but slightly up YOY from 44% in Q4 ’18.

Three months ago, when I reviewed ER’s Q3 ’19 benchmarks report, I wondered whether CTV share would step up in the Q4 holiday season since cord-cutting was accelerating and new services were launching. But it looks like the answer was no, at least for now.

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Connected TV advertising has a mile-wide opportunity ahead, but there are a few critical challenges that loom, including viewer privacy, lack of cookie-based targeting and cross-screen identity management. There are lots of initiatives addressing these challenges and I have little doubt that over time they’ll all be fully resolved and/or the industry will get comfortable with approaches irrespective of their particular limitations; CTV advertising is simply becoming too strategic for too many players for it to be derailed.

Helping move the ball forward, this morning Beachfront and Beeswax announced they are adopting LiveRamp’s IdentityLink identifier for clients' CTV ad buying. Beachfront is an ad management/SSP in both video and TV. Beeswax is a DSP for programmatic ad buyers. LiveRamp started as a data on-boarding company and has evolved to an identity solution provider.

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I’m pleased to present the 502nd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

First up this week, on the heels of ViacomCBS reporting 11 million subscribers between CBS All Access and Showtime, Colin and I agree that the company is looking well-positioned in OTT. While more needs to be learned about its “House of Brands” strategy and how Pluto TV will be fully leveraged, we both believe ViacomCBS is looking more and more like a serious OTT contender. A big unknown remains what pricing and bundling will be for “CBS All Access Max” as Colin dubs it. And then there’s the impact of pricing pressure from Disney+, Apple TV+, Peacock, etc.

Regardless, ViacomCBS’s OTT success is coming not a moment too soon, because, as we discuss, new UBS data based on Nielsen ratings, shows TV viewership continuing to plunge in Q1 ’20. Net, net, we both believe connected TV advertising is continuing to shape up as TV advertising’s long-term savior…though who falls through the cracks in the meantime remains to be seen.

Listen in to learn more!

 
Click here to listen to the podcast (23 minutes, 49 seconds)
 

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I’m excited to announce the first 7 partners for the Connected TV Advertising Summit on June 11th in NYC. Our Presenting partner is Deloitte; Gold partners are Extreme Reach and SpringServe, and Silver partners include Beachfront, Roku, SpotX and Xandr. I’m extremely grateful for all of these leading companies’ commitments to the CTV Ad Summit. There are a lot of other partner discussions underway, and I’m confident we’ll have participation from just about every significant CTV company in the industry.

The CTV Ad Summit is shaping up to be the #1 event for executives from brands, agencies, content providers, technology companies and other stakeholders seeking a deep-dive day of learning and networking focused on CTV advertising. The agenda is coming together nicely with a strong balancing of sessions that are focused on the longer-term strategic role of CTV in the TV/video ecosystem and those that are focused on the here-and-now operational aspects of succeeding with CTV ads today. More coming soon on initial speakers and sessions. 

Meanwhile, early bird discounted registration is available. Early registrants save $100 per ticket. Further discounts are available for students, startups and media partners (to be announced soon). 5-pack and 10-pack tickets are also available at further discounts.

If the future of your business is tied to the growth and success of CTV* advertising, then the CTV Ad Summit is a must-attend event.

Please contact me if you’d like to learn more!

LEARN MORE AND REGISTER NOW!

*Connected TV (CTV) refers to any TV that is connected to the Internet and can play OTT video content/ads and also display graphical ads. CTVs have the capability to return user data to device manufacturers, content providers and ad buyers. CTVs support secure transactions such as subscriptions and e-commerce.

Examples of CTVs are smart TVs as well as TVs that are connected to the Internet via streaming media players/sticks (e.g. Roku, Fire TV), gaming consoles (e.g. PlayStation, Wii), DVRs, pay-TV operators’ IP set-top boxes (e.g. X1) and other devices.

Not that long ago, regional sports networks (RSNs) were the beachfront property of the pay-TV industry. RSNs had exclusive rights to air local sports teams’ games in their markets and rabid fans willing to pay virtually any price to watch (especially if the local team was having a winning season). But the icing on the cake was that even non-fans were often paying for pricey RSNs, because their fees cleverly became inseparable from the most popular TV packages. In short, RSNs practically had a license to print money.

But few things last forever, and RSNs have become the latest example of the Internet’s disruption. Yesterday, the NY Post reported that AT&T’s auction of four of its RSNs, in Denver, Houston, Pittsburgh and Seattle, has drawn meager interest. AT&T was looking to sell the group for around $1 billion, but the bids have come in “around or below $500 million.” A big red flag was the four RSNs’ financial performance - an expected drop in earnings from $115 million in 2019 to just $55 million in 2020.

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I’m pleased to present the 501st edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This week we discuss Roku’s Q4 and full year 2019 results, which were reported late Thursday. Roku now has nearly 37 million active accounts, up almost 10 million in 2019. More important, Roku continues to demonstrate strong capability in monetizing its viewers, with ARPU up $5.19 to $23.14. Looking back over the past few years, Roku’s ability to pivot its business from being player-based to advertising and licensing-based is very impressive, all the more so because it has pulled it off under the long shadow of CTV competition from Amazon, Google and Apple.

Putting Roku’s growth in perspective though, Colin and I also spend a few minutes reviewing Nielsen’s latest Total Audience report, which showed that overall, streaming still accounts for just 19% of total TV usage. As Colin notes, it’s far higher for younger age groups and cord-cutters. Nonetheless, it’s hard not to conclude that it is still relatively early days for both ad-supported and subscription OTT.

Listen in to learn more!

 
Click here to listen to the podcast (23 minutes, 31 seconds)

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(Note: I own a small number of Roku shares)

Pixability has announced BrandTrack, a new competitive intelligence tool that helps advertisers optimize their presence on YouTube. BrandTrack provides detailed information on competitors within 25 different industries, showing metrics on channel growth, estimated ad spending, brand sentiment, top/trending videos, best practices at the video-specific level and more. Pixability is pulling the data directly from YouTube’s API and then applying its proprietary technology and UI/visualization to give advertisers easily digestible insights.

BrandTrack grew out of a professional service Pixability has been offering clients for a while. But, recognizing that advertisers need to be able to flexibly adjust their YouTube content/spending to maintain a competitive edge, the service has been productized into a SaaS offering available standalone ($2K-$10K per month, based on seats) or as part of the PixabilityONE platform.

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