VideoNuze Posts

Mediaocean is acquiring Flashtalking, an independent ad-serving and analytics provider. Deal terms were not disclosed but the Wall Street Journal reported the valuation at $500 million. Although Flashtalking offers open web ad serving and dynamic creative optimization (DCO) for the buy side, its fastest-growing business is connected TV ad serving and analytics, Mediaocean’s CMO Aaron Goldman told me in a briefing about the deal.

Aaron noted that CTV is also the fastest-growing part of Mediaocean’s business as well, and that the combined companies will be able to do “ad serving and creative optimization along with audience planning and other workflow for both the buy side and the sell side.” A year ago Mediaocean acquired 4C, giving the company a key role in walled garden ad serving and optimization. Aaron said Flashtalking fills a big remaining gap in its portfolio focused on CTV on the open web for the buy side.

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Yesterday’s news that Universal Pictures will release certain of its 2022 movies on Peacock no more than four months after their theatrical premiere was just the latest move by the owner of both a studio and a streaming service (in this case Comcast) to accelerate the demise of going to a theater to see a movie.

Universal’s move shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Back in April, 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, Universal decided to release “Trolls World Tour” as a digital rental to mitigate the closure of theaters. That touched off a highly public war of words with AMC Theaters’ head Adam Aron, who threatened to no longer carry Universal’s movies. Aron and NBCU head Jeff Shell ultimately buried the hatchet, signing a new deal that compressed the theatrical window from 90 days to 17. Aron may have gotten the last laugh when AMC’s stock unexpectedly got caught up in the meme frenzy and the company raised over $1.2 billion by issuing new shares over the past few months.

Of course, Universal is following a playbook being run by other cross-owned studios/streaming services. Disney has simultaneously released a number of its movies in theaters and on Disney+, experimenting with the premium rental model. ViacomCBS is compressing the theatrical window for Paramount movies to get them onto Paramount+ as quickly as possible. And of course WarnerMedia set off a firestorm back in December, ’20 when it abruptly announced all of its 2021 Warner Bros.’ slate would be simultaneously released on HBO Max (that decision was reversed for the 2022 slate).

Taken together, it’s pretty clear that studios are delicately, yet aggressively, prioritizing their streaming services over theatrical, irrespective of whatever soothing assurances studio executives continue to offer about the importance of the theater experience to assuage chain owners. But in reality, the studios’ moves are just one of at least 5 reasons why going to the movies is facing an irreversible demise as streaming upends every corner of the media and entertainment industry.

Read the 5 reasons

Welcome to this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, the podcast where nScreenMedia’s Chief Analyst Colin Dixon and I take listeners inside the world of streaming video.

This week we’re pleased to have Zvika Netter, CEO and Co-Founder of Innovid, as our guest. Innovid has been in video advertising for 14 years, evolving from an early player in interactive ads to become the leading delivery and measurement platform for brands and agencies. Importantly, as Zvika explains, Innovid has held fast over the years to being independent - not involved with any media buying or selling, which he views as a clear differentiator.

Late last week Innovid achieved a major milestone, by filing to go public via a SPAC. Zvika explains the decision process, and his points are a great counterpart to our conversation last week with JW Player’s Dave Otten, who also considered a SPAC, but decided instead to raise a large private round.

But the bulk of our time with Zvika is spent drilling into CTV, what’s driving the business, the key challenges, how they’re being addressed, what’s ahead, and of course, what role Innovid is playing. For anyone who wants a really deep dive into CTV, the interview is an intimate window into the CTV ad buyers’ perspective and how this is influencing the future shape of the industry.

(Note, Colin and I will be taking a break next week for the holiday, so we’ll be back in a couple of weeks)

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Sports has long been considered the “firewall” for pay-TV subscriptions, with marquee events carried by must-have broadcast and cable TV networks. But new research from The Trade Desk shows that sports viewership is increasing migrating away from linear TV and toward connected TVs and streaming. In its fourth “Future of TV” report, The Trade Desk found that 57% of Americans watch sports at least once per week, and that of these viewers, 44% are watching outside of linear TV. The number rises to 65% for 18-34 year olds.

The viewership levels underscore the degree to which top tier sports have begun “leaking” out of the traditional broadcast/cable TV world and into streaming, and also the existential threat to pay-TV if a big chunk of sports eventually moves into the streaming realm. Importantly, The Trade Desk found that just 19% of TV viewers are returning to their pre-pandemic sports viewing mode, with 44% of fans saying they’re watching sports outside of linear TV (65% for 18-34 year olds).

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Yesterday YouTube TV announced a new add-on feature called 4K Plus, which includes the ability to download recorded DVR programming to mobile devices for subsequent offline viewing. Diehard VideoNuze readers know that since October, 2012, when I wrote “TiVo Stream’s Downloading Feature is a Bona Fide Killer App” I have been an unabashed proponent of downloading/offline viewing.

As I wrote then, downloading offers multiple benefits to users, and to the services offering the feature. Though mobile connectivity is far better today than 9 years ago, there are still plenty of times when a cost-effective, high-quality Internet connection isn’t available (e.g. planes, trains, rural driving, etc.). At those moments, if you want to watch video, you’re out of luck. Downloading enables viewers to be untethered from the Internet and yet still have access to their DVR library.

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Last Friday Hub Research published interesting survey results about consumers’ willingness/desire to watch ad-supported streaming services, especially if it means saving money compared to more expensive ad-free alternatives. No surprise to anyone who’s been playing close attention to the evolving SVOD/AVOD landscape, the research showed strong interest in ad-supported streaming. For me it was further validation of the Connected TV flywheel that I have described that is only going to accelerate adoption as consumption of ad-supported video both deepens and broadens.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, the podcast where nScreenMedia’s Chief Analyst Colin Dixon and I take listeners inside the world of streaming video.

Yesterday, JW Player announced a $100 million financing from LLR Partners. On this week’s podcast, we’re privileged to have JW’s CEO and co-founder Dave Otten joins us as a guest for a wide-ranging discussion.

Dave provides an update on JW and its competitive differentiators including its ease of deployment and focus on the “monetization layer” (i.e. helping its publishing partners drive revenue from their video assets). Importantly, Dave dives deeply into JW’s data strategy, and how being the video player for such a massive range of publishers gives it critical insights into usage and provides contextual data that can then be leveraged for improved monetization. Dave also gets into why he’s bullish on live, subscription-based models, connected TV, where the industry is heading and much more.

Dave explains the new financing round and how JW decided to go this route instead of doing a SPAC/IPO which are both very popular (just yesterday Innovid and Buzzfeed announced SPAC deals, here and here).  

It’s a fascinating interview, which I highly recommend for anyone interested especially in the role of data, and what’s ahead for the video industry.

Listen to the podcast (31 minutes, 8 seconds)

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