Posts for 'Virus'

Continuing our series of periodic short interviews with industry thought-leaders about the the pandemic's impact, I'm pleased to share a Q&A with Field Garthwaite, CEO and Co-Founder of IRIS.TV. Read on to learn Field's perspective on how COVID has affected the video marketplace, why connected TV has benefited, what video publishers can do to better monetize their inventory and what the critical upcoming challenges.

VideoNuze: How has COVID affected the video marketplace overall?
Field Garthwaite: While overall, publishers are seeing large increases in user engagement across web, mobile, and Connected TV (CTV) there are also several additional trends unique to the pandemic:

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Comcast shared a few data points that echoed other recent research, revealing that TV and streaming are up during the pandemic, and also that daily viewing patterns are blurring. Comcast said that since early March, daily viewership is up over 8 hours per week per household, or 14%, from approximately 57 hours per week per household to 66 hours per week per household.

Distribution of viewership has also changed. Comcast noted that whereas weekends are typically more popular days to watch TV, viewing has shifted to weekdays. In the past couple of weeks Monday viewing has surpassed Saturday viewing.

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Streaming viewing hours were up 57% in Q1 ’20 vs. a year earlier, with on-demand consumption up 79% and live up 19%, according to Conviva’s State of Streaming first quarter 2020 report. On-demand consumption accounted for 72% of viewing time in Q1 ’20 vs. 63% in the prior year. The quarter included a spike in streaming for the Super Bowl and college football. The shift to on-demand consumption is likely to accelerate in Q2, as live sports remains suspended.

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Next up in our ongoing series of short interviews with industry thought-leaders about the pandemic's impact is a Q&A with John Chapman, who is CTO and Fellow of Cisco's Cable Access business. John is uniquely positioned to understand how cable TV's broadband Internet access networks have performed recently given the unprecedented streaming traffic created by stay-at-home rules. Q1 results have shown a surge in broadband subscribers and the service tiers they're subscribing to.

VideoNuze: With millions of people working at home, videoconferencing and streaming video, what has it all meant to cable broadband service providers in terms of network usage growth rates?

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I’m pleased to present the 511th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. We wish all of our listeners good health and hope everyone is staying safe.

Earlier this week, Netflix reported an unexpectedly large gain in global subscribers for Q1 ’20, which management attributed to the shelter-at-home situation. On today’s podcast Colin and I discuss how Netflix has uniquely benefited from shifting viewership and also how it will continue to do so in Q2 and likely during the second half of the year.

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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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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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A new survey released by video ad platform Unruly has found, among other things, that younger users are spending more time with their phones and connected TVs in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The survey revealed that 86% of 18-24 year-olds are either spending “a lot more” or “a little more” time than before on mobile phones. Other age groups are close behind; 25-34 year-olds (83%) and 35-44 year-olds (84%), with 45-54 year-olds (62%) and 55+ year-olds (44%) trailing.

Time with connected TVs has also surged, with 66% of 18-24 year-olds either spending “a lot more” or “a little more” time than before on CTVs, with all other age groups up as well: 25-34 year-olds (76%), 35-44 year-olds (72%), 45-54 year-olds (60%) and 55+ year-olds (46%).

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I’m pleased to present the 508th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. We hope all of our listeners are staying well and we urge everyone to take all precautions possible.

In this week’s podcast, we focus on how the virus and stay at home guidelines are continuing to change viewership and monetization. First up we review Conviva data that shows a huge uptick in daytime viewing. Colin shares Nielsen data that Netflix recently accounted for 29% of video streaming on TVs and 9 out of the top 10 most viewed streaming shows.

Colin likes Sling TV's “Stay in & SLING” initiative, which seems like a smart on-ramp to get viewers engaged with free VOD content. HBO’s decision to make 500 hours of its classic TV programs and Warner Bros. movies available for free is in line with this thinking and a great promotion for HBO Max. We agree that Quibi could also benefit from a free tier of content, beyond the 90-day trial it is offering at launch.

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As part of VideoNuze's coverage of the virus's impact on the TV/video industries, we're publishing a series of short interviews with industry thought-leaders. The goal is to have them share relevant details of how their companies are experiencing the virus's impact, to help us all be better informed in our decision-making. Today's interview is with Joe Hirsch, CEO of SpringServe, a leading independent video ad platform. A few key takeaways from the interview: CTV is posting the biggest percentage growth, sports channel viewership is holding up, ad demand is dropping (consistent with IAB research) and publishers are digging into operations to squeeze out every dollar they can.

Read on for the full interview. And also check out our Coronavirus Video Industry Research Hub for more data and insights.

VideoNuze: Which categories of viewing are spiking as people are staying at home?

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The IAB released new research on Friday afternoon indicating connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) video are likely to benefit from ad spending shifts caused by the coronavirus. In a survey of approximately 400 agency and brand decision-makers, 35% of respondents said they anticipate increasing their use of OTT/CTV device targeting, second only to audience targeting (38%), with mobile/tablet (34%) in third place.

Supporting the IAB research, last Friday Beachfront said it has seen a 105% increase in average daily CTV ad requests in March vs. February. Founder Frank Sinton noted that typically only big sports events drive these kinds of bumps in usage. There have been many other reports of surging CTV/OTT usage since stay-at-home guidelines have been implemented.

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I’m pleased to present the 507th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

First, we hope all of our listeners are staying well. The virus has brought many new realities to our daily lives and also to the video industry. As a quick side note, please check out the Coronavirus Video Research Hub I launched yesterday to help all of us better track relevant data and insights being released by many leading companies.

On today’s podcast, we dig into some of this research. Colin discusses data from Hub Entertainment showing how much more time viewers are spending with services like Disney Plus, Netflix and Hulu. Colin wonders how sustainable the trend is for Disney Plus though given the production stoppages and lack of new marquee content. There are broader questions about SVOD adoption/churn in this era of belt-tightening.

An area of continued interest for me is what sports fans are doing with their time given the suspension of live sports and also where associated ad spending is moving. New research from Altman Vilandrie & Co. indicates that “reading” and “watching non-sports on TV” were the 2 activities most cited by sports fans as their preferred activity.

Listen in to learn more!

 
Click here to listen to the podcast (23 minutes, 1 second)

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