Posts for 'Mobile Video'

I’m pleased to present the 535th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

By far the biggest story of the week was Quibi’s quick demise. On today’s podcast Colin and I discuss where Quibi went wrong in its pricing, content and audience strategies and what it might have done differently. It’s far from clear if these steps would have made a difference to Quibi’s ultimate outcome, but we both think they would have improved its odds of success.

We also ponder the question, with the list of failures growing, is it possible to succeed with a pure play mobile video startup?
 
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Quibi and Snap appear to be two companies moving in opposite directions in mobile video. Quibi, the high-profile, well-funded startup, has belatedly broadened its scope beyond mobile, enabling its app on Fire TV, Apple TV and Android TV, a recognition that a pure-play mobile video offering from scratch is unsustainable, especially during Covid.

The Information also reported yesterday that Quibi has unsuccessfully shopped its content catalog to NBCU and Facebook and that founder Jeffrey Katzenberg has told people he may have to shut down the company. This follows a WSJ report from late September that Quibi was seeking a buyer for the whole company. Previous reports revealed that initial advertisers were seeking to revamp their deals, due to smaller audiences and lagging app downloads.

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My longtime podcast colleague Colin Dixon at nScreenMedia and I are trying out a format for a second podcast, which we’re calling “Behind My Thinking.” The idea is that we would ask each other a few questions about a post we each wrote recently, to get share a little more insight on why the topic was important and other takeaways - in other words, behind each of our thinking.

On this episode Colin first asks me about my post about Extreme Reach’s data showing connected TV ad impressions share has varied widely over the past few months. Then we flip to me asking Colin more about his post on why he thinks Covid-19 in an unlikely culprit for Quibi’s weak start.

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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!
 
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A reminder to join Colin Dixon from nScreenMedia and me for a free webinar next Tuesday, March 24th, “TV in Your Pocket: The Do’s and Don’ts of Mobile Video Downloading.” We will be joined by Josh Pressnell, CTO of Penthera, a leading provider of download solutions.

In the webinar you’ll learn the best practices that leading video services use to drive download success. We’ll explore key features such as selectable quality, Wi-Fi only downloading and auto-restart that distinguish some video download experiences from others. Importantly, we’ll dive into the business considerations of mobile video downloading - it can reduce churn, increase share of view time, create new monetizable ad inventory, etc.

Colin and I recently completed research and a white paper on the mobile video downloading, where we analyzed 80 of the top video service providers. We found that 28 of them support downloading, including virtually all of the most popular services, yet their implementations vary widely. During the webinar we’ll discuss some of our specific findings. I have long been a huge fan of downloading, so it’s been really cool to see the market begin to embrace it.

The white paper is available as a complimentary download.

Register Now for this timely and relevant webinar!

Join Colin Dixon from nScreenMedia and me for a free webinar on Tuesday, March 24th, “TV in Your Pocket: The Do’s and Don’ts of Mobile Video Downloading.” We will be joined by Josh Pressnell, CTO of Penthera, a leading provider of download solutions.

In the webinar you’ll learn the best practices that leading video services use to drive download success. We’ll explore key features such as selectable quality, Wi-Fi only downloading and auto-restart that distinguish some video download experiences from others. Importantly, we’ll dive into the business considerations of mobile video downloading - it can reduce churn, increase share of view time, create new monetizable ad inventory, etc.

Colin and I recently completed research and a white paper on the mobile video downloading, where we analyzed 80 of the top video service providers. We found that 28 of them support downloading, including virtually all of the most popular services, yet their implementations vary widely. During the webinar we’ll discuss some of our specific findings. I have long been a huge fan of downloading, so it’s been really cool to see the market begin to embrace it.

The white paper is available as a complimentary download.

Register now for this complementary and relevant webinar!

I’m pleased to present the 496th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

It’s a new year and a new decade, and on today’s podcast we discuss Quibi, the mobile video provider which, having raised $1.4 billion, is one of the industry’s most closely followed startups.

But as we discuss, Quibi’s go-to-market strategy seems at odds with the realities of the broader video industry, and mobile video specifically. Quibi is rolling out with a paid-only model, targeting 18-34 year-olds with expensive, original content.

With regard to content alone, it is extremely difficult to see where the “white space” is in the market. In the “Peak TV” and social media era we live in, the world hardly seems to need more long-form original TV programming nor more short-form news/information.

Net, net, Colin and I are pretty convinced Quibi will be pivoting soon after its April launch. To what though is unclear.
 
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It’s been hard to avoid reviews and prognostications about Quibi over the past 24 hours since it further pulled back the curtain on its April launch plans. Quibi is the startup mobile video service from Jeffrey Katzenberg (Disney and DreamWorks) and Meg Whitman (eBay and HP) that has raised $1.4 billion (including $400 million just announced) from virtually every Hollywood studio and others.

Quibi will charge $5/mo for its ad-supported tier, and $8/mo for its ad-free tier. Quibi will have 50-60 shows at launch, which will grow to 175 originals within a year. There are “movies told in chapters,” “episodic, unscripted and docs,” and “daily essentials.” The movie content is longest, at 7-10 minutes per clip, with the others targeted for 5-6 minutes per clip. Quibi’s aiming to launch 3 hours of content per day, with the vast majority of it being daily essentials (basically news and information).

Quibi is delivered via a mobile app with feed format. There’s no web site and no CTV apps. It’s targeted to 18-34 year-olds. The big tech innovation is called “Turnstyle” which lets users toggle seamlessly between portrait or landscape mode; all video be shot in each mode, with the same soundtrack overlaid. I haven’t seen the demo but here’s I size things up so far:

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I’m pleased to present the 494th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This week Colin and I discuss “TV In Your Pocket: Mobile Video Downloading Report,” which we just released. We analyzed 80 top video services, and found that 28 of them offer mobile video downloading. We did 9 different tests probing further for specific features and implementations. In the podcast we share some of our key takeaways and surprises from our research. We also look ahead and make a few predictions about where downloading is going to go. Many thanks to Penthera for sponsoring the report.

We then briefly discuss Roku’s upcoming Stream-a-thon, which we both believe is a very smart move for Roku and its various partners, including HBO, Showtime, Starz and others. Stream-a-thon will expose millions of Roku users to premier programming (“Game of Thrones,” “Billions,” etc.), no doubt driving lots of new subscriptions. It’s a real win-win and once again illustrates how the video landscape is being rearranged.

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Yesterday, Nielsen released its Q1 ’19 Total Audience Report, which among other things showed that connected TV consumption continues to dominate mobile video. For adults 18+ Nielsen found connected TV usage was 54 minutes per day (up from 46 minutes per day in Q1 ’18), while usage of video focused apps on smartphones increased to 13 minutes per day (up from 10 minutes per day in Q1 ’18). Tablet video remained even smaller at 7 minutes per day, up from 5 minutes per day in Q1 ’18 (see image below).

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I’m pleased to present the 473rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Connected TV is one of the hottest trends in the video industry today. So is mobile video, and with 5G rolling out and mobile-first services like Quibi launching, mobile is going to get even more attention.

But there is some conflicting data which Colin and I discuss this week. For example, a report from Extreme Reach this week showed that CTVs’ share of video ad impressions has grown to 49%, partly at mobile’s expense, and that 30-second ads which are CTV-friendly, now account for 69% of video ad impressions. Yet Colin shares Pew data that at least 17% of smartphone users now don’t even have a wired broadband connection, which likely means CTV isn’t meaningful to them. How can CTV and mobile  coexist and how should content providers be thinking about these trends?

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I’m pleased to present the 472nd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Quibi is making a big bet that viewers are ready to subscribe to a premium mobile video service. This week Colin and I discuss where Quibi might fit into the increasingly competitive video landscape. A critical variable is how viewers’ expectations are going to shift when the ad-free, content-rich Disney+ service costing just $7 per month launches later this year. Colin and I agree that if Quibi charges $8 per month as reported, and doesn’t offer a solid tier as a freemium on-ramp, building audience is going to be very difficult.

Listen in to learn more!

 
Click here to listen to the podcast (21 minutes, 41 seconds)

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Advertising in mobile video is an important revenue stream for many content providers, so understanding how to optimize the viewer experience is essential.

At the 9th annual Video Advertising Summit on May 29th, mobile video advertising was the subject of a panel including Henry Embelton (Head of Ad Products and Revenue, Ellation), Dan Hurwitz (Chief Revenue Officer, Penthera), Bobby LaCivita (VP of Research and Measurement, Group Nine Media), and Colin Dixon (Founder and Principal Analyst, nScreenMedia) moderating.
 
Among the topics discussed were mobile video distribution in social vs. owned and operated properties, which video ad units work best in mobile video, how offline ad-supported mobile video experiences are being enabled, how mobile drives video consumption for younger audiences and key challenges in mobile video given the fragmentation across many different apps/services.

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CBS Sports announced yesterday that it will extend unauthenticated streaming of Super Bowl LIII to mobile devices. The move means that viewers do not need to have a pay-TV subscription in order to watch the game on mobile, nor do they need to have wireless service with Verizon, as has been required in past years.

It also means that mobile streaming will be on the same footing as desktop and connected TV viewing, both of which had unauthenticated access the last time CBS had the Super Bowl rights, in 2016. The game will also be available to CBS All Access subscribers.

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Jeffrey Katzenberg’s NewTV has officially announced a $1 billion financing led by Madrone Capital Partners and including all of the studios, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Liberty Global and Alibaba. Katzenberg has teamed up with Meg Whitman, formerly CEO of Hewlett Packard and eBay, whom he named CEO of NewTV earlier this year.

NewTV is the biggest bet yet on mobile video, a sector that has been a graveyard for other ventures (e.g. Verizon’s Go90, Samung’s Milk, Comcast’s Watchable, Vessel, Vine, etc.). Katzenberg believes things will be different for NewTV (still a placeholder name), by licensing short-form, high-quality content from studios and then creating two subscription tiers, one with a full ad load and one with a lighter ad load.
Katzenberg told the WSJ that NewTV programming could run over $100K per minute, comparable to network TV. Episodes will run 10 minutes or less.

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Verizon reported its Q2 ’18 earnings this morning, which included a whopping $658 million pre-tax charge for shutting down its GO90 mobile video service (previously announced) that it launched less than 3 years ago, in October, 2015. If you combine the Q2 charge with the operating expenses, capital Verizon invested in GO90 plus the OnCue acquisition from Intel, it’s highly likely that the company lost well over $1 billion on the failed initiative.

For a behemoth like Verizon, a $1 billion loss barely registers. However, it’s almost certainly the biggest single investment any company has made to try to start a mobile video service from scratch (though former DreamWorks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, whose NewTV startup has raised over $800 million could well take the crown from Verizon).

Given the magnitude of Verizon’s loss, it’s worth trying to understand how the GO90 bet went so wrong, so quickly. From my vantage point, there are 3 key lessons to be learned:

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At our recent VideoNuze Online Video Ad Summit, we had a great session focused on succeeding with mobile video which included Chris Carey (Head of Sales, Strategy and Business Development, Verizon Digital Media Services), Amy Mbagwu (Head of Branding Sales, Taboola), Jeremy Sigel (Global SVP of Content and Innovation, Essence), with Keith Grossman (Global Chief Revenue Officer, Bloomberg Media, moderating.

The session explored user behavior in mobile, why scale and premium content matter most to ad buyers, the role of brand safety, how mobile contrasts with OTT delivery, cross-device IDs, the impact of social media / walled gardens, how to use data effectively in mobile and much more.

Watch the session video now!