Posts for 'Aggregators'

Research firm GfK released data from its third annual Over-the-Top TV report late last week, finding, among other things, that consumption by Netflix subscribers age 13-54 is roughly 2,000 minutes per month, about the same as it found in its '11 study. That amount is in the same general ballpark as the 2,388 minutes/sub/mo that BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield calculated for June, 2012, and in line with the 2,000 minutes/sub/mo that I calculated during Q4 '11.

The survey of 1,051 persons age 13-54 and conducted in June, 2012, found the average Netflix subscriber watches 5.1 TV shows and 3.4 movies per week. The survey revealed that 39% of this age group are Netflix subscribers (up from 35% in '11), with 47% having ever been a Netflix subscriber.

continue reading

After a week off for R&R, I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 146th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG Report podcast. Colin is at the IBC conference in Amsterdam this week, so his audio isn't quite as good as usual. There, he attended a fascinating presentation by a Unilever executive on how the company is adapting its advertising to the realities of a multi-screen world. Colin shares his reactions, particularly to how Unilever is creating its own online content in order to engage its audience in ways not possible with traditional TV advertising.

Shifting gears, we then discuss Amazon's aggressive content licensing blitz that I wrote about earlier this week. Having spent hundreds of millions of dollars licensing premium content over the past 15 months in support of its Prime Instant Videos, I think it's pretty clear that Amazon has emerged as the strongest new competitor to Netflix. Colin agrees, but reminds us that although content parity is critical to competitiveness, user experience matter as well. On this front, we agree Amazon still has a lot of work to do to match Netflix. Listen in to learn more!


Click here to listen to the podcast (23 minutes, 41 seconds)
 

Click here for previous podcasts

The VideoNuze-TDG Report podcast is available in iTunes...subscribe today!

Variety is reporting on an internal Hulu memo indicating that the imminent buyout of Hulu's private equity partner may spark a series of changes, including the possible departure of CEO Jason Kilar and modifications to its content licensing arrangements with its broadcast network TV owners. Kilar has done an excellent job with Hulu, creating a top-notch user experience that is monetized through both ads, and more recently through subscriptions at Hulu Plus. Kilar has more than defied the skeptics who dismissively labeled Hulu "Clown Co." prior to its launch.

Nonetheless, there can be no disputing the fact that Hulu's essential asset from the outset has been exclusive next-day access to programs from Fox and NBC (now Comcast) and more recently, Disney/ABC. Broadcast TV is still by far the most popular programming around, and even though Hulu has added dozens of content partners, including a high-profile deal with Viacom, the reality is that for many Hulu users, it's a destination to catch up on their favorite broadcast programs. 

continue reading

No doubt you've already heard that Apple will not be including its native YouTube app in the next version of iOS that will officially launch this fall. Apple said its license for YouTube, which it held since 2007, when the iPhone launched, has expired. From my vantage point, this seems like a rare win for all stakeholders: YouTube, Apple, iOS users, YouTube's content partners, advertisers and even other video content providers.

continue reading

In the past 2 weeks, Netflix delivered tepid Q2 results and a cautious forecast, while Comcast reported strong broadband numbers and an improving video subscriber picture. That's a big reversal from a year ago, when Netflix was flying high and talk of cord-cutting hung over the entire pay-TV industry. So what might we learn from these 2 companies' experiences over the past year? Though I'm sure there are plenty of lessons, here are 4 that come to mind:

continue reading

I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 141st edition of the VideoNuze-TDG Report podcast.

In this week's podcast Colin and I discuss Netflix's underwhelming Q2 '12 results. As I wrote on Wednesday, the company continues to be haunted by its decision a year ago to essentially abandon its DVD-by-mail business. Although in the very long-term, streaming will dominate, Netflix jumped the gun in de-emphasizing what was a lucrative business with substantial entry barriers. DVD subscribers, which are down by 34% in the last 3 quarters were a huge contributor of profits to the company which it could sorely use now as it pursues an expensive - and uncertain - international expansion.

On international, Colin notes that Netflix's performance wasn't that bad, but he still has concerns, particularly in the highly competitive U.K. market. While Netflix seems to have eclipsed LoveFilm there, Colin's sees the new NOW TV service launched by Sky as overwhelming Netflix in marketing and service quality, in turn suppressing subscriber growth there.

Nonetheless, Colin is still reasonably bullish on Netflix in the long-term, figuring that its size and well-known brand will help it get back on track. Absent shorter-term catalysts, I'm not so sure Netflix can return to its glory days. It will be fascinating to watch unfold.

Listen in to learn more.

Click here to listen to the podcast (27 minutes, 33 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

The VideoNuze-TDG Report podcast is available in iTunes...subscribe today!

Netflix reported its Q2 '12 results yesterday, and once again DVD subscriber losses in the U.S. were a driving factor in the company's overall performance. While Netflix added over 500K streaming subscribers, the company lost another 850K DVD subscribers. This has become a persistent theme in Netflix's U.S. subscriber dynamics: modest growth in streaming undermined by significant DVD losses.

In fact, as the chart below shows, over the last 3 quarters Netflix's DVD subscribers (standalone and hybrid with streaming) have dropped by 4.7 million, from 13.9 million to 9.2 million. That 34% drop is even more significant if you broaden the period to include estimated churn during Q3 '11 and forecast churn for Q3 '12. Q3 '11 was the quarter in which Qwikster was announced/withdrawn and the DVD/hybrid price increases were instituted. Churn spiked by about 2 million subscribers vs. Q2 '11; it is probably fair to assume that almost all of that was among DVD subs. For Q3 '12, Netflix's mid-point forecast for DVD subs is 8.5 million, a 700K drop from Q2.

continue reading

In case you missed it while vacationing for July 4th, last week Netflix CEO Reed Hastings posted on his Facebook page that Netflix's streaming exceeded 1 billion hours for June, a new record for the company. BTIG's Rich Greenfield calculated that equates to approximately 2,388 viewing minutes per Netflix U.S. subscriber for the month (that's up from 2,000 minutes/mo which I calculated for Q4 '11). To put the June minutes in context, it's nearly double the average 1,315 minutes that the 180.5 million U.S. Internet subscribers each streamed in May, according to comScore's data.

Admittedly, it's a little bit of apples vs. oranges (comScore vs. Netflix internal data, May vs. June, free vs. paid, etc.), but assuming the numbers are at least in the ballpark, they demonstrate how thoroughly Netflix dominates in time spent per viewer vs. all other sites. For example, Netflix's 2,388 minutes/sub in June is more than 5x YouTube's 462.7 minutes/viewer in May and almost 10x Hulu's 253.7 minutes/viewer in May. Beyond YouTube and Hulu, the disparities become even more glaring; Netflix has 30x or greater viewing time of sites like Yahoo, VEVO, AOL and others.

continue reading

After a golden period of scorching growth from 2010 to mid-2011, Netflix has been on a rocky road since, to say the least. While subscriber growth re-started modestly in Q1, the company reported its first loss in years. True, you can't "drive while looking in the rear-view mirror," but it is intriguing to think about where Netflix might be today had it done 5 (or maybe more) things differently. Here are my top 5 "what-ifs" to consider:

continue reading

I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 131st edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for May 4, 2012. This week Colin and I discuss how fundamental battle lines have been drawn between the traditional TV ecosystem vs. the numerous digital outlets that are launching online-only original programs. To be more specific, the former group seems intent on erecting ever-higher paywalls to access its programs, which is in turn opening up a gigantic opportunity for free, ad-supported programs to be provided by the latter group. How this battle unfolds will have far-reaching and profound implications for everyone involved.

For the traditional TV ecosystem, there appear to be two core drivers at work; first, the desire by broadcast TV networks to morph themselves into cable TV networks, and second, the role that TV Everywhere is taking on as a foundation of paywall economics.

Continue Reading

Netflix reported its Q1 '12 results yesterday, adding almost 3 million subscribers, of which 1.7 million were domestic and 1.2 million were international, while showing its first loss in a while. Focusing just on the domestic side, the 1.7 million additions are certainly a positive reversal from the past 2 quarters, but are just about half of the 3.3 million domestic subscribers added a year ago in Q1 '11 (see chart below). While Netflix is forecasting to add 7 million subscribers in 2012, the company's domestic expansion rate is clearly slowing from its torrid pace of a year ago.

continue reading

Yesterday YouTube got a lot of coverage of its new licensing deal for hundreds of movies from Paramount because separately, the studio's parent company, Viacom, has been involved in a bitter copyright litigation with YouTube for years. While it's noteworthy that the parties are able to do business despite suing each other, the bigger questions here are whether YouTube's initiative to rent Hollywood movies makes sense and can succeed?

continue reading

Today I'm pleased to share a video interview I did with Vuguru's Chief Creative Officer Kristin Jones at the recent NATPE Market conference in Miami, FL. Among other topics, Kristin describes Vuguru's business model, some of the successful originals that it has created, how she sees online distributors differentiating themselves and where the market for digital content is heading from here.

The interview runs about 7 minutes. (Note, I'm off camera and my audio isn't great, so the questions are overlaid in text.)

continue reading

Last Thursday night, a Bloomberg headline, "Online Film Viewing in U.S. to Top Discs in 2012, IHS Says," caught my eye. The article reported that media research firm IHS Screen Digest is forecasting that "legal online viewings of films will more than double to 3.4 billion this year from 1.4 billion in 2011." Meanwhile IHS is forecasting that DVD/Blu-ray viewing will decline from 2.6 billion viewings in 2011 to 2.4 billion in 2012.

Over the weekend, as I kept seeing other publications essentially reiterating the Bloomberg story, I started wondering how IHS arrived at its forecast, the details of which I haven't seen. Doing a little back of the envelope analysis, as I show below, it's awfully hard to see how streaming movies in the U.S. will more than double from last year, unless some very unexpected things happen with Netflix (IHS notes that 94% of streaming movie volume was subscription-based, and of course, Netflix massively dominates this segment). Rather, it seems likely DVD/Blu-ray will hold on for another year.

continue reading

I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 126th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Mar. 23, 2012. This week finds Colin in London, providing him an even better perspective on our first topic this week, Sky's new over-the-top service called NOW TV, which it will launch this summer. Colin is bullish on NOW TV and likes the lessons it provides for U.S. pay-TV operators.

continue reading

I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 125th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Mar. 16, 2012. This week finds Colin on business in Brazil, and he's been doing some sleuthing on how Netflix's rollout is going there. Back on the domestic front, we also discuss Intel's rumored TV plans and the latest on Aereo's rollout.

Colin reports that anecdotal feedback on Netflix's content selection in Brazil is underwhelming as it is perceived as mostly older titles. He raises the critical question of whether Netflix was wise in choosing not to partner with any established players which might have brought content as well as an understanding of local conditions. Colin points out that the landscape is very different in Brazil vs. the U.S., with pay-TV penetration of just 20% and over-the-air broadcast viewing dominant. All that said, Colin has heard that Netflix is advertising heavily to build its brand. And Brazil is of course an enormous market, representing big long-term opportunities.

continue reading

I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 124th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Mar. 9, 2012. In this week's podcast we discuss Apple and its TV ambitions.

This past Wednesday Apple announced a few minor feature updates to its $99 Apple TV device. While the device continues to improve, in my view it still does not come close to representing Apple's ultimate ambitions in the living room. I think it's inevitable that Apple will introduce some type of "television" (timing TBD) and that when it does, it will be both a design and an experience breakthrough. My caveat here is that Apple needs quality content to support the device, and what it will be able to offer is still unclear. Stirring the pot, in the past week the NY Post reported that Apple is negotiating for rights to turn channels into apps, and Steve Jobs's biographer said that he purposely left out of his book details of what Jobs thought Apple TV should be.

continue reading

Today I'm pleased to share a video interview I did with Yahoo's EVP, Americas, Ross Levinsohn at the recent NATPE Market conference in Miami, FL. Among the topics Ross addresses are::

How Yahoo is breaking through given the proliferation of online video choices?

How did the new Tom Hanks project "Electric City" for Yahoo come about?

Why is Yahoo's user data so important to developing original programming?

What's the timetable for shifting TV spending to online video and what are the key challenges?

Are there non ad-based revenue streams Yahoo envisions for its video?

What's the big surprise he foresees for 2012?

The interview runs 12 1/2 minutes. (Note, I'm off camera and my audio isn't great, so the questions are overlaid in text.)

continue reading

I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 123rd edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Mar. 2, 2012. This week's podcast has a different format; instead of discussing one topic in depth, we touch on three areas - the new lawsuit against Aereo, Netflix's deal with Starz ending (and whether the "flix" is coming out of Netflix) and UltraViolet's strategy of using discs to drive adoption.

continue reading

Today I'm pleased to share a video interview I did with Netflix's Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos at the recent NATPE Market conference in Miami, FL. Among the topics Ted addresses are:

- How the business is doing since the Qwikster reversal, and what lessons were learned?

- Is there a chance the Starz deal could be renewed at some point?

- What is the role of TV series vs. movies on Netflix (and is the "flix" coming out of Netflix since Ted told me separately that 60% of the 2 billion hours watched in Q4 '11 was TV, and that the percentage is rising)?

- Why are the after-market economics for serialized dramas so challenging, in turn making Netflix a valued partner?

- Which competitors make him most nervous?

- How are international rollouts going?

- Which connected device is most critical to Netflix long-term?

- Is Netflix having any impact on cord-cutting and cord-shaving?

The interview runs 18 1/2 minutes. (Note, I'm off camera and my audio isn't great, so the questions are overlaid in text.)

continue reading