Posts for 'Research'

I'm pleased to present the 172nd edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week we first discuss Google Fiber, which Google announced this past Tuesday would roll out to a second city, Olathe, KS. Nonetheless, as we discuss, it still feels like Google Fiber is a hobby for Google, though its executives recently asserted otherwise. Neither Colin nor I quite understand what Google Fiber's actual market impact or game plan is, and we are skeptical that there's a business case to support its broader rollout.

We then turn our attention to another Google-related item, which is that YouTube announced this week it is now attracting 1 billion visitors/month, even as (according to my analysis), its U.S. online-only traffic has dropped by 32% year-over-year. But, because comScore doesn't measure mobile access, this isn't an accurate portrayal of YouTube's reach, which is clearly expanding. Colin has further data that adds color to the situation.

Separate, Colin has released his excellent new white paper, "Second-Screen Apps for TV" (free download here)

And a reminder to sign up for "Sizing Up Apple TV" a free video webinar on April 2nd featuring Brightcove's Jeremy Allaire and me.
    
Listen in to learn more!

(update - the correct pronunciation of Olathe, KS is "O lay the" (thanks Frank Hughes!).

Click here to listen to the podcast (18 minutes, 57 seconds)

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

Native advertising, which refers to branded content or ad messages that are cohesively integrated directly into web sites, are getting lots of attention these days as an alternative to pre-roll video advertising. A study released by Sharethrough and Nielsen today is putting some brand lift performance numbers behind the debate.

Using Nielsen's Online Brand Effect tool to measure viewer response, the native advertising technology specialist found that five campaigns it studied produced higher brand lift from native advertising exposure than from pre-roll video impressions. In a campaign for the soft drink brand Jarritos, exposure to native ad content elevated favorable brand perceptions by 82%, compared with 2.1% lift among those who saw pre-roll ads. In another for a CPG brand, native ads drove a 42.2% brand lift vs. none for pre-roll ads. (see infographic below)

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As DVR penetration and usage have steadily climbed, it has seemed inevitable that one day internal disks wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand to store more and more video. Now, judging from Motorola Mobility’s latest Media Engagement Barometer, that day might be here.

The study out today shows that even though one-third of U.S. TV viewing involves recorded programs, 41% of the video saved to DVRs never gets watched. Often, that’s because people have to delete stored programs to make room for new ones. 55% of U.S. DVR users said they’ve had to kill off recorded shows to add capacity for new programs, and 81% (women more so than men) said they’ve been frustrated over having to do so.

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Here's an eye-popping data point from last week's comScore online video rankings report for Feb. '13: YouTube's total of 11.3 billion monthly views were down 32% vs. Feb. '12 when it had 16.7 billion views (see chart below). But lest you think viewers are fleeing YouTube, the perennial 800-pound gorilla of the online video market, what really appears to be happening is that a sizable chunk of viewers are shifting their viewing to mobile devices, which as I understand it, is not counted in comScore's data.

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I'm pleased to present the 171st edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. Leading us off today, Colin digs into Nielsen's new "zero-TV" homes data, part of its Q4 '12 Cross-Platform report. When Colin crunches the numbers, he concludes that the  U.S. pay-TV industry may have lost 1.1 million subscribers last year, who moved into the zero-TV category.  That would be above other estimates, which range from flat to down about 500K.

Of course one of the industry's key initiatives to add value has been TV Everywhere, and on that front, there were refreshingly candid admissions this week from both David Levy, head of Turner's sales, distribution and sports, who said he was "embarrassed" at TV Everywhere's progress, and Lauren Zalaznick, NBCU's chairman, entertainment and digital networks, who said it's too confusing. Both are right, and there are other reasons as elaborated in the recent Ultimate Guide to TV Everywhere (free download).

Contributing to the pressure on pay-TV providers is the ever-expanding range of quality content available online, and 2 more efforts surfaced this week, Conde Nast's new digital video network, and VEVO TV, a 24x7 music video network.

Separate, Colin has released his excellent new white paper, "Second-Screen Apps for TV" (free download here)

And a reminder to sign up for "Sizing Up Apple TV" a free video webinar on April 2nd featuring Brightcove's Jeremy Allaire and me.
    
Listen in to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 42 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

Click here to add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

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

Nielsen's new Q4 '12 Cross-Platform Report has identified just over 5 million "zero-TV" homes in the U.S., as Nielsen calls them, an increase from 2 million in 2007. Not to be confused, these aren't homes without TVs (75% of them still have at least one); rather they are homes that don't receive programming over traditional platforms (i.e. pay-TV and broadcast). Instead, almost half of them (48%) opt for OTT services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and others for content.

The growth in "zero-TV" homes should come as zero surprise. In fact, if there's anything surprising, it's that the number isn't already higher. But who these zero-TV homes are is less clear: are they cord-cutters or cord-nevers? The fact that almost half of them are under 35 suggests many are cord-nevers. Yet, the 2 main reasons for not subscribing to pay-TV (36% due to cost and 31% due to lack of interest) suggests many cord-cutters. Either way, with only 18% of them considering subscribing to pay-TV, most may well be "permanently cordless" and beyond the industry's promotional efforts.

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With more people accessing web content through smartphones and tablets, advertisers want to make sure rich media ads, including video, play nicely across all types of screens. But a survey released today by Jivox shows ad agencies are frustrated with producing rich media ads for an increasingly complex device universe.

Jivox’s Q1 survey of more than 100 ad agencies (e.g. BBDO, Digitas, Mindshare, Starcom, Razorfish, MediaVest and others), released this morning, found 88% of respondents are “somewhat” or “very” stressed about authoring rich media ads that often include video elements. Another 15% don’t even try.

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Fire up a video on your mobile device and you'll almost certainly observe how social media is playing a bigger role in the ad creative before or during the content. Underscoring this, the latest Social & Mobile Insights Report for Q4 '12 from Rhythm NewMedia shows that 30% of the in-stream mobile video ads carried across its network of 200+ mobile media properties in Q4 '12 included social media buttons like Facebook "Like" and Twitter "share."

Those buttons are there for a good reason: Rhythm found average engagement increased by 36% - from 1.6% to 2.1% - when social media buttons were included. According to Rhythm, that means advertisers that integrate social elements get more value for their campaign budgets.

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Note: I'm pleased to post the latest from Stewart Schley, VideoNuze's newest contributor.

Survey: Under 2% of Pay-TV Subscribers Are Using Their Providers' Tablet Video Apps

by Stewart Schley

Digitalsmiths’ Q1 2013 Video Discovery Trends Report is out, and one of the key findings is that less than 2% of pay-TV subscribers use their providers' tablet video apps. The online survey of 1,800-plus adults shows how far the pay-TV industry has to go before their tablet video apps influence TV watching.

Of the roughly one-third of respondents who said they have tablets, 60% said they haven’t downloaded their pay-TV provider’s app, and another 14% aren’t aware such an app even is available. Of the 26% of tablet owners who have downloaded pay-TV provider's apps, only 18% said they actually use them. That means for every 100 pay-TV subscribers, under 2% of them ever fire up their provider's video app.

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Note: Today I'm pleased to welcome VideoNuze's latest contributor, Stewart Schley. Stewart has been writing about media and telecommunications subjects for more than 20 years for publishers including CED magazine, Multichannel News, Paul Kagan Associates and One Touch Intelligence.

Ooyala 2012 Video Index: Tablet-Based Viewing Times Continue to Rise


by Stewart Schley

Video’s leap to tablets continues to impress, and not just when it comes to short-form content. Ooyala’s new Global Video Index 2012 illuminates a rising role for tablets in playing long-form content. Ooyala's data shows that in Q4 '12, 63% of total viewing time on tablets was for videos longer than 10 minutes, up from 46% in Q1 '12.  Nearly one-third of time spent watching videos on tablets in Q4 ’12 was for those an hour or longer.


The numbers suggest users are becoming increasingly comfortable watching full-length TV shows, movies and other long-form content on tablets, a finding that has implications for television networks and other content providers that want to extend their viewership to the small screen. Among playback devices Ooyala tracks, only connected TVs and game consoles had a higher percentage of long-form video viewing (81.7%) in Q4. PCs clocked in at 57%, and smartphones at 43.6%.

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I'm pleased to present the 168th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. Today we start by discussing Akamai's new Ad Integration Services, which enables cloud-based video ad insertion, in partnership with mDialog.

This approach has multiple benefits including improving the user experience which extends view times. Colin notes that recent data from Conviva, for example, shows that a 1% increase in buffering results in 8 minutes of lost viewing time, which in turn means a loss of 2 ad breaks. Conviva estimates in 2012 this adds up to $2.2 billion in lost ad revenue globally, and by 2017, it could be $20 billion. Clearly improving the viewer experience has a significant payoff.

We then transition to talking about improvements in video discovery. Colin shares takeaways from his interview this week with Jeremy Toeman, CEO of Dijit (Next Guide), which recently acquired Miso. And I share observations on the new web version of Fanhattan, which launched in beta yesterday.

Listen in to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (19 minutes, 50 seconds)

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

Video ad technology provider Videology has released its Q4 '12 U.S. video infographic, continuing to break down into fine detail which industries are using online video advertising, how/who their campaigns target and performance. The data is based on nearly 2.4 billion video ad impressions Videology served in Q4, and it offers extremely rich insights for anyone looking for a deeper dive into the surging online video ad market.

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FreeWheel has released its full year and Q4 2012 video monetization report, showing that video ad loads and ad completion rates hit their all-time highs since the first report in 2010. From Q4 '11 to Q4 '12, ads per video in long-form content (20+ minutes) were up from 6.92 to 9.4; in mid-form (5-20 minutes) were up from 1.22 to 1.27 and for short-form (under 5 minutes) were up from .54 to .66.

Despite the increase in ad loads, their completion rates were up across the board as well in Q4 '12 vs. a year earlier as well: long-form up from 88% to 93%, mid-form up from 68% to 81% and short-form up from 54% to 68%. (see both charts below) For now at least, consumers continue to show a strong willingness to sit through ads in order to view free, professional content, on which the FreeWheel report is based.

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I'm pleased to present the 166th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week Cisco released its VNI Mobile Data Forecast, which Colin and I both wrote about (here and here). Each of us was particularly focused on the role of mobile video, which Cisco forecasts will account for 66% of all mobile data by '17.

Colin and I discuss the critical role of wireless carriers' tiered data plans as the big driver of what happens with mobile video adoption. To the extent that caps remain relatively low and plans quite expensive, video usage on carrier networks will be suppressed. However, users are already savvy about moving video usage to WiFi networks, typically within the home. As a result, "portable" video (as we think of it) - is soaring.

Both of us share a number of specific data points we're seeing and hearing about which support the shift to video viewing on smartphones and tablets. Although we agree it's still a bit of a murky picture, we both believe strongly that consumer behavior is clearly shifting to watching video on smartphones and tablets. Over which types of networks they will do so going forward is an issue to be tracked closely.

Click here to listen to the podcast (19 minutes, 49 seconds)

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

Cisco has released its 6th annual Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast, for 2012-2017, with heady growth predictions, including a 13x increase in mobile data traffic from .9 exabytes/mo in 2012 to 11.2 exabytes/mo in 2017. Cisco points to 4 key growth drivers over the forecast period: more mobile users (5.2B, up from 4.3B), more mobile devices/connections (10B, up from 7B), faster average mobile speeds (3.9 mbps, up from .5 mbps) and more mobile video (66% of mobile traffic, up from 55%).

Most intriguing from my perspective is the mobile video forecast. With the proliferation of tablets and smartphones, "mobile" video has become a huge topic of interest in the industry, even though the term still means different things to different people. For example, while some loosely lump viewing video on an iPad within the home over a WiFi network as "mobile" video, I've thought of this as more "portable" video over an extended fixed network. Cisco defines mobile video as carrier-based, which I believe is more accurate.

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Welcome to 2013! If you were mostly checked out over the past 1-2 weeks (or were only paying attention to the fiscal cliff roller coaster), you didn't miss a whole lot in the video world. However, there were 5 items that caught my attention which I briefly describe below:

See the 5 items

comScore released its November, 2012 ranking of the top 10 U.S. video properties yesterday and News Distribution Network (NDN) spiked to the number 2 position, with 55.7 million unique viewers, surpassed only by YouTube, the perennial 800-pound gorilla.

NDN has burst onto the online video scene over the past 8 months moving from the 10 position in April '12, with 27 million views, then dropping out of the top 10 in May and June, followed by 5 months of blistering growth, surging from the number 8 position in July, with 35.1 million viewers to the number 2 position in November. I recently caught up with Kevin Gentzel, NDN's chief revenue officer, who was previously publisher of Forbes, to learn more about the company's success.

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Advertisers and content providers continue to grapple with how to optimize ads in online video, and contributing to the dialogue, this morning AOL is releasing research indicating that ads in short-form videos are more effective than ads in long-form. Based on research involving 800 participants, AOL and its research partner Qualvu found that ads in short-form video had a 25% higher brand recall, produced 42% higher purchase intent and were 26% more likely to be liked. Short-form video is defined as less than 10 minutes with long-form 10 minutes or longer.

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Another great example of how video syndication is continuing to deliver results: in November's comScore rankings of U.S. sports properties, Perform Sports edged out perennial leader ESPN in number of total monthly unique viewers. As the chart below shows, Perform had 24.532 million viewers and ESPN had 24.092 million. Yahoo Sports is a distant third with 9.988 million, followed by another syndicator, CineSport, with 8.367 million and NFL with 5.936 million.

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I'm pleased to present the 157th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group. This week we devote the full podcast to discussing TDG's new report, "Pay-TV Refugees - A Primary Research Profile of Cord-Cutters and Cord-Nevers."

Colin notes that U.S. households with broadband service that don't subscribe to pay-TV have grown steadily in the last 3 years, and are forecast to continue doing so over the next 5 years. We dig into the main reasons behind this - affordability and relevance, particularly for younger consumers.

As I wrote earlier this week, the fundamental question here is what broadband users - presented with a huge new diversity of online video choices, the rising cost of pay-TV and a proliferation of new viewing devices - will do? Admittedly it's still very early in the game and hard to predict what's ahead. But it does seem inevitable, given human behavior, that some percentage will peel off, either dropping pay-TV or not subscribing in the first place.

All of this - and more - is on the table for discussion at next Wednesday morning's VideoSchmooze in NYC. More info here.

Click here to listen to the podcast (19 minutes, 12 seconds)

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