Posts for 'Research'

  • New Research Shows Netflix Is A Catalyst for Cord-Cutting and Cord-Shaving

    The Diffusion Group released interesting research yesterday which supports a view that I've had for a while: heavy Netflix streaming usage correlates with a propensity to cut back on pay-TV services. Although Netflix has strenuously tried to position itself as a low-priced compliment to pay-TV services, the reality is that for some pay-TV subscribers who have begun shifting their viewing hours to Netflix streaming, the two are more substitutes than compliments. As I've argued, these are primarily people who are entertainment-oriented, don't care about live sports, are comfortable with on-demand, not live-viewing, are budget-constrained, or some combination of all of these.

    The headline of the research is that the number of Netflix streamers considering downgrading their pay-TV service doubled year-over-year from 16% to 32%. But to me the key nugget is that among those who said they are likely to downgrade or eliminate their pay-TV service, 61% of moderate to heavy Netflix streamers cite online video usage as the top reason for doing so (with two-thirds of these citing Netflix specifically), while just 24% point to economic issues as their top reason. Conversely, for all Netflix streamers, almost half point to economic issues as their main reason (e.g. "cost of service" and "need to save money"), with just 34% pointing to online video usage as their top reason.

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  • Survey: 65% of Media Buyers Plan to Shift Spending from TV to Online Video

    Online video ad network BrightRoll has released results of its Q1 '11 survey of media buyers' attitudes towards online video, and no surprise, they are yet again quite bullish. Several data points highlight online video's growing appeal; in particular the survey found 65% of respondents said they plan to shift campaign dollars from TV to online video. Beyond TV, as the chart below shows, display advertising is actually the spending bucket likely to see the biggest shift to online video, with 86% of buyers planning to move some of their display budget to online video.

    Importantly, 28% of media buyers forecast online video will see the largest increase in spending in 2011, with mobile video right behind at 27%. Online video is also becoming a more common component of all ad campaigns, with 27% of media buyers saying that over half of their request for proposals included an online video component. 41% of buyers reported targeting as the most valuable aspect of online video advertising to their clients. Within targeting, the most beneficial form is behavioral, followed closely by contextual and demographic.

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  • ESPN Continues Dampening Cord-Cutting Fears

    ESPN released the its latest round of research on cord-cutting this week, finding that a tiny .18% of American homes with both pay-TV service and a broadband connection dropped their video service between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011. ESPN said the .18% is actually lower than the .28% it found in its prior period research and is fully offset by a comparable number of people who upgraded from a "broadcast-only" service level to a full pay-TV package. Not surprisingly, ESPN said that among medium-to-heavy sports viewers there was zero cord-cutting.

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  • PwC's New Viewership Research Shows Vastly Changed Landscape

    A industry friend passed me a copy of PwC's new research on viewership across platforms and by age groups this week, which shows a vastly changed landscape for entertainment consumption. On the top line, the research reports that consumers are watching 12.4 hours/week of TV and movies via download, streamed, digitally recorded and online, vs. 8.9 hours of TV and movies on network TV and basic cable. When looked at by three age groups, 18-34, 35-44 and 45-59, only the latter category watches more network TV/cable, and only for TV shows, not movies (see chart below).

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  • 63% of Online Video Now Available in HTML5

    MeFeedia released some interesting research this week, reporting that the universe of online video it indexes (30 million videos at 30,000 sites), shows the percentage of video that is HTML5 compatible is now up to 63%. The key HTML5-compatible formats are H.264, WebM and Ogg. Video formats were already a confusing terrain before Google jumped into the mix by acquiring On2 Technologies and open-sourcing its VP8 codec as WebM.  Then, earlier this year it announced that its Chrome browser would drop support of H.264, in favor of WebM. Meanwhile, the iPad, which doesn't support Flash has sold 15 million units in the past year, putting even more pressure on content developers to work outside of Flash. The 63% figure, up from 10% a year earlier, suggests that is indeed happening.
     
  • Android Nudges to the Lead in Smartphone Race

    This week brought updated data from Nielsen on the race for smartphone supremacy. According to Nielsen, for the period November, 2010 - January, 2011, Android had a 29% share, RIM Blackberry 27% and Apple iOS 27%. This is before the iPhone went on sale from Verizon however, so things are bound to change. Still, the Nielsen data shows the continued strength of Android. From a video perspective, because current smartphones ship with the updated Android OS which supports Flash video, they are much more flexible.


     
  • Newspapers Cranked Out More Online Videos In 2010 Than Any Other Media Vertical

    U.S. newspapers uploaded approximately 2.4 million videos in 2010, more than 3x the volume of the next-closest industry verticals of broadcast and online media, according to the latest "online video & the media industry" report from Brightcove and TubeMogul for Q4 '10. Newspapers uploaded 1.2 million titles in Q4 alone, a 147% increase in volume over Q3. The accelerating trend suggests newspapers are deepening their commitment to online video as a way of boosting online engagement and increasing ad revenue. The new data also seems to offset recent news that newspapers are reducing their involvement with online video.


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  • Top 10 Super Bowl Ads Gain A Quick $1 Million In Online Video Exposure

    New research is out this morning showing how Super Bowl advertisers benefit from ongoing online video viewership. Kantar Video, an online video analytics provider, estimates that the top 10 Super Bowl ads generated an additional $1 million worth of media exposure in just the first 3 days after the game, with Volkswagen's top-performing "The Force" ad, gaining almost $540K itself. Note "The Force" has already picked up an incredible 27 million YouTube views (see below).

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  • 5 Items of Interest for the Week of Jan. 10th

    Even though I was very focused this week on the CES "takeaways" series, there was still plenty of news happening in the online and mobile video industries. So as in the past, I'm pleased to offer VideoNuze's end-of-week feature highlighting 5-6 interesting online/mobile video industry news items that we weren't able to cover this week. Enjoy!

    Level 3 fights on in Comcast traffic dispute
    Level 3 is showing no signs of relenting on its accusations that Comcast is unfairly trying to charge the CDN for Internet traffic it delivers to Comcast's network. In an interview this week, Level 3 said it may use the "Open Internet" provisions of the FCC's new network neutrality rules to press its case. Level 3's challenge is coming at the 11th hour of the FCC's approval process of the Comcast-NBCU deal; it's not really clear if Level 3 is having any impact on slowing the approval, which appears imminent.

    Comcast-NBCU deal challenged over online video proposal
    Speaking of challenges to the Comcast-NBCU deal, word emerged this week that Disney is voicing concern over the FCC's proposed deal condition that would force Comcast to offer NBC programming to any party that had concluded a deal with one of NBC's competitors for online distribution. The Disney concern appears to be that the condition would have an undue influence on how the online video market evolves and how Disney's own deals would be impacted. While the FCC should be setting conditions to the deal, the Disney concerns highlights how, in a nascent, fast-moving market like online video, government intervention can cause unintended side effects.

    YouTube is notching 200 million mobile video views/day
    As if on cue with my CES takeaway #3, that mobility is video's next frontier, YouTube revealed this week that it is now delivering 200 million mobile views per day, tripling its volume in 2010. That would equal about 6 billion views per month, which is remarkable. And that amount is poised to increase, as YouTube launched music video site VEVO for Android devices. YouTube clearly sees the revenue potential in all this mobile video activity; it also said that it would append a pre-roll ad in Android views for tens of thousands of content partners.

    Google creates video codec dust-up
    Google stirred up a hornet's nest this week by announcing that it was dropping support for the widely popular H.264 video codec in its Chrome browser, in favor of its own WebM codec, in an attempt to drive open standards. Though Chrome only represents about 10% market share among browsers (doubling in 2010 though), for these users, it means they'll need to use Flash to view non-WebM ended video. There are a lot of downstream implications of Google's move, but for space reasons, rather than enumerating them here, check out some of the great in-depth coverage the issue has received this week (here, here, here, here).

    Netflix usage drives up Canadian broadband bills
    An interesting test of Canadian Netflix streaming showed that a user there might have to pay an incremental $12/month under one ISP's consumption cap. That would be more than the $7.99/mo that the Netflix subscription itself costs, leading to potential cord-shaving behavior. This type of upcharge hasn't become an issue here in the U.S. because even ISPs that have caps have set them high relative to most users' current consumption. But if streaming skyrockets as many think it will, and the FCC allows usage-based billing, this could fast become a reality in the U.S. as well.


     
  • CES Takeaway #3: Mobility is Video's Next Frontier

    (Note: Each day this week I'm writing about one key takeaway from last week's CES 2011. Also, next Wednesday, January 19th, The Diffusion Group's Colin Dixon and I will be hosting a complimentary webinar, "Demystifying CES 2011," in which we'll discuss key CES highlights and answer participants' questions.)

    One of the clear trends that emerges from the video-related product announcements at CES 2011, and in the months leading up to it, is that mobility is video's next frontier.

    Just as online video adoption grew out of massive online Internet use, mobile video consumption is going to ride the tremendous wave of mobile Internet use. And by many accounts mobile Internet usage is on the cusp of a massive expansion. The analyst Mary Meeker believes that by 2014 there will be more mobile Internet users globally (about 1.6 billion) than desktop Internet users. In just the past year, the number of Americans who have used the Internet from their mobile phones has increased from 32% to 40%, with those reporting they accessed the 'net several times a day from a mobile phone jumping from 24% to 43%, according to Pew.

    Unquestionably the big growth in mobile Internet use has been facilitated by the explosion of video-friendly smartphones and tablets. Indeed CES could have almost been renamed "Tablet-Fest 2011" as numerous tablets were introduced, all seeking to imitate the iPad's huge success. In 2011, IDC predicts 330 million smartphones and 42 million tablets will be sold worldwide. In the U.S., Nielsen estimates that by the end of 2011, smartphones will have a greater market share than feature phones. Certainly Verizon's iPhone announcement yesterday is another smartphone accelerant, with Verizon loyalists finally gaining access to the iconic device. A recent study from MeFeedia underscored Apple's role in driving mobile video adoption: 43% of mobile video usage was from iPhones and iPads, with Android bringing in 21%. In addition to the proliferation of devices, the rollout of speedy 4G networks will make mobile video consumption easier and more pleasing to viewers.

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  • Roku Hits 1 Billion Streams; Viewing Time Is 31% As Much As Traditional TV

    Connected device maker Roku has announced that it has delivered a cumulative 1 billion video streams to its installed base of media players. Even more interesting though is that the company disclosed that in December 2010, its players were used for an average of 11+ hours of play time per week. Since Nielsen reported that in Q2 '10 that the average American watched about 143.5 hours per month, this would mean that Roku owners on average are watching  31% (i.e. 45/143.5) as much through these devices as they do traditional TV.

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  • Warning: Not All Cord-Cutting Research is Created Equal

    When it comes to understanding cord-cutting trends, not all consumer market research is created equal. In my view there are two basic types. The first is speculative research that focuses on "potential" cord-cutters. The second is research that focuses on actual cord-cutters. For industry participants trying to get an accurate handle on this complicated topic, the second type is much more valuable.

    The big problem with speculative research is that there's a massive difference between what people say they're considering doing (or even say they're planning to do) vs. what they will actually end up doing. In fact, it's a cliche this time of year to resolve to do certain things, though in reality we never will. How many of us said we'll get more exercise in 2011? Lose weight? Stop smoking? Save more money? And how many of us actually will? You get the idea.

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  • 5 Items of Interest for the Week of Dec. 5th

    Once again I'm pleased to offer VideoNuze's end-of-week feature highlighting and discussing 5-6 interesting online/mobile video industry news items that we weren't able to cover this week. Read them now or take them with you this weekend!

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  • Results of Post-VideoSchmooze Reader Survey

    Yesterday I posted a short 4-question survey following up last week's VideoSchmooze panel discussion of how connected and mobile devices are transforming the video landscape. Below are the results along with my short reactions plus how I would have voted on each question.

    Question 1: Do you agree with the VideoSchmooze panelists that connected and mobile devices are mostly additive to the traditional pay-TV model, or do you think they are mostly disruptive to the traditional pay-TV model?



    My reactions: Despite all the media coverage this year that new devices spell the demise of the pay-TV industry with rampant cord-cutting just ahead, readers seem to agree with the panel that instead they are mostly additive. While there's no doubt that that they present a significant challenge to incumbents, there is also early evidence that pay-TV operators are broadening their mindsets and trying to incorporate these devices into the experiences they offer (Comcast's new Android app unveiled yesterday is just the latest example). I would have voted "not sure/too early to tell" primarily because aside from the biggest pay-TV operators, there are a lot of others that aren't embracing new devices at all. It remains to be seen how aggressive these operators will be and as a result what devices' impact on the whole pay-TV industry will be.

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  • ESPN Wades Into Cord-Cutting Research Fray With New Data

    Not content to sit by and watch the headlines claiming significant cord-cutting is underway, ESPN is wading into the cord-cutting research fray, releasing a new analysis of its own, which it asserts that the activity has been totally overblown.

    By analyzing Nielsen data, ESPN says that in the past 3 months, .28 percent of U.S. households have cut the cord, though mitigating this decrease is that .17 percent of households that had been subscribing to the lowest tier of pay-TV service (dubbed "broadcast-only") upgraded to pay-TV and broadband Internet services. With approximately 110 million households in the U.S., ESPN is saying around 308,000 homes cut the cord, with 187,000 upgrading from broadcast-only, for a net loss due to cord-cutting of 121,000 households. Interestingly, that 121,000 households is quite close to the 119,000 subscribers that SNL Kagan said that U.S. pay-TV operators lost in Q3 '10.

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  • 5 Items of Interest for the Week of Nov. 29th

    Following the Thanksgiving break last Friday, VideoNuze's end-of-week feature of curating 5-6 interesting online/mobile video industry news items that we weren't able to cover this week, is back. Read them now or take them with you this weekend!

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  • 5 Items of Interest for the Week of Nov. 15th

    After a short break, VideoNuze's Friday feature of curating 5-6 interesting online/mobile video industry news items that we weren't able to cover this week, returns today. Read them now or take them with you this weekend!

    Time Warner Cable Experiments With Lower Tier Video Package
    It's a rare day when a cable operator announces a lower-priced offering, but that's what Time Warner Cable did yesterday, unveiling a test of what it's calling "TV Essentials." The new tier, priced between $30-$40, will most notably exclude ESPN, the most expensive channel in the cable universe, meaning right away TV Essentials isn't targeted to sports fans. I've argued for a while now that pay-TV operators have ceded the low-priced/value-oriented end of the video market to Netflix (and others), which given the ongoing recession is a mistake. It will be interesting to see how the new bargain service fares; 2 things that will limit its appeal though are that no channels will be offered in HD, and that it appears those with broadband Internet and telephone services won't benefit from typical package discounts.

    Nielsen study: We're still a nation of couch pumpkins

    More evidence this week that despite all the deserved enthusiasm over online and mobile delivery, good old-fashioned TV viewing still rules in terms of hours of consumption. Nielsen said that the average person watched 143 hours of TV per month in Q2, essentially flat vs. a year ago. For homes with DVRs, hours of time watched on them nudged up a bit to about 24 1/2 hours. On a related note, this week comScore released its online video viewing data for October, which showed average viewing of 15.1 hours per person. While online video has made huge progress in the last few years, it still has a ton of room to grow to catch up with TV.

    More Videos Ads, More User Acceptance
    Speaking of the comparison between online video and TV, this week brought some interesting new data on monetization patterns for premium online video. Online video ad manager FreeWheel released data that showed mid-roll ads are the fastest-growing category of ads (up 693% since Q1), and now represent 8% of its ad volume. Completion rates have increased for pre, mid and post-roll ads this year, but notably mid-rolls have the highest completion rate, at 90%. FreeWheel's conclusion is that monetization of premium online video is starting to look a lot like TV, with ad pods inserted throughout. Going a step further, if viewer acceptance of mid-rolls stays high, then this represents a valuable opportunity for TV networks in particular to combat DVR-based ad-skipping.

    Startup Claims To Have Set-Top Hulu Can't Block
    It was inevitable that Hulu's decision to block access to its programs would set off a game of whack-a-mole, with various devices springing up to do end-arounds. Sure enough, the $99 Orb TV debuted this week, prominently positioning itself as the device that can bring Hulu (among other content) to your TV. One catch is that Orb streams video from your computer and only does so in standard definition. It addresses the "keyboard in the living room" challenge by also including a smartphone app to control the device. It's not a perfect solution, but it does provide a glimpse into the PR-unfriendly dynamic that Hulu, and the broadcast networks, have created for themselves by blocking access to their content by Google TV and others. No doubt there will be plenty more Orb-like devices to come to market in the months ahead, all positioning themselves as solving the blocking problem.

    Comcast's Top Digital Exec Amy Banse to Open New Silicon Valley Equity Fund for Cable Giant and NBC
    As Comcast enters the final stages of approval for its NBCU deal, the company this week announced a new NBCU management structure. One item that wasn't formally announced yet, but was reported by AllThingsD earlier this week was that Amy Banse, formerly head of Comcast Interactive Media (now headed by Matt Strauss), will be heading to Silicon Valley to run the combined operations of Comcast's current Comcast Interactive Capital venture arm, and NBCU's current Peacock Equity (a JV with GE). With all the distribution, technology and content assets that will be under the Comcast roof, the fund will be at the top of any online/mobile video startup's list of strategic investors. I've known Amy for a while and have enjoyed having her on industry panels; she'll be a huge asset to Comcast in the Valley venture world.
     
  • How About Some Actual Data in the Cord-Cutting Debate?

    No sooner did SNL Kagan's press release, announcing that the U.S. pay-TV industry had lost 119K subscribers in Q3 '10, following a loss of 216K subscribers in Q2, hit the wire today, than the blogosphere was alight with a fresh round of posts that cord-cutting was to blame. This chorus was surely egged on by Kagan senior analyst Ian Olgeirson's remark in the press release that "it is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss the impact of over-the-top substitution on video subscriber performance." That remark was a notable change of tone from Kagan's Q2 release which ascribed subscriber losses solely to the country's ongoing economic woes.

    Note however that Olgeirson only offered his opinion, rather than any actual, hard data from Kagan about cord-cutting's impact. That is characteristic of both sides of the current cord-cutting debate - lots of opining, but little-to-no reliable data. In my own Q3 analysis - in which I suggested that the pay-TV as a whole likely lost around 97K subscribers in Q3 (though the group of 8 of the top 9 pay-TV operators actually gained subscribers) - I noted that nobody truly knows the impact of cord-cutting, yet anyway.

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  • Report: 4% of Hulu Users Subscribe to Hulu Plus; Of Them 88% Also Subscribe to Netflix

    A new report being released today by One Touch Intelligence has found that 4% of surveyed Hulu.com users are subscribing to Hulu Plus and that of them, 88% of them are also Netflix subscribers. The survey included 970 individuals who subscribe to both a pay-TV service and a broadband Internet service, and have streamed or downloaded at least one TV show or movie in the past month.  Of the 970 individuals, 612 of them said they use the free Hulu.com service at least weekly, with 25 of them subscribing to Hulu Plus. Of the 25, 22 of them also subscribe to Netflix.

    On the one hand, the 4% penetration is noteworthy, since Hulu has yet to advertise the Hulu Plus service beyond its own site. That was reflected in the relatively narrow awareness of the service, with 68% of Hulu.com users who are not subscribing to Hulu Plus saying they are either "barely" familiar with Hulu Plus or not familiar with it at all.

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  • 5 Items of Interest for the Week of Oct. 25th

    Lots more happened this week in online/mobile video, and so to make your lives easier, VideoNuze is once again curating 5-6 interesting industry news items that we weren't able to cover this week. Read them now or take them with you this weekend!

    No Longer 'Must-See TV'
    The WSJ reported this week that Thursday night TV viewership (live or recorded) among 18-49 year-olds is down 4.3% this season to 48.5 million, a drop of 2.2 million viewers. For this age group, the drop across all nights (live or recorded) is 2.7%. While the decreases have immediate implications on networks' ad revenue, the bigger issue of course is what the drops say about shifting consumer preferences. For example, I continue to hear anecdotes about users with connected devices now tuning in first to their Instant Watch queues instead of channel surfing or visiting their DVR libraries or VOD. The Nielsen data corroborates other data (here, here) about the decline of TV viewing, especially among young people, and is another reason why broadcast networks in particular should be embracing connected devices like Google TV, not blocking them.
     

    CW Says Study 'Dispels Myth' About Aversion to Ads in Online Video
    Speaking of networks and their online distribution, this week CW released some interesting new data that detailed extremely low abandonment rates for its shows consumed online, even with ad loads almost equal to those on-air. While it is too early to generalize, the data provides a very encouraging sign that networks may be able to achieve parity economics with on-air, even when they window their online releases for delayed availability. It's also an important sign that online video may be a firewall against DVR-based ad-skipping.

    Comcast Launches Free Streaming Video Service Xfinity for All Digital Subs
    In addition to releasing stellar Q3 earnings this week (albeit with a bigger-than-expected subscriber loss), Comcast also pulled the "beta" label off its Xfinity TV service this week, and relaxed its rules about who can gain access. Now any video subscriber, regardless of who they take their broadband Internet service from, can access XFTV.

    Some began to speculate that it could be a precursor for Comcast allowing non-video subs to also gain access to XFTV. This is the concept I wrote about in over a year ago, in "How TV Everywhere Could Turn Cable Operators and Telcos Into Over-the-Top's Biggest Players." The idea is that TV Everywhere services like XFTV could be offered outside of Comcast's franchise areas to allow them to poach video subscribers from other pay-TV operators. It's still a fascinating concept, but nothing about Comcast's move this week suggests it's coming soon.

    Insight To Bow 50-Mbps Internet In Two Markets
    If you think all that Netflix and other long-form streaming is going to strain users' bandwidth, think again, as yet another cable operator/broadband ISP, 9th-largest Insight Communications unveiled plans for a speedy 50 megabit per second broadband tier. Big players like Comcast and Time Warner Cable have been offering this for a while already. It's still very pricey, but as some viewers shift more of their consumption to online and away from conventional TV viewing (see above), more bandwidth will be worth the price. Update - I missed this item, that over in the U.K. Virgin Media began taking sign-ups for a 100 Mbps broadband service. Net, net, last-mile bandwidth will keep expanding to meet increasing demand.

    Promoted Videos hit half a billion views
    Fresh evidence this week that YouTube is finding innovative ways to monetize its massive audience: the company's performance-based "Promoted videos" format achieved its 500 millionth view, just 2 years after being introduced. With Promoted videos, anyone uploading a video to YouTube (brand, content provider, amateur), can buy opportunities to have that video appear alongside relevant keyword-based searches in YouTube. It's a similar format to AdWords, and of course the video provider only pays when their video is actually clicked on. As I said recently, YouTube is becoming a much more important part of Google's overall advertising mix, while for many brands, YouTube's home page is fast-becoming the most desirable piece of online real estate.