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NBC: Super Bowl Attracted 2.1 Million Streaming Viewers
The first-ever streaming Super Bowl attracted over 2.1 million unique viewers, who consumed 78.6 million minutes. That surpassed NBC's expectations, according to Kevin Monaghan, SVP, Business Development and Managing Director of Digital Media at NBC Sports Group, who said that usage increased throughout the game and peaked in Q4 during the Giants' final touchdown drive. According to Omniture and mDialog data, it was the most-viewed live-streamed single game ever.
Categories: Sports
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Video Syndicators Are Finding Success in Sports Category
The power of the video syndication model is on full display in the online sports category, where 2 of the top 3 properties in December, 2011 were little known, early stage video syndicators, rather than well-known media brands and sports leagues. As the chart below shows, the #2 slot belonged to CineSport, a company I wrote about 6 months ago, with 15.7 million unique viewers while the #3 position went to Perform Sports, a year-old entrant, with 14.6 million unique viewers. Both trailed ESPN with 24.7 million unique viewers, but were still well ahead of stalwarts like CBS, Turner and Fox. Earlier this week I spoke to Juan Delgado, Managing Director of Perform Americas to learn more about its syndication formula.
Categories: Sports, Syndicated Video Economy
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Streaming the Super Bowl is No Big Deal, For Now
The NFL and NBC garnered a lot of attention yesterday with news that the Super Bowl (along with the Pro Bowl and two Wild Card games) will be streamed online for the first time, and made available to Verizon's mobile subscribers. I'll admit, when I first read the news my reaction was "that's pretty cool!" But when I thought about it for another moment, my feeling changed to "so what's the big deal?" Maybe I'm being a skunk at the picnic, but I'm guessing some of you may have had a similar response. Why?
Categories: Broadcasters, Sports
Topics: NBC, NFL, Super Bowl
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VideoNuze Report Podcast #114 - Sports Rights Fees and OTT
I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 114th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Dec. 16, 2011. In today's podcast Colin and I discuss the escalation in sports rights fees, player salaries, sports networks' affiliate fees and pay-TV rates.
Earlier this week I wrote about the massive, $254 million contract baseball slugger Albert Pujols signed with the Angels and how a new 20-year, $3 billion deal with Fox Sports enabled the team to afford the deal. But that's already old news, because since then the NFL signed $28 billion worth of deals with CBS, Fox and NBC (on top of the $15.2 billion renewal with ESPN agreed to in September), and ESPN forked over another $500 million for broader rights with NCAA.
Why does all this matter? Because as I've said repeatedly throughout the year, these deals are largely funded by non sports fans, through their ever-higher monthly pay-TV bills. As Colin and I agree, it's an unsustainable trend that's largely being enabled by consumers' ignorance and inertia about what they're paying for. Coincidentally, just today the NY Times has an article on this topic, the first one I've seen from a mainstream newspaper. The byproduct of escalating pay-TV rates is that they're opening the door for OTT alternatives to thrive. Listen in to learn more!
Click here to listen to the podcast (16 minutes, 11 seconds)
Click here for previous podcasts
The VideoNuze Report is available in iTunes...subscribe today!Categories: Cable Networks, Podcasts, Sports
Topics: CBS, ESPN, FOX, NBC, NCAA, NFL
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Why Albert Pujols is Over-the-Top's New Best Friend
When baseball great Albert Pujols signed a staggering 10-year, $254 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim last week, he became
over-the-top's (OTT) new best friend. That's right, everyone including Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and Amazon, plus countless online-only content producers, should have been celebrating Pujols's new riches. Why? Because the Pujols deal is the latest example of how pay-TV seems determined to price itself out of reach for certain segments of the population, opening up a huge window for OTT to succeed.
Categories: Cable Networks, Cable TV Operators, Indie Video, Satellite, Sports, Telcos
Topics: Albert Pujols, Angels, ESPN, FOX, Liberty Global, TNT
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Expensive Regional Sports Networks Are Becoming Pay-TV's Achilles Heel
An article in the NY Times over the weekend, "Regional Sports Networks Show the Money," highlighted the mega-profitable and symbiotic relationship between marquee sports teams/conferences and the regional sports networks (RSNs) they have spawned. RSNs aren't new, but as the article pointed out, teams and conferences are getting increasingly creative and aggressive about their TV rights, in turn driving up the fees pay-TV operators and ultimately subscribers are required to pay. All of this suggests that RSNs are becoming pay-TV's Achilles Heel especially when it comes to non-sports fans.
This is a topic I covered back in January, in "Not a Sports Fan? Then You're Getting Sacked For At Least $2 Billion Per Year" and subsequently in "Time Warner Cable-LA Lakers Deal Is More Bad News For Pay-TV's Non-Sports Fans," in each case noting that as sports programming fees drive pay-TV rates ever higher, some portion of non-sports fans will eventually defect for lower-cost entertainment-centric options (e.g. Netflix, Hulu, over-the-air/ antenna reception, etc.).
Categories: Cable Networks, Cable TV Operators, Satellite, Sports, Telcos
Topics: LA Dodgers, LA Lakers, Pac-12, RSNs
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Turner Sports Tees Up Online/Mobile Video Coverage of PGA Championship
The 93rd PGA Championship, the final major tournament of the season, gets underway tomorrow and Turner Sports, which has exclusive broadcast rights, has teed up significant multi-screen and social media initiatives. As the Olympics, NCAA March Madness and other high-profile sporting events have previously shown, online and mobile video have created an immersive, up-to-the-minute experience for fans.
Aside from its Thursday-Sunday live broadcasting schedule on TNT, Turner Sports has a full slate of online video coverage on PGA.com, which Turner powers and through mobile. Among the highlights:
Categories: Cable Networks, Devices, Mobile Video, Sports
Topics: PGA, TNT, Turner Sports
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NHL GameCenter LIVE Subscriptions Up 31% for 2010-2011 Season
The National Hockey League and its technology partner NeuLion are reporting this morning that subscriptions to NHL GameCenter LIVE increased by 31% in the 2010-2011 season, with a 83% renewal rate. The service, which costs $169 for the season, includes live out-of-market game broadcasts, full-length and condensed replays and 500+ classic games in the NHL Vault.
Categories: Sports
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Time Warner Cable Promoting WatchESPN App for Wimbledon Viewing
Time Warner Cable is sending the below email to subscribers promoting the WatchESPN app for anytime/anywhere Wimbledon viewing. The email is the first consumer-facing example I've seen of a cable operator promoting a specific cable programmer's TV Everywhere app.
The email's copy hits the right messages nicely, emphasizing free access for existing Digital TV customers, anytime/anywhere/anyplace access on mobile devices and tablets, and easy app download instructions. The email is a winner in terms of getting the message out that TWC understands its subscribers' new viewing expectations and that it delivering a service that meets them.
Categories: Cable Networks, Cable TV Operators, Sports
Topics: ESPN, Time Warner Cable, Wimbledon
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MLB: Mobile Use of Our Content Will Exceed Online Within 12-18 Months
At the recent ELEVATE conference, Noah Garden, EVP, Revenue for MLB Advanced Media forecasted that MLB's page views from mobile devices will exceed those from online within the next 12-18 months. Mobile has become a huge growth driver for MLB, rising from just 8% of use in 2008 to 37% last year as smartphones and tablets have exploded. In addition, Noah said that MLB is on pace to sell 2 million subscriptions to its MLB.tv and mobile services this year, up from last year's 1.5 million. MLB has launched 100 million streams of games this year, up 47% vs. last year.
Noah's comments came during a session I moderated with him and Mike Gaffney, CRO of video ad platform Auditude (full video after the jump). The session focused on how premium content providers are using both paid and ad-supported strategies to fully exploit the value of their content, rather than looking it the options as one or the other. As Noah said, "we want to be on any device that has a plug and a battery" to reach all targeted consumers with MLB.tv equally. Since MLB has been one of the key leaders in online/mobile video distribution, its initiatives are widely followed in the industry.
Categories: Mobile Video, Sports
Topics: Auditude, ELEVATE, MLB
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Guess Which Sports Property Had the Most Unique Viewers in May (Hint: It's Not Yahoo, ESPN, MLB or SI)
Here's a interesting tidbit from comScore's Video Metrix - the top sports property in May, as ranked by unique viewers, wasn't any of the names you'd expect (e.g. Yahoo Sports, ESPN, MLB, SI, etc.), but rather a little-known, four year-old start-up named CineSport. As the chart below shows, CineSport generated 13.1 million unique viewers in May to top the list (CineSport was actually number one in April too, and has been so periodically before as well). How CineSport is generating so much viewership says a lot about how online video is creating unexpected new opportunities for those with clever approaches. Last week I caught up with CineSport's CEO and founder Gregg Winik to learn more.
Categories: Sports, Syndicated Video Economy
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Major League Baseball Advanced Media EVP, Revenue to Speak at ELEVATE
I'm pleased to announce a new case study session at ELEVATE: Online Video Advertising Summit, with Noah Garden, EVP, Revenue, Major League Baseball Advanced Media and Mike Gaffney, Chief Revenue Officer, Auditude, a leading online video advertising technology provider. The title of this featured session is "Ad Supported & Paid: A Case Study in Content's MVPs (Most Valuable Partners)." ELEVATE will be held on Tuesday, June 7th in NYC, during Internet Week.
MLBAM is widely acknowledged to be the leading innovator among major sports leagues and has a robust business in both subscription/paid services and also in free, ad-supported content. Noah will provide us a unique look inside MLBAM - what drives its decisions about which business model to deploy, how the models compliment one another, what are key lessons learned to date, etc. MLBAM is also a leading technology innovator and Mike will provide insight about how Auditude is partnering with MLBAM to take its ad business to the next level.
For industry professionals looking to learn how an industry leader is knocking the cover off the ball in online video, this case study session will be a must-attend. -
NCAA's MMOD Offering In-Game Highlights, Powered by Digitalsmiths
An exciting feature of this year's NCAA March Madness on Demand (MMOD) is the availability of highlight clips during the games themselves. This near-real time metadata tagging and indexing capability is being powered by Digitalsmiths, and it represents a key milestone in the online sports experience.
As I described last month in my review of MLB.com's "Fantasy Baseball Commissioner" product which this season will include in-game highlights as well, these initiatives move metadata tagging and indexing from the realm of on-demand libraries to live streams. Digitalsmiths' GM Patrick Donovan wrote a post about this last Thursday, and I got a chance to catch up with him about it further.
Categories: Sports
Topics: CBS, Digitalsmiths, MMOD, NCAA, Turner Sports
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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.
Categories: Sports
Topics: ESPN, Nielsen, SNL Kagan
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NCAA MMOD Runs Home Page Takeover Ad On NYTimes.com
Speaking of sports, here's how big a deal live streaming of March Madness on Demand (MMOD) has become for the NCAA and its TV partners CBS and Turner Sports: yesterday, which was the tournament's big kickoff, the parties ran a pricey full-page, rich media takeover ad on the NYTimes.com home page (see below). MMOD has developed into the highest-profile live online video sporting event of the year. It's hard to believe any real college hoops fan doesn't know about MMOD's availability, but with the NYTimes ad, clearly the parties weren't taking any chances.
Categories: Broadcasters, Cable Networks, Newspapers, Sports
Topics: CBS, MMOD, NCAA, NYTimes, Turner Sports
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NeuLion Gets In the Game With NAIA Hoops Online
NCAA MMOD wasn't the only online college basketball story this week, as video platform provider NeuLion announced that it is powering the NAIA's men's
and women's basketball tournament, also now underway. But whereas NCAA MMOD has pursued a free, ad-supported model, the NAIA games are only available through a subscription, with the full package running $40.
Categories: Sports
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CBSSports.com College Network To Mine Value of Universities' Sports Video Archives
Sports continues its role as a leading online video innovator, as this morning CBSSports.com College Network, a division of CBS Interactive, is announcing an initiative to enable its 175 university partners to mine the value of their
extensive sports video libraries, in a new partnership with technology provider Thought Equity Motion. Last week Rob Schupler, CBSSports.com College Network's SVP of University Relations and Dan Weiner, VP of Marketing and Products at Thought Equity Motion briefed me on their plans.
Rob explained that CBSSports.com College Network has a broad mandate with its university partners - to create their web sites, manage content, help build their fan bases, protect their brands and monetize through different business models. A key area of fan interest has been audio and video content, which is often available through premium subscriptions. However, when it comes to archived video content, the sites have mainly only offered a tiny fraction of what's in their vaults, usually just highlights from the past season. Rob said that the traditionally manual process of producers accessing archived content made providing a richer assortment operationally and economically unviable.
Categories: Sports, Technology
Topics: CBSSports.com College Network, Thought Equity Motion
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Who Will Win the Chance to Watch Every 2011 MLB Game?
This past Monday night was the application deadline for "MLB Dream Job," a new web series that Major League Baseball and Endemol are creating, in which one lucky fan will be sequestered in a New York City apartment to watch every single game of the 2011 season and blog frequently about his/her experience. It's an attention-grabbing idea that, according to this THR article, had already attracted over 5,000 submissions, as of about 2 weeks ago. When I first read about the web series, my initial thought was, "wow, if only I were 22 again, what a great way to spend 6 months," but then that yielded to a memory of what happened to filmmaker Morgan Spurlock when he went on a McDonalds-only diet for 30 days in the 2004 documentary "Super Size Me."
Categories: Indie Video, Sports
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Op-Ed in the L.A. Times and NPR Interview
I was very pleased to have an op-ed piece published in the L.A. Times this week, "Pay-TV's Full-Court Press" in which I explained how the recent Time Warner Cable deal with the L.A. Lakers is going to be very costly for pay-TV subscribers in the L.A. area, whether they are sports fans or not. The piece echoes points I made last month in "Not A Sports Fan? Then You're Getting Sacked For At Least $2 Billion Per Year."
Producers at the main L.A. NPR affiliate, KCRW noticed the op-ed and called for an interview on the "Which Way, LA?" program with Warren Olney which runs at 7pm weekdays. The recording is here, and my interview segment starts about 1 minute into the broadcast. I continue to believe that the huge cost for pay-TV's non-sports fans and casual fans to receive expensive sports networks they don't watch is ultimately going to cause them to re-evaluate the value of their pay-TV subscriptions. With the rise of lower cost and free over-the top options like Netflix and Hulu - plus the proliferation of connected devices - entertainment-minded consumers will be very tempted to save money by reducing their pay-TV service.Categories: Sports
Topics: Hulu, KCRW, LA Times, Netflix
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It's NCAA March Madness On Demand Season Again
Speaking of sports, Turner Sports, CBS Sports and the NCAA announced this week that March Madness on Demand will be back online and free to users yet again. MMOD is by far the highest-profile sports event offered live online and the NCAA and networks just keep on improving it every year. For the 2011 tournament, the big new drawing card will be an iPad app, along with new features like personalized channel lineups, social interaction and live stats updates.
Categories: Broadcasters, Cable Networks, Sports
Topics: CBS, MMOD, NCAA, Turner Sports
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