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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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Disney Has Religion on Digital, ESPN Is At the Core
Disney held its annual investor day yesterday, and as usual, technology, and the opportunities it creates for the company, was at center stage. Disneyintroduced a new initiative called "Disney Studio All Access" providing a central location for consumers to securely access the company's range of content. Though details were sketchy, key to the plan is more flexible consumer ownership and multi-device playback. For paid, downloadable video, that remains the holy grail.
Aside from the company's digital initiatives on the entertainment side of its house, the most important asset that Disney is trying to re-imagine digitally is ESPN. Just yesterday, the company announced a new distribution deal with Verizon, which emphasizes live online streaming of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN Buzzer Beater. The deal is similar to one inked last September with Time Warner Cable, the country's 2nd-largest cable operator. No doubt others will follow.
Categories: Cable Networks, Cable TV Operators, Sports, Telcos
Topics: Disney, ESPN, Time Warner Cable, Verizon
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VideoNuze Report Podcast #88 - Feb. 18, 2011
Daisy Whitney and I are pleased to present the 88th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for February 18, 2011.
In this podcast, Daisy and I discuss a deal announced earlier this week in which MLB.com will provide near real-time video clips to CBSSports.com's Fantasy Baseball Commissioner users, among other things. The deal caught my attention because the video is driven off of metadata that's created and published almost immediately after the video is shot. That contrasts with metadata creation happening with library content. The deal also speaks to the way video can be used to enhance various online experiences. Listen in the learn more.
Click here to listen to the podcast (12 minutes, 1 second)
Click here for previous podcasts
The VideoNuze Report is available in iTunes...subscribe today!Topics: CBSSports.com, MLB.com, Podcast
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Time Warner Cable-LA Lakers Deal Is More Bad News For Pay-TV's Non-Sports Fans
If you live in the Los Angeles area and are not a sports fan, or you are a casual one, Time Warner Cable's new 20-year deal with the LA Lakers is more bad news. That's because, as I explained last week in "Not a Sports Fan? Then You're Getting Sacked For At Least $2 Billion Per Year," virtually all digital pay-TV subscribers in the LA area - sports fans or not - are going to be footing the bill for this massive deal.
The TWC-Lakers deal is just the latest example of how ever-higher monthly fees pay-TV distributors must fork over to carry sports networks help drive up subscription rates. In this case, TWC, the 2nd largest pay-TV operator, is
positioning itself to also be a major sports network owner, just as Comcast has with Comcast SportsNet. TWC's deal will help create an even bigger inequity for non-sports fans and casual fans than already existed. For this group of subscribers, who are primarily entertainment-oriented, and likely more on-demand focused in their viewership than ever, higher subscription rates - tied to a small cluster of very expensive sports networks - are inevitably going to drive them to drop their pay-TV service.
Categories: Cable Networks, Cable TV Operators, Sports
Topics: Hulu Plus, LA Lakers, Netflix, Time Warner Cable
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MLB.com's Near Real-Time Video Enriches CBSSports.com's Fantasy Baseball
CBSSports.com and MLB.com announced an exclusive multi-year partnership yesterday that illustrates well how video clips generated in near real-time can add significant value to online experiences. Under the deal, MLB will supply CBSSports.com's Fantasy Baseball Commissioner users with in-game video highlights on live scoring pages for every single player, as the games progress. In addition, MLB will provide a highlights package for each player so users can get a look at him before in action before drafting or trading him. Lastly, MLB will provide live audio feeds of all 2,430 regular season games. All of this is being provided at no additional charge to Commissioner users.
The addition of near real-time video highlights to the live scoring pages is the aspect of the deal that really caught my attention because it requires MLB.com to quickly and accurately create descriptive metadata for each play. The MLB.com example shows how sophisticated metadata creation/management has become, moving it from on-demand video to live video. I don't know which metadata technology MLB.com is using (or if they've created their own, as MLB.com tends to do) but their ability to generate clips, attach metadata and publish them in near real-time is quite impressive (with the caveat being that I haven't seen the video updates feature actually work yet).
Categories: Sports
Topics: CBSSports.com, MLB.com
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