Posts for 'Turner'

Turner Broadcasting will provide Comcast with VOD and TV Everywhere access for some of its most popular programs across all of its cable networks, under a deal announced this morning. A significant aspect of the deal is that it gives Comcast rights not only to past seasons' episodes, but also to all current season episodes - what's known as "stacking rights." The deal is a big win for Comcast and also underscores the emergence of dynamic ad insertion in VOD/TVE streams as an important new revenue driver.

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In the session "Is TV Everywhere Finally Breaking Through?" at the recent VideoSchmooze, industry executives discussed an important long-term objective for the pay-TV industry: turning TV Everywhere into TV, Everywhere. The insertion of that little comma would convert a key industry initiative into a practical, compelling and ubiquitous consumer experience.

For device-happy consumers, what's not to love about the idea of being able to watch all kinds of TV programming (sports, news entertainment, etc.) in any format (live, linear or on-demand), inside or outside their homes whenever they want?

But getting to that eventual goal involves resolving a lot of sticky business and technical challenges. In the wide-ranging panel discussion, our participants Michael Bishara (Synacor), John Harran (Turner), Marty Roberts (thePlatform), John Woods (Mediacom) and Colin Dixon (nScreenMedia and moderator) did a great job of sorting through all of the issues and articulating the opportunities.

For anyone interested in TV Everywhere, it's a highly informative 47 minutes. The video is below.

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Binge-viewing is a bona fide phenomenon that's not only changing consumers' TV viewing behaviors, but also creating fissures in the TV industry. Recently, in "For U.S. Cable Operators, Netflix Partnerships Are Fraught With Risk," I outlined how binge-viewing is driving a competitive dynamic over content rights between Netflix and pay-TV operators' VOD and TV Everywhere plans. Adding further detail, this past Friday, Vulture published an excellent article with specific examples of how this battle is brewing.

According to Vulture, FX and Turner are telling studios from which they obtain TV shows that they need rights to stream the full current season of shows (known as "stacking" rights) not just the most recent 3-5 episodes. Part of the networks' rationale is they need to give late-coming viewers an easy path to watch from the beginning of a season, rather than just enabling existing viewers a way to catch up.

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Adobe is announcing today that Turner Broadcasting is its latest customer of Adobe Primetime, the company's multi-screen TV Everywhere and monetization solution. Turner will be using Primetime to power TNT and TBS apps and web sites, along with the Primetime player and dynamic ad insertion, PayTV Pass authentication and Primetime DRM.

Jeremy Helfand, VP Adobe Video Solutions, told me that until now Turner had been using a combination of home-grown and point product solutions, which are being replaced with the Primetime suite. Turner has been the earliest and staunchest supporter of TV Everywhere among cable TV networks, going back 4+ years to the high-profile joint news conference with Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, announcing the initiative.

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For many viewers, a pre-roll ad is just a 15 or 30-second interruption before the content plays. But now advertisers can make their pre-rolls full-blown interactive experiences with multiple engagement opportunities. At the recent Video Ad Summit, Patty Everett, Associate Media Director at Turner Media explained how, using a sample campaign to illustrate her points in discussion with Jack Flanagan from Innovid.

In the session, Patty details how an interactive pre-roll for Cartoon Network's Hall of Game awards drove awareness, voting and ultimately tune-in. Patty also explains the key challenges in developing interactive pre-rolls and what advertisers need to do to succeed. Advertisers and publishers looking to get more out of their pre-roll will get great insights.

The video is below and runs 13 minutes, 20 seconds.

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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.
    
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At the recent Cable Show I caught up with Michael Quigley, VP Business Development and Multi-Platform Distribution for Turner Networks. Turner has arguably been the most aggressive of all the cable TV networks in pursuing TV Everywhere distribution, and Michael explain why. Turner has now integrated with 13 different pay-TV operators for TV Everywhere distribution covering 77 million U.S. homes. It also makes authenticated content available on 6 of its networks' sites, with over 500 hours of VOD.

One of the key decisions Turner made was to invest in TV Everywhere before the measurement systems from Nielsen and others were fully in place. That's a risk Michael says Turner was willing to take in order to push the TV Everywhere experience forward and draw other networks in. In the interview Michael also discusses ongoing challenges for TV Everywhere's rollout. Watch the interview below (9 minutes, 46 seconds).

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I'm delighted to announce that TV Everywhere's game-changing role in the TV and advertising ecosystems will be the topic of a marquee panel of cable industry executives at ELEVATE: Online Video Advertising Summit on Tuesday, June 7th in New York City. The panel, which I'll moderate, is titled "TV Everywhere: Game-Changer for Premium Online Video and Advertising" and includes:

• Jeremy Legg - SVP, Business Development and Multi-Platform Distribution, Turner Broadcasting System

• David Preschlack - EVP, Affiliate Sales and Marketing, Disney & ESPN Networks Group

• Matt Strauss - SVP and General Manager, Comcast Interactive Media

Turner Networks took a pretty significant step today - for cable networks - by announcing that it plans to stream all 7 of its original TV series slated for this summer. Though broadcast networks have been aggressively launched streaming efforts since last fall, this is the first big network group that has followed suit.

On my Cable IPTV panel last week, we spent some time discussing the divergence in strategies between the cable nets and the broadcast nets. A key takeaway was that it's not going to be so easy for cable nets to stream their programs online. That's because all cable nets have complex provisions in their "affiliate agreements" with cable and satellite operators that circumscribe their ability to distribute through additional channels.

Of course these provisions vary from agreement to agreement, but you can be sure that operators paying hefty per subscriber per month fees to cable nets are going to vigilant about allowing valuable programming to show up elsewhere, thereby (potentially) undercutting the value of their programming packages. For now the issue is being defused by Turner by positioning these streaming activities as primarily promotional. So says Jeff Gregor, CMO of TBS/TNT/TCM in today's B&C piece:

"We want new viewers to come in, and, while we certainly want them to watch shows when we air them live, we want them to watch during encores and on-demand when and where appropriate."

I'm skeptical that we'll see a rash of similar announcements from other cable nets any time soon. Lots of lawyers are still working hard to figure out how much wiggle room affiliate deals allow. Ultimately though, these restrictions will be renegotiated and cable programming will flow freely. Cable nets, like all other content providers, will conclude that online distribution is essential.

I was talking to a reporter earlier today, who asked me if traditional media companies should view broadband video as a threat.

It’s often tempting to think of anything new or any change as being threatening. That’s probably human nature. So it’s perfectly understandable why broadband video is still perceived as a threat by many.

But in fact, broadband is a giant opportunity.

Here’s a great example. CNNMoney.com launched a new Luxury “channel” on its site. This gives CNNMoney a place to grab the attention of high net worth audiences. By showcasing products with glossy video that luxury products companies and retailers want to be next to, CNNMoney is able to tap into new ad dollars in a targeted way. Could Turner have launched a conventional cable channel on “luxury”? Not a chance. There’s no room left on the dial and financing a 24x7 linear network would take big bucks until it eventually got to break-even.

Broadband lets Turner/CNN get into an important new category for a modest amount, leveraging their brand and traffic to generate new revenues.

I keep saying that media companies should view broadband as not only an opportunity, but one of the biggest ones they seen in ages. CNNMoney seems to get it.