Topic: Video
Comcast Is Planning a Netflix Rival Using NBC Shows – Bloomberg (Apr 10, 2017)
I wrote a piece last week for Techpinions about the fragmentation in the TV market as everyone launches their own streaming services, and here comes yet another example of that. It sounds like Comcast is working on a service that would combine content from NBC and the NBCU cable networks into a single subscription package, although the conditions on the Comcast-NBCU merger make it unlikely that it will debut in the next 18 months or so. But we’ve already seen the premium cable networks (HBO, Starz, and Showtime) go over-the-top, along with broadcaster CBS and NBC itself with a comedy subscription service called Seeso. As cord cutting and cord shaving eat into cable network subscriber numbers, we’re going to see lots more of this direct-to-consumer stuff. In principle, that sounds great for consumers, who will now be able to pick and choose just the content they want, but in practice they’re likely to end up spending more and dealing with multiple bills, user interfaces, and content models to get it, which is in turn going to lead to an opportunity for re-aggregation down the road.
via Bloomberg
One in five Facebook videos is Live as it seizes the verb – TechCrunch (Apr 6, 2017)
This is the first real quantification we’ve had of live video which puts it in context of Facebook’s overall video volumes, and on the face of it looks pretty good. For one fifth of all video shared on the platform to be live is impressive. On the other hand, I’m not sure how much video I see shared on Facebook by my own friends, but it’s not that much, so perhaps between regular users and brands and so on that makes a certain amount of sense. I’d be far more curious to know what percentage live makes up of video consumed on Facebook, because I suspect that’s a far smaller number, and arguably that number matters a lot more than what’s uploaded. After all, Facebook only really benefits from the viewing end of the equation.
via TechCrunch
YouTube TV Reviews Suggest Nice User Interface, Features, Limited Content (Apr 5, 2017)
It looks like the embargo on reviews of YouTube TV lifted this morning and a slew of those reviews have now emerged. On balance, the reviews seem positive about the user interface and features (notably the DVR), but note limitations across content, including the complete absence of Turner and Viacom channels, geographies (the service is only available in five cities to start, due to local broadcast rights), and devices (only Chromecast and Google Cast-enabled TVs, no Apple TV or Roku). I’ll link back here to my first take on YouTube TV following the launch event, because my overall sense of this service hasn’t changed. But it does seem as though the app does better on some key concepts than the other offerings already out there, notably that DVR feature and the way it taps into favorite shows and sports teams. As you’d expect from a brand that’s always stood for ease of use and discovery in video consumption, it’s good at those things. But those limitations are going to mean it’s not a viable competitor in the vast majority of the country for now. The limitations are, in fact, probably a good thing in that they’ll allow YouTube TV to avoid some of the scaling issues suffered by DirecTV Now when it launched last fall, but it’s going to need to find a way to go national sooner rather than later, which means working out those complicated local affiliate rights which have bedeviled everyone else in this business too.
via Business Insider (more reviews on Techmeme)
AT&T Is Bundling HBO for Free With Unlimited Wireless Plan – Variety (Apr 5, 2017)
AT&T hasn’t bought Time Warner yet, but that’s not stopping it from doing deals involving Time Warner properties, including this new promotion with HBO. AT&T had already been using HBO as a lure for driving DirecTV Now subscriptions, as it’s bundled the channel first at a discounted rate and then free for subscribers. But now AT&T is also giving away HBO for free to its higher-tier unlimited wireless data customers. Though the merger hasn’t closed yet, there’s a good chance that future prospect has been part of the companies’ closer relationship on this side recently, and it’s easy to imagine more of this kind of thing should the deal go through. It’s never made sense that AT&T would seek to limit distribution of Time Warner content following the merger because that would be counter-productive for the content business even if it benefited wireless subscriber numbers. But zero rating and bundle discounts make a lot more sense, as they lock customers into a much higher total spend and likely lower churn at a fairly low customer acquisition cost, and of course once TW is part of AT&T the cash cost of deals like this will be minimal. And AT&T’s real goal with the merger isn’t so much synergies from owning content and distribution as it is simply owning content, because that’s where the real value is long term.
via Variety
NFL and Amazon Reach One-Year Streaming Deal for About $50 Million – WSJ (Apr 4, 2017)
This is an interesting outcome to this bidding process, with perhaps the most interesting part being the price to be paid by Amazon, which is five times what Twitter paid for the equivalent rights last year. I had wondered if the NFL was going to let the winning broadcaster sell more of its own ads, which would have justified a higher price, but as that doesn’t seem to be the case it looks more likely that the higher price was the result of a bidding war. If I recall correctly, Twitter was said not to have been the highest bidder last time around, so it’s possible both that Amazon (and possibly others) bid more and that the NFL decided to go with the higher bidder this time. From Amazon’s perspective, the deal certainly fits with two existing initiatives: its increasing focus on TV and in particular live TV, and its slow but steady push into advertising. The big issue Amazon has with TV at this point is that its efforts are spread over two very different brands and channels, namely Twitch and Prime. At some point, the aggregation strategy that’s served its Channels business well will likely make sense in live TV too. But broadcasting live TV is a great opportunity to market Amazon hardware products to a captive video audience as well.
via WSJ
Twitter targets tie-ups with pay-TV broadcasters in live video push – Telegraph (Apr 3, 2017)
This is an interesting next potential step in Twitter’s push into live video. So far it’s focused on licensing video to show to all visitors (or at least all visitors in a particular country), with one of the big selling points being that users don’t have to hunt through a channel guide, authenticate themselves through a pay TV service, or jump through other hoops. What Twitter is betting on now is that users might be willing to authenticate themselves through a pay TV provider in return for the smaller benefit of watching video and related tweets in a single window, something I’m not sure users will go for. Twitter has, at least, made that tweet curation experience better in recent months, which may increase the attractiveness somewhat, but I suspect a big attraction for the other live video Twitter has shown was that it was free and painless. As anyone who’s used other TVE solutions knows, those words generally don’t apply.
via Telegraph
Apple wants to sell HBO, Showtime and Starz in a single bundle – Recode (Apr 3, 2017)
Apple has been reported to be working on some kind of subscription TV service for years now, and yet nothing has ever come to fruition. Meanwhile, Amazon has gone ahead and quietly built a fairly interesting set of TV service components under the Amazon Channels banner. That set of components includes the big premium channels mentioned here (HBO, Showtime, and Starz, as well as Cinemax), but also lots of more niche channels including several targeting particular genres or international content. If Apple wanted to build a similar service, I’m sure the pay TV providers would be amenable, and the big sticking point would probably be pricing for such a bundle: Amazon charges the same rates for the three channels as Apple does on a standalone basis at the moment, with the exception of Showtime ($9/month vs. Apple’s $11/month), but Apple would want to provide some kind of bundle discount. To take a step back for a minute from this specific offer, it’s worth thinking about trends in online video at the moment. Whereas one of the big trends we’ve seen so far is one of disaggregation, with these premium channels and others offering standalone apps and services, people want aggregation, both for the price and convenience benefits of bundling, but also having a single user interface for consuming this TV content. With its new TV app, Apple has such a user interface, and I’d expect it to try to add more and more channels into that interface over time. Beyond Apple, I suspect this kind of aggregation will be a big theme this year across providers.
via Recode
Verizon Said to Be Planning Online TV Package for Summer Launch – Bloomberg (Mar 30, 2017)
It feels like we’re starting to reach something of a tipping point with pay TV providers readying stripped-down streaming versions of their services, with DISH and DirecTV/AT&T already in the market, and Comcast and now Verizon said to be prepping their own versions. It sounds like Verizon’s is going to be much like what we’ve seen so far, in other words a poor substitute for traditional pay TV and most likely something focused on a subset of mostly cable channels for a much smaller monthly fee. What I’m still far more interested in is one of these services that actually offers a more classic channel lineup including broadcast networks but uses the far lower cost of delivery to price it more aggressively. For now, these services are of limited utility for those looking to move to more modern interfaces but keep many of the channels they’re used to.
via Bloomberg
Twitter will start putting ads in front of Periscope videos – The Verge (Mar 28, 2017)
Like Facebook, Twitter is pushing ads into more and more places, including videos on its platform, in an attempt to drive ad growth at a time when that rate of growth has been slowing. In Facebook’s case, the slowdown is due to saturating ad load, whereas for Twitter it’s a combination of anemic user growth and ineffective ad formats. Pre-roll ads for live video are likely to be a bit of a turnoff for users, but if the video is important (and long) enough then they may just put up with them anyway. But this is yet another sign that Twitter is willing to try lots of new things when it comes to finding new sources of revenue, on top of last week’s reports about testing a paid subscription service.
via The Verge
Comcast reportedly planning streaming TV service just for its internet customers – The Verge (Mar 28, 2017)
Yet more evidence here that Comcast is readying a bigger launch of streaming TV, beyond last week’s report that it’s been signing deals for national streaming delivery of content. This streaming service is designed specifically for Comcast broadband customers who don’t also take its pay TV service, and has been offered as a sort of test in a few markets already. But it sounds like it’s gearing up for a big expansion, and that makes sense: Comcast has 2.2 million households which take broadband but not pay TV, so that’s the obvious target market for this service. But having launched this Stream service more broadly within its own footprint, it could eventually take it nationwide too, given those deals it’s been signing. I’ve been saying for a while now that I think there’s something of a game of chicken underway among the major pay TV providers about which will take a true pay TV replacement national first. Comcast was always a strong candidate, and it’s looking ever more likely that it will indeed be the one to go first.
via The Verge
AMC plans ad-free streaming service for cable subscribers – sources – Reuters (Mar 24, 2017)
This is an interesting wrinkle on the theme of premium TV channels going direct to consumer. In this case, AMC Networks is talking about going through the pay TV companies rather than around them, which would ensure high-quality distribution but would also limit it to those audiences already paying for traditional TV services, whereas its stated target is the millennials who famously don’t pay for those services. The price being talked about also seems very high: the AMC network is pretty cheap for pay TV distributors – one recent figure I saw suggested under 50 cents per month – so charging $5-7 just to take out ads seems steep. As a company, AMC makes a little over half its revenue from fees, and the rest mostly from ads, so charging ten times as much as it charges distributors just to remove ads doesn’t feel quite right. But it’s good to see the traditional cable networks experimenting with a variety of models as they try to stem the tide of both cord cutting and cord shaving, even if this doesn’t feel like it’s quite going to hit the spot.
via Reuters
Netflix: The Monster That’s Eating Hollywood – WSJ (Mar 24, 2017)
The headline here is indicative of the language used by some TV execs in the article, but that rhetoric feels pretty overblown, along with the suggestions that Netflix is somehow singlehandedly doubling the fees actors ask for or squeezing other players out of the business. Yes, both Amazon and Netflix are raising prices for acquisitions of indie movies at Sundance, but no, they’re not having that dramatic effect on the entire industry, not least because they’re still just a fraction of the size of the industry as a whole. The reality is that competition has been intensifying for years because the industry is getting tighter in an age of shrinking audiences and higher standards, and Netflix and Amazon aren’t to blame. Having said all that, the article is likely indicative of a souring of relationships between Netflix and traditional media companies, and if that continues we’ll likely see more content pulled from Netflix and other SVOD services, which just validates Netflix’s massive investment in original content which no-one can take away.
via WSJ
Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and YouTube are bidding to stream the NFL’s Thursday night games – Recode (Mar 24, 2017)
When Twitter won these rights last time around in their first year as a separate set from television rights, it turned out to be something very different from what many of us expected. Rather than a massive splurge on a very valuable set of rights, it turned out that the winner merely got the right to show the games along with advertising mostly already sold by broadcasters, meaning there was very little additional revenue opportunity, and as such Twitter got the rights for a paltry $10 million. These NFL games have actually been a good fit with Twitter’s overall live strategy, which has mostly been focused on winning audiences rather than lots of new revenue, but it seems others are interested in taking another crack this year. It would obviously fit well with Facebook’s recent push into professionally produced live video, but also with YouTube’s recent investment in e-sports rights and with Amazon’s foray into TV bundles and Twitch video streaming. It’s less of a good fit with Apple’s current focus in the TV space, so it’s not surprising that its name doesn’t appear here. I’ll be very interested to see if the NFL is pitching the same kind of package as last time or whether the winning bidder will have the right to sell more of its own ads this time around.
via Recode
Comcast Said to Gain Rights to Offer Web TV Service Nationwide – Bloomberg (Mar 23, 2017)
I’ve held for quite a while that there’s a game of chicken going on between the various big pay TV providers over who will be first to take a streaming version of their service nationwide, and it looks like Comcast is taking steps to ensure that it can do so if and when it decides to move forward. That’s not a guarantee that Comcast actually will do so, and indeed this piece suggests Comcast has no immediate plans on this front. But it’s clearly in a very strong position to do so, as the second largest TV provider in the US and the largest cable company, and also the pay TV provider with the strongest user interface through its X1 platform. That platform could potentially run as an app on third party boxes like Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV should it choose to run a nationwide service. And there is, of course, big upside from a revenue perspective in offering its service nationally, especially as a hedge against cord cutting within its existing footprint. The downside is that such a service would be standalone, and with content costs rising as a percentage of video revenue, margins there are being squeezed. In its footprint, Comcast can offset that by charging more for broadband or up-selling voice or home automation services as part of a bundle, but that’s not possible when selling online TV as a standalone product. Still, at some point I believe Comcast and other big pay TV providers will finally take really compelling TV offerings (rather than the watered down stuff we’re seeing from Sling and DirecTV) national, and that will be a big deal.
via Bloomberg
Netflix still has a huge lead in the streaming wars, but Hulu’s smaller service has loyal users (on TV sets) – Recode (Mar 22, 2017)
I added the parenthetical in the headline because that’s the key caveat here, as the piece itself points out. There’s a great chart in here comparing penetration of TV viewing over WiFi by various services with the average hours spent viewing those services in households that use them, and it highlights Netflix’s dominance as both the most popular and most used service within that narrow viewing category. Hulu does well on time spent too, though with far fewer households, while Amazon Video comes bottom of the four, and YouTube has reasonably high penetration but low time spent (again, on TVs in homes). Obviously, all four services can be viewed outside of homes too, and it’s YouTube in particular would score much higher in a mobile-only comparison. But for the other three services, in-home viewing on a TV is a critical segment of the audience, and it’s worth noting the order on that basis: Netflix first, Hulu second, and Amazon third. Sadly, there’s no traditional content in here for comparison’s sake – much higher percentages take pay TV services in the US than any of these services, and time spent is quite a bit higher too. The full Comscore report (linked below) is well worth reading in its entirety – lots of other interesting data points.
via Recode (source Comscore report here)
Cable Network Owners are Culling Underperforming Networks (Mar 21, 2017)
Today, both the Wall Street Journal and Variety published in-depth pieces on the way major cable network owners are culling some of their underperforming networks, either shutting them down entirely or shifting investment to their more successful properties. Both articles have lots of good history, and each also features an interesting graphic with lots of detail that helps readers see which are the worst performing networks. All of this is, of course, a reflection of several trends impacting the TV industry, from cord cutting to cord shaving to increasing content costs and a shift from linear live viewing to VOD and streaming. For now, the focus is on these underperforming channels, and the pieces seem to suggest there are magic subscriber numbers above which the problems are either smaller or don’t exist at all. But the reality is that even big networks like ESPN are struggling. As I argued in a my weekly Variety piece last week, the only thing keeping most cable networks from seeing negative growth is contractual rate increases, which won’t last forever. Interestingly, though, cable networks continue to be some of the most lucrative segments of the overall TV market, with high margins relative to pay TV providers and broadcasters.
Apple Debuts Clips, a New Way to Create Videos on iOS (Mar 21, 2017)
Alongside the iPad announcement it made this morning, Apple made three other announcements, of which this is the most interesting (the other two concern a PRODUCT(RED) iPhone and new languages for Swift Playgrounds). Clips looks like a hybrid of Snapchat and iMovie, with lots of new filters, stickers and other effects and an easy editor for creating a montage of video clips and photos, but apparently without any kind of social component. This is a funny sort of inbetweener software product from Apple, which doesn’t have an explicit social network and whose creative tools around editing photos and videos are far less used among young people than those which come with the social networks they use. I don’t necessarily see that changing with this product, though there are some clever-looking features like auto-generating titles. The proof will be in the pudding, though – the app comes out in April, though I’m guessing it may appear in developer betas before then, giving us a chance to try it out. It’s interesting to see Apple experimenting to try to fill a gap here, but I’m not convinced it’s got it right just yet.
via Apple
Google Announces First Steps in Better Preventing Ads Appearing on Hate Videos (Mar 21, 2017)
Last week, there was a blowup in the UK over ads showing up next to videos promoting hate and terrorism, and Google issued an initial response in Europe without promising any specific changes. It’s now talking about the problem on a global basis and getting slightly more specific about how it’ll tackle the problem. Given that the initial post highlighted the challenge of human curation, Google’s promise to do better in policing content is too vague to be reassuring – how will it do this? By hiring thousands more people to check individual videos? Better computer video analysis? On the other hand, it’s finer-grained controls for advertisers and tighter default settings are very much in line with the solutions I proposed last week, but come with other risks. If by default advertisers’ ads won’t show against the long tail of YouTube content, that will dramatically reduce the attractiveness of posting video to YouTube for creators, and revenue for YouTube as well. So the devil is in the detail here, and detail is something this post is incredibly short on. Hopefully we’ll see a lot more specifics as Google works its way through this. There are no easy solutions here though. Update: one other thing worth noting, which I had intended to include earlier but forgot: Google is going to be cracking down on some content not just from an advertising perspective but in terms of what can be posted to YouTube in the first place, which feels like a significant shift.
via Google
Hulu unveils new website for upcoming live TV service, shows off new UI, more – 9to5Google (Mar 16, 2017)
There’s not a ton of new detail here – Hulu briefed reporters on a lot of this back at CES, but there are a couple of new tidbits. Notably, it sounds like the DVR function will feel a lot less DVR-y and more like an online read-it-later service for video, which sounds a lot more user friendly than a lot of the cloud DVRs I’ve seen. The multiple simultaneous streams and profiles are interesting too – that makes it much more of a pay TV replacement than most of what we’ve seen. I have to say, as a cord cutter, I’m probably more excited about Hulu’s entry in this market than all the others I’ve seen. Big questions, as usual: local content and whether/where it will be available, and which channels get left out to hit the usual $30-40 price bracket.
via 9to5Google
YouTube makes its biggest e-sports bet with FACEIT streaming deal – Reuters (Mar 16, 2017)
E-sports are one of the few where the TV and digital rights aren’t sewn up for years to come, and so they’ve become a battleground for big digital players, with Amazon buying Twitch and YouTube now stealing one of its most high-profile, high-quality content deals. This is a big step for YouTube, which has dabbled with various bits of live sports in the past but has never had a really high-profile deal. It’s obviously not going to deliver NFL-like viewing numbers, but it’s a good test of YouTube’s commitment to live video and sports.
via Reuters