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August 31, 2005
IPTV to hit its stride in 2008
(excerpts from Telephony Online)
The market for IPTV will reach 21.7 million subscribers in 2009, though most of those will be in Asia and Europe, according to recent research from Parks Associates. Additionally, despite big projects launching this year and next from the likes of SBC and Verizon, the market won’t begin taking off until 2008.
The study divided consumers into four segments: the TV on My Terms group; the Interact With Me group; the Converge Me segment; and the Do Not Bother Me group.
“We can not have a general model in the United States,” said Deepa Iyer, research analyst for Parks Associates. “We have to give them the options and allow them to pick and choose.”
“... Interact With Me’s do not want advertising to be a passive experience. They want more targeted advertising and advertising that really addresses their needs.”
... Iyer is predicting that telecom operators around the world will maintain around a 20% market share of the video market and that by the end of this year, IPTV subscribers will number only around 2 million worldwide.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 06:54 PM | Comments (379) | TrackBackAugust 30, 2005
SeaChange financials worsen; blames VOD
ITVT reports that VOD equipment provider, SeaChange International, has released preliminary financial results for its fiscal second quarter (2006), ended July 31st. SeaChange says that the results are preliminary, because it is currently completing an analysis of how to properly account for an $8.3 million investment in cable edge device manufacturer, Casa Systems.
- Revenues totaled $26.2 million, compared to $43 million for the year- ago quarter, a 39% decrease.
- Net losses totaled $6.6 million, or $0.23 per diluted share, compared to net income of $3.3 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, for the year- ago quarter.
- VOD systems revenues totaled $12 million, compared to $25.2 million for the year-ago quarter.
- Service revenues totaled $11.8 million, compared to $10.6 million for the year-ago quarter.
- The company anticipates its revenues for the fiscal year as a whole will be lower than guidance issued previously at $160 million. However, it says it believes that the second half of the fiscal year will see better financial results, and that the results for the first half of next year will improve upon those results.
Bill Styslinger blamed the decline in its revenues and earnings on a slowdown in demand for VOD equipment on the part of cable operators and that telco demand for VOD equipment has not grown as quickly as had been anticipated:
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"Although telco initiatives are moving forward around the world, their VOD deployments are later than we anticipated. In the US, cable operators' VOD system spending has slowed, however we do expect that demand will increase as they extend their digital simulcast installations."
I recall reporting a similar dynamic in the first quarter; that is, lower than expected revenue and hope for the future.
SeaChange's telco customers include NTT in Japan, Telus and Manitoba Telecom in Canada, and Verizon in the US. Its cable customers include Comcast and Time Warner in the US, and ntl and Telewest in the UK.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 09:28 AM | Comments (246) | TrackBackAugust 29, 2005
The Beeb get's more progressive
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The BBC's TV channels will be made available on the internet, BBC Director General Mark Thompson has confirmed.
"We believe that on-demand changes the terms of the debate, indeed that it will change what we mean by the word 'broadcasting." … An expanding portion of the BBC's audio and video material from the archive will also be able to be accessed via MyBBCPlayer. "It should make it easier for users to find the content they want whenever and wherever they want it."
He said he hoped the service would launch next year.
A simulcast of BBC One or BBC Two, letting UK viewers see programmes on the web at the same time as they go out on TV, is also planned as part of MyBBCPlayer.
Roster of IPTV Vendors in Alaska
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For those of you who like to keep tabs on which vendors are supplying various portions of the IPTV food chain, here is some information about an small IPTV solution for 10,000 phone customers with Ketchikan Public Utilities (KPU). KPU is in Alaska.
First, Tut Systems Inc. is supplying headend equipment and acting as systems integrator.
Tut brought in Entone Technologies Inc., which is supplying the video-on-demand server. Amino Communications and I3 are delivering IPTV set-tops. Myrio Corp. is supplying the middleware.
Pannaway Technologies is supplying intelligent network interface devices in the homes of the subscribers which will allow KPU to troubleshoot problems and reduce truck rolls by doing diagnostics and repair remotely.
KPU is getting content from ViewNow, Entone's sister company. It plans a fall launch of its 125-channel video service. It will offer 500-plus movies from Entone's 1,000-hour server library. Stand-alone video packages will start at $52 per month.
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Tut Systems recently raised $14.9M in venture capital. |
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Jump to the Vendor Scorecard for the Belgium IPTV deal. |
August 23, 2005
Internet TV: Google vs. Yahoo
Both Google and Yahoo want to use video to in their quest for creating new ad inventory. Judging by recent stories, we will have to give this early round to Yahoo.
You may recall that Yahoo is expanding its news portal to include video. There was the recent story about how ABC, CNN, and AP will participate in that. We also saw that Viacom sees opportunity in repurposing CBS News segments online, too. Now comes the news that Viacom and Yahoo have just signed a multi-year agreement under which Yahoo will provide search-marketing and Web-search services to Viacom's online properties including the CBS News and MTV Web sites. The Web sites of Black Entertainment Television, Country Music Television, Nick Jr., Showtime and VH1 will also get Yahoo services.
And what is Google up to? The last thing I saw on the video side of their strategy was that the Googlians were going to index the transcripts from many television shows and provide those result under a special search. Google Video has the promise of becoming the index of preference for online VOD. I love the concept. However, Google apparently forgot to build key business relationships with content owners. The end result: many television networks are very unhappy and are fighting with Google, demanding that they stop the practice.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 11:15 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBackCities, ask not for whom the 'Bells' toll
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Maybe the Telcos are going to dodge a regulatory bullet in their quest to provide IPTV services. Texas just passed a law establishing statewide franchises, effectively exempting telcos like Verizon and SBC from having to seek town-by-town agreements.
Now, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has given notice to cities not to throw up barriers to easing telco entry into the video space.
(excerpts from Broadcasting & Cable)
Rolling out broadband and ramping up competition to cable are priorities for the FCC. Martin, who has already cleared away mandatory access regs on telco-delivered internet service, gave the Bells another boost in a written response to USA Today Monday in which he suggested he might invoke a provision of the 1992 Cable Act preventing local franchising authorities from "unreasonably refus[ing] to award additional competitive licenses for video."
Martin confirmed to the paper that he was considering invoking the clause, saying: "Several weeks ago I asked the staff to explore what the commission can do to ensure that local authorities are not unreasonably refusing to award additional competitive licenses" for video, he said.
At least two bills have been introduced in Congress to make it easier for telcos to launch video competition to cable.
The first, introduced by Senators Jay Rockefeller and Gordon Smith, gives any phone company currently operating the right to add video without obtaining an additional franchise, though it would be subject to the same franchising obligations as the cable system in the market it is entering.
More sweeping and controversial legislation was introduced by Sen. John Ensign. It would eliminate the need for a cable company, a telephone company, or any other pay-TV provider to obtain local or state franchises. Existing cable franchises also would be eliminated under this bill.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 10:20 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBackAugust 18, 2005
Anystream To Include Nielsen Codes
Nielsen moved forward in measuring video-on-demand viewership by announcing a collaboration with software company Anystream, whose software products are targeted at broadband video applications.
Excepts from Broadcasting & Cable (subscription needed):
Nielsen “watermarking” technology will be built in to Anystream’s Agility software, allowing cable operators, content providers and distributors to encode audio cues into VOD programming. The programming can then be tracked by the ratings company’s “active/passive” meters, which detect the audio codes.
Anystream Product Marketing VP Fady Lamaa said the inclusion of Nielsen’s technology will give “the production economies of scale and the tracking and measurement data required to capitalize on advertising opportunities and develop practical VOD business models.”
In May, Nielsen announced it will incorporate VOD viewership into its television ratings service from national and metered market samples, starting in the second quarter of 2006.
The company will measure the viewership of VOD programming in a seven-day window after the programming airs on traditional television. By the end of next year, Nielsen plans to measure VOD viewership of movies, pay-per-view events and older TV shows.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 09:24 AM | Comments (24) | TrackBackAugust 17, 2005
Veoh: an Internet Television Peercasting Network
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Veoh Networks, a San Diego start-up, is described as an Internet Television Peercasting Network. They also completed a Series A round of financing led by Shelter Capital Partners. No where could I find how large (or small) that financing round was but Dmitry Shapiro, the company’s founder, did tell me that they are well capitalized and has what he needs to solidly move forward.
One of the impressive thing about Veoh is Dmitry Shapiro. He is a specialist in peer-to-peer networking and computer security. Veoh just announced its own protocol appropriately called VeohNet. I am not in Dmitry's league of expertise so my take is to think of it like BitTorrent (swarmcasting) but even better. For example, viewers will not have to open up ports to make it work. Also, publishers can pull back content if they need to. This should go a long way to solving legitimacy issues and ease of use.
InformITV said: "Unlike unmanaged P2P networks using software such as BitTorrent to share mainly illicit copyright video, Veoh will have a community of publishers and content will be approved by editors. The system will also integrate with Google Video and RSS, providing content producers with easy publishing to multiple video systems."
The current management team is supposed to include executives and advisers from Coco-Cola, Columbia Pictures, eBay, Gateway and Musicmatch.
I have put Veoh on my radar because there is a compelling economic logic to using the Internet as a distribution mechanism that allows content providers to connect directly with viewers. There have been many postings here on content owners who are doing exactly that. Who knows, maybe Veoh can latch onto that pin action.
From what I know about their business model it is straightforward. Publishers can use a program called VeohUploader (which is due to be released tonight). Dmitry described to me that if you can handle being a seller on EBay, you can become a publisher on Veoh. A content owner can specify whether people can watch for free or pay per viewing or work under some sort of subscription model.
Les Moonves, here is your chance to test your $1 per CSI episode and see if the market place validates that price point. But the real reason I bring that up is this: if Viacom were to do that in Veoh’s business model, they simply could start tomorrow. They would not need Comcast or Time Warner’s agreement to do so. They also would not have to invest any significant money to do so. This is why Veoh can allow people to easily become their own publishers.
Obviously, one key business driver for Veoh will be to amass an audience size to make it worth the larger network’s while. This is the classic chicken and egg scenario: well branded networks want larger audiences to make it worth their while, and larger audiences show up for high-quality content. We will see how Veoh gets past this business challenge and I for one will watch their progress.
There’s not much yet at Veoh’s web site, but you can sign up for notification when their beta is ready. Another thing is that you can enjoy their word-smithing:
It will open the world of media so that every country, established or third political party, foundation, charity, cause, company, and individual has an unrestricted voice, able to reach the farthest reaches of the world, with the capacity to alter human understanding. We will be able to stop wars, expose genocide, enlighten, entertain, educate, bring together, inspire, connect, and help find love of all kinds.
We are building the next phase of the Internet, the Self Published Video Web. Think of it as Television 2.0Posted by Martino Mingione at 04:29 PM | Comments (598) | TrackBack
Rentrak: a VOD company to keep an eye on
I have been watching a company called Rentrak (nasdaq:RENT) for a while. It is based in Oregon and in the information processing business. But why I watch it is that during the last year, they have been developing traction with a new product called OnDemand Essentials and this product is a video on demand play.
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Comcast has been in a year-long trial with Rentrak and last week decided to sign up for a multi-year contract. So, what’s the story here?
OnDemand Essentials integrates VOD usage data for the cable companies from their three VOD server vendors (Seachange, C-COR, and Concurrent); refreshing usage reports hourly. Examples being viewing volumes and trends. These reports can be viewed from the company’s web-based ASP service. I think that a third-party information provider is necessary in the equation because no one VOD server manufacturer will ever gain 100% of the market, nor will any of their competitors allow them access to their data. So, a company like Rentrak is needed.
OnDemand Essentials contributes no lasting revenue to Rentrak yet. The company is on a path to receiving $80M to $85M in gross revenue this year from their established businesses, particularly their PPT division and secondarily their Information Services Segment (ISS) division. Profits from those divisions go into subsidizing their “other” product lines which includes OnDemand Essentials. Eventually, when the product becomes a business, it will be moved into the ISS division.
Right now Rentrak’s OnDemand Essentials is trying to establish themselves with the cable MSO’s. Having Comcast gets them off to a good start. Also good is that Comcast's Spotlight advertising division is going to use Rentrak for their needs throughout the country. Rentrak has announced trial deployments of the service with Charter and Cablevision that should result in commercial deployments. The service is also used by some other small cable MSO’s and Mag Rack, a content provider owned by Cablevision.
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Rentrak does not really receive revenues from the cable companies, however. In the near future, the 300 some-odd content producers in North America and hundreds more in Europe would become subscribers to the reports. The final phase of customer acquisition would be the branded advertisers who will migrate to VOD advertising and need information for their campaigns.
After checking around with my contacts, I have heard generally good things. The OnDemand Essentials reports need more data elements in order to be really useful to advertisers. This will require work from the VOD server manufacturers, Rentrak itself, and more involvement from Comcast.
If the company is successful with their business model, they could become the information standard in VOD measurement. I would expect that they will expand to cover Internet TV, too. I don’t think you will see revenue from the OnDemand Essentials product until later in 2006.
Because Nielsen is so far behind in their VOD measurement products, Rentrak has a good shot here. Also, I like that Rentrak is aggregating all VOD data and not depending upon sampling. I do not
A side note: The gross revenue of the company is in the mid $80M range while the valuation of the entire company is only $100M. It is thinly traded at only about 25,000 shares per day, and that is up!
Posted by Martino Mingione at 11:35 AM | Comments (309) | TrackBackAugust 16, 2005
Texas U Publishes First Internet Video Magazine
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The Longhorns college football team will have what is thought to be the first Internet-based video magazine. Two interesting articles on it:
AdAge reports that "For the price of $24.95 for four issues delivered during the season, subscribers receive a slick, rich-media product that guarantees at least 50 minutes of TV-quality video per issue. V-Mag will provide links to other sites -- including sites where fans can purchase Texas apparel and paraphernalia -- and give subscribers a behind-the-scenes look that they can’t get from the traditional print and broadcast media outlets that cover the Longhorns."
"Host Communications, a collegiate-sports-marketing company that holds the multimedia rights for the university and manages advertising on the college’s sports Web sites, will market V-Mag and plans to sell video ads to marketers. But no rate card has been set yet and no advertisers are signed on."
MediaBuyerPlanner reports that "No Ads Sold Yet for Internet Video Mag."
TiVo: the next Open Platform (and Akimbo competitor too)
I would like to encourage any DVR owner to comment upon TiVo’s trajectory of becoming a broadband platform for broadband content services. OK, you don’t even have to own a DVR to let me know what you think.
Downloading TV Programs
TiVo has begun a trial in which a select group of its subscribers can download TV shows to their boxes' hard drives via a broadband connection, in advance of those shows' linear TV broadcast. The commercial launch of this service is expected in October.
Content for the trial is being provided by the Independent Film Channel.
To receive TiVo Download features and programming, your TiVo Series2 DVR must be connected to the Internet via broadband, using a USB network adapter. For more information on how to connect your TiVo DVR to broadband, go to www.tivo.com/adapters.
Going beyond TV Content
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TV programming is apparently just one kind of content that TiVo plans to allow its broadband-equipped subscribers to download. A recent issue of its subscriber newsletter provided some clues about its broadband plans:
"This fall, we'll be introducing a host of fun, creative, useful and just plain clever broadband features, including: getting select TV shows and programming via broadband to your TiVo box [and] games, streaming radio, podcasting, and more."
Back in January, TiVo launched a Java SDK contest whereby they opened up access to their box and let anyone write whatever application they wanted to create. Then, each submittal was judged by James Gosling, CTO of Sun Microsystems' developer products group, and Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine. The winning applications were:
"Music Monkey" which was developed by Jeremy Brooks and which TiVo says "tests how familiar you are with your own music library ... with a monkey twist."
"Flickr" which was developed by Andrew Wallace and which "provides a TiVo interface to the popular photo sharing service of the same name, including contact lists and tagging." Fred Wilson should love that.
"NBC Trivia" which was developed by Courtney Wilson and which TiVo describes as "a trivia engine featuring a smooth interface and trivia questions from Seinfeld and Friends."
"Digital Home" which TiVo says allows subscribers to "control everything in your home through TiVo: lights, shades, and even security cameras -- all from the comfort of your couch."
"Galleon" which was developed by Leon Nicholls and which TiVo describes as "a Swiss army knife of applications" which "besides supporting music, photos and Internet radio and also allows TiVo owners to transfer their favorite shows to their computer remotely."
"AudioFaucet" which was developed by Kyle Copeland and which TiVo says "exhibits a high degree of polish and integration, allowing anyone using iTunes to control their music library from their living room couch [and provides] a beautiful interface supporting album art and track ratings."
Opening up an architecture to the world and unleashing a million creative people worked for FireFox when they wanted a better Internet browser. At first blush, I think this strategy just might work for TiVo, too.
So what do you all think – is this transformation going to work for TiVo? Do you like the idea of the TiVo set top box becoming a ‘platform’ that others write applets for? What would you want to see?
Some of the above information came from ITVT.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 03:06 PM | Comments (251) | TrackBackTiVo Shareholders Still in Denial
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The value of TiVo's shares declined over 6% in heavy trading last Thursday, after Reuters reported that DirecTV CEO Chase Carey had said that his company would cease marketing and promoting TiVo's DVR service as soon as it launches a DVR of its own later this year. I am surprised that there are still TiVo shareholders that did not know that this was inevitable.
DirecTV's "DirecTV with TiVo" service currently makes up around two thirds of TiVo's subscriber base. At the end of the first quarter, 2.1 million of TiVo's subscribers were "DirecTV with TiVo" customers, as were 247,000 of the 319,000 net new subscribers the company gained during the quarter.
DirecTV is planning to offer a high-capacity DVR, based on the XTV technology of its sister company, NDS. In addition, DirecTV plans to launch sometime next year an ultra-high-capacity version of the new box, which will be designed to enable the satellite TV provider to download a broad selection of encrypted movies and TV programming to its hard drive. This move helps mitigate part of the competitive disadvantage it faces from the VOD services offered by cable operators.
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The new Sky Def Set Top Box replacing TiVo also has broadband connectivity. |
TiVo appears to be conducting a two-pronged strategy to make up for the possible loss of the "DirecTV with TiVo" business.
On the one hand, it is pursuing deals with cable operators: in March, it announced that it had reached a non-exclusive deal with Comcast to integrate its service with the latter's DVR's. Time Warner Cable CEO, Glenn Britt, confirmed that his company is also in talks with TiVo.
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My take back in March about the Comcast/TiVo numbers. |
On the other hand, it appears to be hoping to increase the appeal of its "standalone" service, by, among other things, transforming it into a vehicle for the delivery of broadband programming. On this second point, Om Malik has an interesting question: why not just buy Akimbo?
Posted by Martino Mingione at 02:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackParamount in VOD Agreements with Canada's Shaw, SaskTel
(except from ITVT)
Paramount Pictures has signed separate, non-exclusive VOD agreements with two major Canadian MSO's: cable operator, Shaw Cablesystems (which operates cable networks throughout Western Canada), and telco, SaskTel (which operates an ADSL-based IPTV network in Saskatchewan).
The deals will provide the MSO's with such titles as "Coach Carter," "Alfie," "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie," "Team America World Police," and "Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events."
Shaw claims to have around 1,700 titles available in its VOD library every month, while SaskTel claims to have around 500.
Texas Streamlines its Television Regulation
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In a first across the nation, the Texas State House and Senate passed bills last week that would allow telcos to apply for statewide cable-TV franchises. If Gov. Rick Perry signs the bill, it will be a victory for SBC and Verizon.
Telcos could provide video service in any community, but the bill prohibits discrimination based on income. Telcos also would have to obey local rights-of-way rules, carry public-access channels and pay franchise fees.
The measure would make it easier for phone and other companies to offer television services; avoiding the thousands of local cable TV licenses that cable companies must acquire. Obviously, cable MSO's object to this. The cable industry contends the bill would give big phone companies unprecedented competitive advantages.
Supporters say phone companies would give consumers more choice. They also promised the change would draw billions of dollars in new technology investment.
The bill would keep many existing contracts between cities and cable companies in place until they expire.
Perhaps this will give Verizon important momentum with its New Jersey efforts. Read that post from June >>
Posted by Martino Mingione at 08:15 AM | Comments (110) | TrackBackAugust 12, 2005
More Evidence of the coming Adpocalypse
I've reported here a number of instances of established media companies using the Internet to reach a new generation of viewers directly. Just about everyone of them says that getting advertising revenue is part of their goal.
In addition to AOL announcement that it will become a non-subscription based, video portal seeking advertising dollars and the AP's announcement to offer ad supported video on the Internet, these are just a few of the many recent stories:
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ABC & CNN are putting news segments on Yahoo! News. |
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CBS now eyes Internet VOD. |
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Nickelodeon Cartoons on Demand. |
So, a logical question is this: how large is that market now? AccuStream iMedia Research forecasts that ad revenue for online video will reach $321 million this year, up 75 percent from 2004.
Meanwhile, ClickZ reports that more agencies are looking both inside and out to find talent to bridge the gap between offline video and online rich media.
MarketingVOX reports that Mike Griffin, VP of business development at EyeWonder, says that nearly 80 percent of video ads that the firm sees are made by repurposing television ads. Another 15 percent use existing video content, edited to fit online. Only 5 percent of online video ads are created entirely for the Web. The trend is shifting, as more advertisers begin to realize the power of video ads, he said.
For about a year or so, Jupiter Research has been forecasting that online video advertising will hit $657 million in 2009.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 10:58 AM | Comments (490) | TrackBackAugust 11, 2005
OpenTV Revenues Rise but Losses Double
The Interactive Television (ITV) market is showing some advancement but has so far failed to transform our daily television experience. However, if (when?) it does, OpenTV (nasdaq:OPTV) is a company with an impressive set of factors in place for success.
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Interactive Television (ITV); Where is it at today?. |
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Two days ago, OpenTV released its latest financials.
For the quarter ended June 30, 2005, revenues were $20.9 million, 9% higher than revenues of $19.1 million for the second quarter of 2004. Net loss was $4.0 million, or $0.03 per share, compared to a loss of $2.0 million, or $0.02 per share, for the second quarter of 2004, which included a $4.6 million gain from a contract settlement.
Contributing to the revenue: royalties of $12.3 million which were up on the previous year. But these were outweighed by operating expenses of $25 million.
Revenues from the BettingCorp subsidiary were up 160% to $1.3 million for the quarter.
OpenTV says its software is deployed in 57 million set-top boxes in 96 countries.
OpenTV chairman and chief executive Jim Chiddix said royalty revenues continued to show growth, primarily from BSkyB, Foxtel, Sky Italia and EchoStar, and he expects further opportunities from their relationship with Liberty Global, formerly UGC.
The OpenTV chairman said: “We continue to invest in North American cable, IPTV, interactive advertising and other emerging services that we think offer significant opportunities for us to leverage our worldwide experience and expertise, and have begun to see some traction with several of those initiatives.”
Mr. Chiddix formally headed up Time Warner's Mystro project.
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OpenTV announces IPTV solution. |
August 10, 2005
Atlas Financials
aQuantive is one of only two companies that I am aware of that will battle for the agency desk top buying software in the upcoming video on demand advertising sector. Since I project that it will grow faster than online advertising after 2007, this is an interesting thing to watch.
(except from ClickZ)
Atlas, aQuantive's digital marketing technologies division, had revenue of $22.5 million, compared with $14.4 million in Q2 2004. During the quarter, Atlas entered the digital television space with Atlas On Demand. Since then, it has established partnerships with video on demand providers SeaChange and C-COR. Profitability for Atlas On Demand would not be immediate, said CEO/President Brian McAndrews.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 02:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackAugust 09, 2005
Brian Roberts Mentions IPTV
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Broadcasting and Cable points out an interesting quote from Brian Roberts, Comcast Corp. CEO.
"Our goal of 1 billion IPTV or VOD streams in 2005 is now quite certain."
He said this last week on the MSO's second-quarter earnings call. Although Roberts regularly provides video-on-demand-stream stats each quarter, it is the first time he's inserted the adjective 'IPTV' in front of VOD streams. I am sure that it is no accident.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 05:59 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBackAssociated Press Aggressively Pushing Video
MarketingVOX Daily reports that the Associated Press will launch an ad-supported Web video network by the end of the year to its more than 6,500 newspaper and broadcast members. AP will provide the members' sites with a branded video player and access to its daily video news feed, which will include :15 and :30 pre-roll ads. Members will get a cut of the ad sales for the videos watched.
I recently reported here about Yahoo's video news portal with ABC News and CNN. That, too, will expand further with content from the AP later this quarter.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 05:46 PM | Comments (501) | TrackBackProduct Placement Market Size
BusinessWeek reports that TV product placements in 2004 soared 46.4%, to $1.88 billion compared to the year before, according to research firm PQ Media. Nielsen says the top 10 prime-time TV shows carried 12,867 product placements in the first quarter of this year-more than half the number featured in all of last year.
[ http://businessweek.com/innovate/content/jul2005/di20050728_577850.htm ]
As impressive as these statistics are let's keep in mind two other observations. First, 30-second spot advertising was almost $60 Billion in 2004 for just the U.S. Second, online video advertising is growing, some projections say that it will soon total $1 Billion.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 05:40 PM | Comments (29) | TrackBackVerizon Enters into Home Networking
In today's Wall Street Journal:
"In the latest sign that Verizon Communications Inc. is serious about entering the TV business, the telephone giant is set to announce that it has joined an organization of consumer-electronics manufacturers and satellite and cable operators looking into ways to use coaxial wiring in homes to connect televisions, computers, digital-video recorders and other appliances."
While a home network might marginally help Verizon, remember to keep in mind that their IPTV service does not download video to a PC, nor does it use the Internet to watch TV. So this home network is not really needed for its FiOS IPTV project.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 04:57 PM | Comments (403) | TrackBackAugust 08, 2005
ManiaTV: is it a model for Internet TV?
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In August 2004, ManiaTV went live from a 15,000 square foot warehouse in Denver with a roster of green "cyberjockeys" or CJs. They were recruited mostly through craigslist and hired more on personality and looks than experience. The production booth was put in an old school bus.
In the intervening 10 months, Madison & Vine reports that ManiaTV has drawn an audience of 1.5 million college-aged students. I know a number of niche cable networks that wish they could do that.
Drew Massey, 35-year-old entrepreneur and founder, said "The whole mission is to do with Internet TV what Ted Turner did with cable."
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USA Today: ManiaTV starts a frenzy. (written in April) |
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Westworld.com: Is ManiaTV! the future, or a new version of the past? |
August 05, 2005
Tele-Vegas comes to the UK
Interactive Television (ITV) is an area of technology I try to occasionally cover here. ITV transforms the passive one way nature of television into a two-way, interactive medium. What is needed is an ITV application and consumer interest.
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Rupert Murdock’s BSkyB service definitely believes in that direction. In a presentation to financial analysts that followed BSkyB's financial results, CEO James Murdoch cast some light on the company's interactive TV product roadmap. Not surprisingly, it taps into the global craze for online gambling.
The company's SkyBet interactive wagering service will "pretty soon be our second-largest revenue line" he said. Therefore "obviously [it is] going to be a more relevant part of our business going forward."
SkyBet plans to take advantage of the pending liberalization of UK gaming laws which will result in casino-style gambling being permitted on interactive TV platforms (currently only fixed-odds betting games are allowed). They will launch Sky Vegas Live 2, a sister channel to its existing fixed-odds betting channel. Sky Vegas will "include more traditional gambling formats" such as "roulette, poker and other card-based games."
He displayed an image of a new poker application that Sky has developed for the channel.
"This is an interactive television application that works. We just have to get it out into the marketplace where you can play live poker in tournament-style formats with other Sky customers. If you look at the audiences for poker which have been growing a lot, and you look at the participation in it that's been growing a lot, and our ability to leverage this on a wide scale, given the number of customers we have, we really see a very exciting opportunity in the UK gaming and gambling marketplace."
If they are correct about this becoming their second largest revenue line, then Gamblers Anonymous had better start writing an ITV app, too.
August 04, 2005
The Cable Companies Never Saw It Coming!
John Higgins at Broadcasting and Cable wrote a good article entitled Cable’s Wake-Up Call. (Subscription needed). The article covers the happenings at the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) in Philadelphia last week.
But one section conveyed poingnant topics that readers of this blog already have thought about.
The most interesting insight I [John Higgins] heard came almost offhandedly from Marty Youngman, marketing manager of Cox Communications' San Diego system. Youngman noted that, once consumers get VOD and DVRs and are freed from the tyranny of the programming guide, a funny thing happens: Their approach to cable changes.
“We're seeing a behavioral change in San Diego,” Youngman said. VOD and DVR subscribers pretty much cease channel-surfing or using their on-screen guides. They are now operating in a search mode, carefully hunting for specific shows or genres.
That presents a couple of quandaries for operators. The immediate one is that there is no fast search engine for shows in cable systems, so it's hard to pluck just the right sitcom out of thousands of choices.
We’ve talked about that before. While I don’t personally spend a lot of time evaluating each nuance of search and recommendations, might I suggest to Mr. Youngman that Cox think big and try to do something like what Netflix does for DVD rentals. Maybe a good start is to read the posting about MeeVee and video search.
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500,000 streams and I don't know what to watch. |
John Higgins continues:
So if subscribers can find precisely what they want to watch anytime they want to watch it, the traditional cable-TV model seems almost superfluous. A giant part of their systems' resources is devoted to the conventional cable channels, which suddenly become less important.
Again, right on the money. In the future (10 years perhaps?), networks are in big trouble. Some will do OK, a few might even figure out how to prosper. But a majority of them are doomed. In a VOD-centric world, the best case scenario for a successful network is this:
- The network will
haveown lots of unique content that will be in demand. - The network will mostly serve a branding function that helps viewers feel comfortable to checkout new shows they might not watch otherwise.
- The network will cut deals with the Cable MSO/Telco to share ad revenue that will result from a quasi-online ROI ad strategy with agencies.
Operators have spent $80 billion in recent years expanding their capacity to deliver ever more channels. Some of that goes to Internet and phone traffic. But about 75% of the costly capacity is devoted to delivering an average of plain, old linear video channels. It's probably time to spend more of that capital on wilder and more innovative non-linear video ideas.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 02:12 PM | Comments (20) | TrackBackHoward Stern goes VOD
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Video on demand is often talked about in the context of accessing television shows that have already aired on TV. Kind of like a super DVR whereby the viewer never had to record the show in the first place. VOD, however, does not really have that constraint. Witness the news out of iN Demand Networks today.
Howard Stern will have his own dedicated VOD channel. So, for those of you who are conditioned to think that only an existing network with many different shows can have a VOD channel, think again.
The deal between Howard Stern and iN Demand includes exclusive TV rights to The Howard Stern Show which means the VOD offering is the only place viewers can find the new TV broadcasts. iN Demand has distribution agreements with Time Warner, Comcast and Cox.
AdAge reports that "there are no planned advertising opportunities within Mr. Sterns VOD show, but Time Warner, Comcast and Cox subscribers will be able to access the content for a monthly fee."
Is this the future model of television? I'd like to get your feedback.
Viewers will be able to access the most recent show 24 to 36 hours after its broadcast on the radio -- it will be on VOD the evening of the next day -- as well as archives of previous shows.
Another television habit that VOD does not have to adhere to is structured lengths for shows. Episode lengths for Mr. Stern’s VOD programs will range from 60 minutes to 90 minutes, depending on how much of his four-hour show iN Demand decides to edit on any given day. “The show could be 46 minutes or it could be 58 minutes,” said Eric Duncan, a spokesman for iN Demand.
Making the show available as a subscription-based VOD program will reduce the need to censor Mr. Stern’s content. Only Howard knows if the show will become even raunchier as he ends his contract with Viacom’s Infinity Broadcasting in January and heads to Sirius Satellite Radio -- a move the VOD programming will document.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 08:20 AM | Comments (254) | TrackBackAlcatel and Amdocs to deliver joint IPTV solution
Earlier this year, Alcatel formed an alliance with Microsoft to offer an integrated hardware and software offering to telecommunications providers. Om Malik wrote an interesting post that questions the wisdom for Alcatel about that deal.
Now comes news that Alcatel has agreed to work with customer service systems company Amdocs to deliver a joint solution to support internet protocol television and other next generation broadband services.
Alcatel and Amdocs have signed a letter of intent to work together to integrate the Amdocs system with Alcatel’s IPTV solution. The companies will also engage in joint sales and marketing efforts.
"Service providers need not only the infrastructure, but also a way to address the unique operational and billing characteristics inherent in these services,” said Hubert de Pesquidoux, president of Alcatel’s North American activities. “Our alliance with Amdocs further differentiates Alcatel as the leading provider of IPTV offerings.”
The two companies have already begun development of an interoperability laboratory to simulate real-world production environments.
With sales of 12.3 billion euro, Alcatel has 56,000 employees worldwide. Amdocs employs over 10,000 information technology professionals, serving customers in 40 countries around the world.
Posted by Martino Mingione at 07:10 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBackAugust 03, 2005
Is the AOL train wreck ever going to finish?
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I have never been one to praise America On Line. In fact, I wear my lack of an AOL email address and never having signed up for their subscription service as a badge of honor. But, I am positive on Time Warner’s future prospects and AOL (regrettably) is a part of that media colossus.
Recently, AOL has been making moves to change its strips. Some of those moves play right into the theme of this blog. In brief: AOL wants to become an internet video portal dependent on advertising revenue and modeled loosely around Time Warner's cable division (which is growing well). While the old adage “time will only tell” applies, today’s Time Warner financial reports show some signs of hope.
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AOL, XM, AEG form Joint On-Line Entertainment Venture. |
AOL brought in total revenues of $2.1 billion, down from $2.2 billion for the year ago period, as dial-up subscribers over age 15 fled in droves. AOL unit lost nearly a million subscribers last quarter, around four percent of its total base.
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AOL estimates the streaming event on-demand audience can be five to 10 times larger than Live 8's. MSN execs have made similar remarks about the power of live event streaming online.
Parsons added, "Although it's still early days, we have every reason to be optimistic that this audience-driven strategy will be very successful."
The positive news for AOL is on the advertising front – earnings of $30 million from paid search and $60 million from its Advertising.com unit. Ad revenues were up 45 percent to $320 million. That would be over 15% of AOL's revenue for the quarter.
"AOL is positioning itself to take advantage of the same broadband trends that are currently benefiting cable," said Chairman and CEO Dick Parsons. "Live 8 demonstrates how large audiences are starting to use this medium.”
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On July 1st, I said that Time Warner was undervalued. |
Verizon Increases Capex Spending
Verizon Communications Inc. announced last week that its capital-expenditure budget will rise by 15% over last year’s $13.3 billon as it gears up for video rollouts over its FiOS TV architecture and Verizon Wireless.
Points made by Doreen Toben, Verizon’s CFO on an earnings call:
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The company has completed construction on two national headends, and it is far along in building regional video-hub offices. The company is on track to pass 3 million homes with fiber by year’s end but marketing pitches won’t hit multiple-dwelling units until the technology is completed in those buildings.
Verizon stands ready to launch a competitively priced video product later this year. “We’re testing various aspects of video functionality, including provisioning, maintenance and system flow-through."
Verizon has secured eight franchises, and another 15 are nearing completion. Negotiations are under way in 200 other communities, she added, as well as lobbying work to get statewide franchise bills passed in Texas and New Jersey. In a press release last week Verizon said that it had begun franchise work with Fairfax, Va., a large Washington, D.C., suburb.
On the high-speed-data front, Verizon added 278,000 subscribers, and it now counts 4 million total on both its digital- subscriber-line and FiOS platforms. FiOS data penetration is 15% in Texas.Posted by Martino Mingione at 10:57 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Yahoo! Goes for VOD
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Yahoo! will add streaming video content from ABC News and CNN.com to the Yahoo News section of its Web site beginning next month.
"Video content is becoming an increasingly important component of the online news experience for Yahoo News users," Scott Moore, vice president of Yahoo content operations, said in a statement.
The clips will be free and advertising-supported. The site will be one of the first to give ABC News fans a chance to see ABC News content online for free. (It’s typically behind a pay wall from ABC or partners like Real Networks.)
CNN.com is expected to provide breaking news and business, technology, political reports and more. ABC video is supposed to cover top news stories, entertainment and politics. AP is also set to expand its video offering through Yahoo! in the third quarter.
Since news portals like Yahoo! have been credited with undermining newspaper circulation already, it will be interesting to see what happens after television VOD content is added.
I checked out Yahoo!'s current video quality with its current AP feeds. If your browser has a Windows Media, RealPlayer, or QuickTime plugin, you should be set to go. I use Firefox and block popup windows. It appears that Yahoo's ads must be attempting to come through a popup window. Still, everything worked just fine and the quality was acceptable.
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CBS News is entering the Internet VOD arena. |
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AOL, XM, AEG form Joint On-Line Entertainment Venture. |
August 01, 2005
Akimbo Goes Cable and Video Blogging
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I am not sure what to think of the news reported in Informitv.com about Akimbo Systems offering its Queue-and-View system to cable operators to enable subscribers to download videos to their digital video recorders.
Startup Akimbo was founded on the premise of downloading video directly to consumers. And news articles over the last few months have not been kind to Akimbo about their prospects. Now that Akimbo is trying to find a viable business through the cable companies exhibits a weakness from their original mission. But heck, everyone needs to be adaptable.
“Akimbo is a one-stop solution that allows cable companies to capitalise on the ‘long tail’ of specialty and archived media, by delivering a broad collection of valuable video to their viewers without incorporating new costs or infrastructure,” said Josh Goldman, chief executive of Akimbo.
The company says its system complements streaming video-on-demand services. As it simply requires a broadband data connection, downloads can be fed directly by Akimbo, with no need for further capital investment by operators. Alternatively, cable operators can feature their own licensed video material.
Subscribers can use an on-screen guide or any PC with an Internet connection to choose shows for delivery to their cable box.
Akimbo’s server architecture is designed for compatibility with various middleware platforms and client-side digital rights management technologies. Metadata is delivered via standard XML feed or CableLabs VOD format. Video is available in MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 formats.
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Last month, Akimbo cut the price on its box. |
Video blogs. Akimbo now also offers video blogs on its service. Josh Goldman of Akimbo points to the growing popularity of personal publishing on the web.
“Akimbo was founded with the goal of radically changing the economics of video delivery and enabling consumers to share their videos for viewing on TV. We love featuring these rising influencers on Akimbo and giving them powerful new ways to get their messages out to an audience.”
Video blogger Steve Garfield said that “By adding video blogs, Akimbo is democratising video distribution to the TV and we hope that as more people get to see what video bloggers are doing, they’ll join in and participate in the citizens’ media revolution”.
“Video blogs are incredibly compelling because they take the world and show it in a new light, one that is typically unedited and uncensored,” said Andrew Baron of Rocketboom, a three-minute daily videoblog based in New York City. “Bringing video blogs directly to the TV may help the industry to understand the viability of niche programming where people enjoy content geared towards their individual tastes.”
Posted by Martino Mingione at 12:54 PM | Comments (58) | TrackBackCurrent TV Puts Viewers in Control
Digital media puts consumers in control. And with all the news about non-linear television (Internet Television and VOD), we might begin to feel that any new linear television network has little chance of succeeding. However, an interesting test to watch is Al Gore's Current TV.
Why? Consumers are increasingly taking control of their television viewing and Current TV is fighting that on-demand television trend because it is a traditional television network. But at the same time, its content will mostly come from the viewers themselves; thereby placing them in control.
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The new 24-hour channel is aimed at 18-34 year-olds and will initially be available to a potential audience of around 20 million homes in the United States on DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Comcast.
Based in San Francisco, the new channel says it is rethinking the way TV is produced, programmed, and presented, so it makes sense to an audience that’s accustomed to choice, control, and collaboration in everything else they do.
What this amounts to is a channel that is programmed according to the three-minute culture for those with attention deficit disorder.
The new network says “a substantial portion” of its short form programming will be provided by the audience. Each submission will soon be showcased online so that viewers and collaborators can review and rank submissions, potentially voting the best ones onto the air.
Through a partnership with Google, there will be an update each half-hour on topics that people are searching for on the web.
“The internet opened a floodgate for young people whose passions are finally being heard, but TV hasn’t followed suit. Young adults have a powerful voice, but you can’t hear that voice on television… yet,” explained Gore. “We intend to change that with Current, giving those who crave the empowerment of the web the same opportunity for expression on television. We want to transform the television medium itself, giving a national platform to those who are hungry to help create the TV they want to watch.”
“Until now, the notion of viewer participation has been limited to sending a tape to America’s Funniest Home Videos, calling an interview show, taking part in an instant poll, or voting someone off an island,” Gore added. “We’re creating a powerful new brand of television that doesn’t treat audiences as merely viewers, but as collaborators.”Posted by Martino Mingione at 12:15 PM | Comments (329) | TrackBack
