An Ignoble Experiment

DVR pioneer TiVo stands out in the burgeoning device space because its subscribers can get "everything" on a single device, CEO Tom Rogers told investors at a Miami conference, including online video content in the wake of TiVo's recent deals with cable operators including Suddenlink and Grande Communications to provide access to Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) through their set-top boxes.

Rogers

"There's a huge amount of noise" in the device market, Rogers said, noting that the launch of Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Fire TV added to an increasingly full shelf of streaming devices such as Roku's players, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Chromecast and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) TV. "Everyone has a solution for the future of television," he said during a presentation at the Jefferies 2014 Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference on Tuesday.

"Amazon Fire is the most recent addition to the things you just listed," Rogers responded to an analyst question about competition from streaming devices. "Both (The New York Times and Wall Street Journal) reviewers noted that Amazon Fire is pretty good, but if you really want a great TV product all you need is a TiVo Roamio. Quite frankly, to have the reviewers mention that in the context of a review of a product coming out from a company like Amazon, I think speaks volumes as to the differentiation."

Roku's streaming devices, while leading that segment, are limited to just over-the-top content, Rogers said.

"Roku is a way of getting merely OTT content but doesn't touch most of the television that still represents 95 percent of all content. You can say the same of Apple TV, of Google TV and of the new entry from Amazon. That is the core distinction between us and the other products."

He compared TiVo's ability to get viewers the content they want, all in one device, to the way digital technologies changed how consumers accessed music. Devices like the MP3 player made getting consumers all the music they wanted easy. "The digital onslaught … crushed most music models … but what emerged from that was a terrific consumer experience," Rogers said.

While noting that the rise of digital did not affect the television world in the same way, "the consumer models that resulted really don't look all that different: a lot of silos, a lot of individual ways to get different video products."

Meaning, Rogers said, that a comprehensive way for consumers to find and access any video product they want through a single device, and then personalize their experience, has not emerged. "That is what we do. We try to get as close as we can to that music model for the television world, by combining all the linear channels coming in through the operator, the video on demand element, the TV Everywhere element, the over the top content .. and put that together in a single way so somebody only has to have one single approach to getting all their video content."

For more:
- listen to the webcast

Read more about: Amazon, Tivo
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2. Big Bird ups the digital game: RSG Media signs Sesame Workshop for cross-platform reporting

By Samantha Bookman

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Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street and its many related products including online video and second-screen apps, has signed on with RSG Media to use its Cross Platform Reporting service. The service monitors usage, revenue and royalties for its content across both linear and digital platforms.

The value of RSG's service is its ability to combine several aspects of the online video and television ecosystems and report on them in a way that allows clients to leverage their content effectively, RSG Media's Tom Siegman, EVP for innovation, strategy and client relations told FierceOnlineVideo.

"(Programmers) have been flying blind for many years," Siegman said, noting that media providers now deliver content to as many as 90 to 100 different platforms. "That's tough to tie together. We've automated that." Using RSG's service, he said, enables information on programs to flow in much faster with much less error.

RSG's Cross Platform Reporting service, introduced in April, ties together information provided from Nielsen, which tracks broadcasted programs, Rentrak, which follows cable video-on-demand programs, and a client's own internal data on various ways its programming is performing on different platforms.

"Eight years ago there was no iPad. Now everyone is watching programming (on tablets) through Netflix, through iTunes, through Hulu, through network-owned websites," Siegman said. "There are all these different platforms. The question is, (programmers) own content. How many people watch it on which platform? What are the costs involved?"

The service also helps clients manage content rights, amortize costs and distribute royalties.

The difficulty in tracking online data was illustrated starkly in a recent New York Times feature that questioned whether online video ads are delivering the metrics promised to the companies that buy them.

For Sesame Workshop, the service will help it better understand how its target audience of children as young as 3 accesses and views its content.

"We needed a tool that would aggregate and normalize data from a wide variety of disparate sources, each of which has its own formats, standards, and schedules," said Shadrach Kisten, VP of information systems for Sesame Workshop, in a press release. "Because RSG Media's Cross Platform Reporting does this automatically, we can have the information we need faster and more accurately. This allows us to better track our business. More importantly, it lets us better cater to our customers, giving them the content they want, the way they want it."

For more:
- see the Sesame Workshop release
- and this press release

Read more about: Sesame Workshop, Sesame Street
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3. AT&T 'in discussions' with Netflix over peering

By Samantha Bookman

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Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) appears to be working its way down the list of top ISPs in ensuring it can deliver directly to its subscribers over their networks. AT&T (NYSE: T) Chief Technology Officer John Donovan, during a Brookings Institution panel discussion, said the carrier is "in discussions with Netflix" regarding an arrangement that is likely similar to deals the online video provider struck this month with Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ).

Donovan speaks at the Brookings panel. Click here for his answer on Netflix. (Screencap: Brookings / YouTube)

"We're in discussions with Netflix and certainly in the midst of a dialogue," Donovan said in response to an audience member's question.

In his response, he also toed the company line regarding the FCC's Open Internet revision, phrasing it alongside the Netflix issue.

"We have always been at AT&T an advocate of an open transparency and an Open Internet, and we have been supportive all along. We reiterated that support last year. So there's a lot of details we need to learn, and we will have a view once we see those details," he said.

The Brookings Institute panel discussion was live-streamed in conjunction with the release of a new Brookings report on the evolution of online video. Moderated by report author Darrell West, the panel featured Donovan along with Qualcomm President Derek Aberle and Turner Broadcasting's Jeremy Legg, SVP of Business Development and Multiplatform Distribution.

Netflix, while publicly deriding Comcast for reportedly throttling the online video provider's bandwidth over its network, signed a peering agreement with the cable giant in late February that resulted in a huge spike on the MSO's ranking in Netflix's monthly Speed Index.

Last week, Netflix signed a similar deal with Verizon.

Netflix in the past couple of years has moved away from CDN-based delivery to direct delivery of its video stream.

For more:
- download the report
- view the panel discussion

4. Less than half of online video ads are even seen, Vindico says

By Samantha Bookman

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Online video advertising may not have the glowing future some reports suggest if new research is any indication. It's likely that more than 1 billion ads on the Internet are never seen by their intended audience.

A New York Times article questions whether online video viewers are actually watching the ads. More than half of the 2 billion video ads out there are unviewable, the article said, citing the results of a two-month survey by Vindico, an ad platform provider.

Benzinga's Tim Parker cited that statistic in an op-ed where he suggested that online video ads are returning to a "marketing stone age" similar to the days of print advertising, with companies posting ads and hoping for the best.

"First, about 57 percent of online video ads are unviewable. They're either buried too low on the page, stuck in tiny, unnoticed video players, or ignored altogether. Second, the amount of available slots on big-named sites like NBC are too few to accommodate the amount of (those) interested," he wrote.

It's a surprising finding, NYT's David Segal wrote in the article, because of online video ads' oft-touted ability to target specific audiences. That's an attractive selling point, but many companies aren't getting what they pay for.

It's not all doom and gloom: A two-pronged study conducted for NBCUniversal by Latitude and MediaScience found that people who watch TV news are more likely to decide to buy an advertised product than people watching any other type of programming. Why? Opinion was split between the type of ads influencing viewers--ads placed during news programs are different than ads placed during sports programs, for example--or the way viewers watch news versus other programs.

"There is a lean-in mentality when the consumer is watching news, and it truly is a decision making tool for them," said Linda Yaccarino, president for ad sales at NBCU, in a Broadcasting & Cable article.

While that is a TV-focused study, its implications for advertising on all platforms could be compelling. It also suggests that advertisers--and up-and-coming online video ad verification companies already rising to address the online ad viewership problem--should be taking a much closer look at how users are viewing ads--and if they're seeing them at all.

For more:
- The New York Times has this story
- Benzinga has this story
- B&C has this study

Read more about: consumer viewing behavior
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5. YouTube moves toward premium in bid to attract advertisers

By Samantha Bookman

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