After falling from peak levels in March when people started staying home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, time spent with over-the-top video bounced back in July, according to Adobe.

While video starts are still down 2% (following an 11% dip in June), time spent is back up to March levels, rising 28%.

Adobe said the drop in video start indicates that after months of searching for something to watch, there is less content surfing and fewer viewers who are new to streaming.

Video completion trends are better. Completion rates began a steady decline in early 2019, as consumers were flush with a growing array of services and original content. By the start of the year, completion rates were still down. Adobe said rates began to go up in April and that has continued into July, when they were up 11% from a year ago.

“In a single sitting, 63% of consumers say that they always/often finish a piece of video content from start to finish," Adobe said. 

Since the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders, mobile use has been growing for shopping applications, but video consumption of non user generated content is not growing on mobile. In fact, in July use of mobile was down 10% and usage on desktops was down 18% while OTT video rose 116%.

Looking at video time spent paints a similar story. OTT is the primary growth driver, with significant peaks in months like April. 

Time spent on mobile has been in decline for the last three months (May-July). And desktop has not been a growth driver either. 

Consumers find they have too many streaming options, and it is becoming overwhelming, Adobe found. 

In a survey of over 1,000 people: 40% felt there were too many apps and services to stream video, and that it was difficult to manage (29% did not agree; 31% were neutral). 60% reported having 1 to 3 services, while 35% had between 4 to 7. Around 6% had more than 8. 

Since March, 54% reported not purchasing any new subscriptions or services.

U.S. software and digital content developers represented by the Software & Information Industry Association are backing the Christchurch Call, a government-industry partnership to combat terrorism, and the glorification of violent acts, online. 

"SIIA urges action to improve quick platform response time to terrorism in all of its manifestations, while also respecting freedom of expression and promoting narratives that counter violent extremism online," the groups said. 

The Christchurch Call effort was announced Wednesday (May 15) by New Zealand and France, marking the two-month anniversary of the March 15 Christchurch, New Zealand, terrorist attack that killed 51 and injured another half a hundred people, and which was live streamed to thousands of viewers. 

The "call" is to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online by securing commitments from governments and the tech sector.  

Governments signed on at press time did not include the Trump Administration, but did include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Senegal, Spain, Sweden, and the UK, many of whom have suffered through their own mass terrorist attacks. 

Tech companies signing on include Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Twitter.

"Respect for freedom of expression is fundamental. However, no one has the right to create and share terrorist and violent extremist content online," New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed in launching the initiative. 

They called on other countries and their tech sectors to get on board, and SIIA responded.  

“The Christchurch Call is an excellent initiative in taking action on the internet to both prevent terrorism and stop the glorification of terrorist acts," said SIIA President Jeff Joseph. "As SIIA has written, companies in this age of terrorism have take-down responsibilities; countervailing responsibilities to foster free speech and association; and, an affirmative responsibility to take steps to counter violent extremism. Today’s initiative shows that companies take these responsibilities seriously and are deepening cooperation with law enforcement authorities.  

SIIA board members include representatives from Google, Adobe and Intuit.

Roku has announced a new advanced advertising partnership with Adobe, which the companies say, eliminates the problem of OTT viewers having to sit through the same ad over and over again.

Under the agreement, announced at the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas, marketers using Adobe Advertising Cloud, Adobe Audience Manager and Adobe Analytics can now target Roku viewers with over-the-top programmatic ads using their own first-party data.

“With the shift to streaming, marketers have an unprecedented opportunity to reach consumers in a targeted, relevant way on TV,” said Scott Rosenberg, GM of platform business for Roku. “Roku has a direct, first-party relationship with its consumers and the most advanced ad capabilities in OTT. This partnership gives Adobe clients a seamless way to activate their data and reach customers who’ve moved their TV viewing to Roku devices.”

Roku says this is the first time it’s opened up its own first-party data for advertisers for brands to use in programmatic buys. The deal will allow Adobe’s Fortune 500 brands to match their own data with Roku sign-up data, which includes such things as customer email address, credit card number and device IDs. This will in turn allow these brands to make targeted ad buys through automation.

"They need to partner with a company like Roku to do that," Seth Walters, VP of demand partnerships for Roku, told AdAge. "And this is our first partnership of this kind.”

The ability to match first-party data sets, the companies say, allows them to limit the frequency of the same ad being shown to viewers, which has been a key issue with OTT consumer experience.

You couldn't do that before and so there were no frequency caps,” Keith Eadie, VP and general manager of Adobe Advertising Cloud, also told AdAge "We are matching customer data to Roku data, and if a customer has seen an ad three times, we'll stop serving them. It's another big problem we're solving.”

Tubi, the free, ad-supported service formerly known as Tubi TV, has hired Mark Rotblat as chief revenue officer, who will head up global sales and partnerships.

Rotblat joins Tubi from Adobe Systems, where he was senior director of agency sales and activation for Adobe Advertising Cloud. He was also part of TubeMogul's founding team (Adobe acquired TubeMogul, a company focused on programmatic advertising tech and services, in 2016 for $540 million).

RELATED: Tube Mogul Sold to Adobe for $540M

Rotblat also joins Tubi in the wake of a “C” round of funding that pushed total funding raised by the AVOD specialist past $35 million. Lionsgate, MGM and Stanford University are among the backers of Tubi, which recently landed a strategic investment from Tegna.

RELATED: Tubi TV Raises $20M More

“With deep experience in the complexities of programmatic advertising and go-to-market sales strategies, Mark provides the right leadership and industry insights for our sales teams,” Farhad Massoudi, Tubi’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to have Mark join us as CRO, where his expertise will keep us well-equipped to help our partners grow their advertising revenue in the years ahead.”

Rotblat holds an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and a BS from Duke University, and resides in the Bay area with his wife and children.

Say goodbye to the American couch potato. No longer are TV viewers content to just sit on the couch, flip through channels until they find something semi-entertaining. Today, they don't think twice about fast-forwarding through irrelevant ads or cutting the cord on cable packages. They expect seamless, on-demand and more personalized viewing across whatever screen they want to watch their favorite content.

The recent shifts in TV-viewing habits are nothing short of revolutionary. Aided by a wave of new Internet-based technologies, the medium has been transformed into something viewers take an active part in shaping.

From media companies to advertisers, everyone has to adapt to this radically changing environment. We must come to terms with the fact that traditional one-way television has experienced the same fate as black-and-white sets and rabbit-ear antennas.

Television Comes Back to the Living Room? 

 The consequences of this sea change have been dramatic. The pace of cable and satellite subscription cancellations – so-called "cord cutting" – has accelerated, up 12 percent this year. Cord-cutters have given way to a separate group known as "cord-nevers" – the quarter of millennials who never signed up for cable in the first place, and likely never will.

However, this doesn’t mean that TV sets are going dark. For the first time ever, the majority of U.S. households have at least one TV connected to the Internet. That's 6 million more homes than just a year ago. And consumers are also starting to prefer TV-connected devices like Apple TV, Roku and gaming consoles in lieu of traditional cable. According to Adobe Digital Insights data, these devices have seen 143% sales growth since last year. When we consider all the ways in which consumers now access TV content, overall use has risen 2.6% for average household viewing. 

When the term “TV Everywhere” was first coined, the industry anticipated that mobile devices would become a dominant means for viewers to enjoy TV content; the numbers indicate this is no longer happening. Consumers have brought TV back into their living rooms, albeit in a completely different form.  

Ad Dollar Tug-of-War

When it comes to monetization, the industry is at a juncture point. As audiences become more transient across linear and digital screens, the ad dollars have not caught up to a multiscreen environment. As much as this poses a challenge, this story is one about opportunity. With TV content being unleashed across digital channels, a flood of new data becomes available. Like with the best mobile apps or desktop websites, data is the key to building audience intelligence and serving experiences that are more relevant and personalized. Advertisers would be able to drive higher ROI and media sellers can charge more for specific audience profiles. And, this data is also beginning to be used to make linear television more relevant and personalized too.

With audiences increasingly ignoring ads that are irrelevant to them, this becomes more critical than ever before. If a beauty retailer wants to target female millennials, they must go beyond blanketing an ad based off the characteristics of a particular show and engage a specific segment of viewers that can actually act on the ad. It’s also important that female fans aren’t getting hit with the same ad on every device they use multiple times throughout the day.  Managing a cross-device audience is paramount in today’s multi-screen advertising execution.

TV advertising is going through one of the biggest shifts the industry has ever seen. With data as the foundation, we can get to a place where consumers receive more personalized content, while advertisers and media sellers can better engage viewers with higher ROI.  

Getting Personal

Simply getting content to viewers where and when they want it – once the central challenge – is no longer enough; consumers now expect experiences that are tailored specifically to them. As we look ahead, the ability to refine content discovery and recommendations with either hinder or propel audience engagement. With an increasing number of content options, this is even more important.

Data has another big role here, as media companies must gather data from various channels to build an understanding of individual viewers – at scale. Emerging technologies such as machine learning and data science will become more critical, as a means to differentiate when competition heats up.

Imagine being served a TV show based off everything from how quickly you abandoned other shows to your most-watched genres. Or, visualize an interface that not only displays your favorite channels but also pulls from a Facebook feed to learn what your friends are buzzing about.

TV will always have a central place in American life, but viewers will no longer be the unwitting subjects of a one-way experience; they will be driving that experience. Media companies face a choice: either empower viewers to watch what they want and deliver highly engaging experiences, or get left behind.

-Jeremy Helfand is Vice President, Primetime at Adobe

Adode said it agreed to buy programmatic TV advertising platform TubeMogul for $540 million.

Adobe said the acquisition of TubeMogul will create the first end-to-end independent advertising and data management solution that spans TV and digital formats, simplifying what has been a complex and fragmented process for the world’s biggest brands.

The acquisition of TubeMogul further strengthens Adobe’s digital marketing and advertising technology.

“Whether it’s episodic TV, indie films or Hollywood blockbusters, video consumption is exploding across every device and brands are following those eyeballs,” said Brad Rencher, executive VP and general manager, digital marketing, Adobe. “With the acquisition of TubeMogul, Adobe will give customers a ‘one-stop shop’ for video advertising, providing even more strategic value for our Adobe Marketing Cloud customers.”

Read more at B&C.

Adobe and Synacor said they’ve thrown their weight behind a new single sign-on (SSO) authentication system that Apple will be making available on the Apple TV as well as iOS-powered smartphones and tablets.

Apple unveiled the simplified SSO approach Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Starting this fall, users will only have to sign in once on those devices to access authenticated TV Everywhere apps, Apple said, noting that any network-TV app can take advantage of the technology. Per Apple, once a user is signed into one network app, any other app on Apple TV from participating providers will automatically log the user into all other supported apps requiring authentication. Additionally, customers can access page of all the authenticated apps that a pay-TV provider offers during the sign-in process.

Adobe said it is working to incorporate Apple’s new APIs into all Adobe Primetime authentication software development kits, whiel also claiming that its platform is powering authentication for 95% of broadcaster and cable network sites and apps in North America today.

Synacor, meanwhile, announced the release of an identity and management platform that supports Apple’s SSO effort.

Outside the Apple universe, Adobe also collaborated with CTAM on a “unified” TVE authentication platform for in-home and out-of-home access, along with an initial mix of programmers and MVPDs that will support it in the next six to nine months. Synacor said its authentication systems are “in alignment” with CTAM’s guidelines.

Among other Apple TV-facing tidbits announced Monday, Apple said the device currently supports more than 6,000 apps and more than 1,300 video “channels.” Its integration of Siri is now capable of searching more than 650,000 TV episodes and movies. A new “live tune-in” feature will link viewers to a supported app when they command Siri to “Watch CBS News” or “Watch ESPN,” for example.

Showing more signs that authentication issues are getting ironed out as pay TV viewers migrate to new platforms, TV Everywhere viewing climbed 102% in the fourth quarter of 2015 versus the year-ago period,  according to Adobe Digital Index's latest Digital Video Benchmark Report.

Adobe’s study, based on 3.6 billion TV Everywhere authentications across more than 300 TVE Web sites and apps, also found that “active” TVE users rose 22% on a quarter-over-quarter basis.

On a genre basis, broadcast and cable content (regular episodic content) saw the greatest rate of TVE growth, at 11% year-over-year, versus movies (89%), sports (80%), and teens and toons (61%).

“This is the first time we've seen that, and we think it’s because of some of these fall TV premieres and people waiting to watch when it’s most convenient for them instead of when it broadcasts on the actual cable channel,” Becky Tasker, managing analyst at Adobe Digital Index, said in a statement.

Adobe’s study also looked at device-level trends and found that iOS-based platforms still get the bulk of TVE authentications, but are ceding ground to Roku players and other TV-connected platforms.

iOS enjoyed a 36% share of TVE authentications by access type in Q4 2015, but its share dropped 20% year-over-year. Browser-based TV authentications were flat, at 18%, compared to  Android (18%, up 3%) and TV-connected devices (21%, up 16%).

Roku’s TVE share rose 14% QoQ, and Adobe credited that in part to the addition of major broadcast channels to the platform in mid-November 2015. 

As Mobile World Congress gets rolling, here’s a snapshot of what’s making news in Barcelona.

-Ericsson launched OTT Cloud Connect (OCC), an “open” cloud service that enables mobile operators to link up with multiple over-the-top players to deliver services. Ericsson said OCC “strives to fill the gap” between operator networks and OTT services by  “exposing” the OSS and BSS capabilities of players on both sides of the equation. Ericsson said Google/YouTube is among the first partners to get on-boarded on the OCC platform.

-Casa Systems, a company known for making cable modem termination systems and converged cable access platforms, is pushing deeper into wireless with the launch of the Axyom “virtualized” edge platform and Apex, a multi-standard, low-power small cell solution.  Casa said Axyom a virtualized multi-access solution for 3G/4G and trusted/untrusted WiFi access.

-Cisco Systems said it will work with  Ericsson and Intel to develop and trial what’s it’s billing as the industry’s first 5G router, claiming it will achieve faster speeds, lower latency and be able to handle “exponentially more Internet-connected devices.” As members of the Verizon 5G Technology Forum, Cisco, Ericsson and Intel are partnering with the carrier on an ecosystem aimed at accelerating the pace of 5G innovations.

-Ericsson said a 5G trial held with Verizon of new radio prototypes earlier this month achieved multi-gigabit speeds. The field trials of those prototypes used a mix of advanced beam forming, beam tracking,  new antenna designs (128 antenna elements and 64 radio chains in each prototype), and Multi-User MIMO technologies to enable speeds of more than 10 Gbps, the vendor said. 5G signals an evolution of today’s LTE technology, plus new radio access technologies that are often operating in higher frequency ranges.

-Elsewhere on the 5G front, T-Mobile and Ericsson said they’ll team on field and lab trials in the U.S., expecting them to get underway in the second half of 2016. Ericsson said it has already notched more than 20 memorandums of understanding to test 5G with operators worldwide.

-AT&T said it is growing its Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem by integrating tools and developer solutions with Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft. AT&T said, for example, that its developer tools, including AT&T Flow Designer and AT&T M2X, will now work with Cisco’s Fog agent, Fog apps, and Fog analytics systems, Intel’s IoT Developer Kit, and with Microsoft's cloud, analytics, and visualization tools.

-Adobe has added MPEG-DASH support and dynamic ad insertion to Adobe Primetime, its multiscreen TV platform, noting that the implantation will use the same workflows and business rules used to insert ads into HLS streams. The resulting work will enable streams with stitched ads to reach devices and browsers that support MPEG-DASH, including HTML5-complaint browsers, Adobe said.

In a study that should provide comfort to Comcast and Verizon as they try to draw eyeballs to their new Watchable (pictured) and go90 over-the-top services, Adobe found that 92% of millennials in the U.S. consider the smartphone to be their primary device for watching TV when on the go. 

That compares to 84% among GenX'ers, 69% of baby boomers, and 67% of the 70-and-older crowd, per Adobe’s survey of cross-section of 4,000 consumers in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and France (the stats cited here are Adobe’s for the U.S.).

Additionally, 38% of those surveyed said they are using mobile devices to watch live sports, well above 9% from  Adobe’s study from last year.

And most consumers aren’t shy about registering personal info in order to gain access to ad-supported content. About 63% of U.S. mobile users told Adobe that they provide their email address in exchange for receiving premium content with advertising.

Among other findings, Adobe said 67% of U.S. respondents favored apps for streaming TV shows and full-length movies. But just 31% of millennials said they were extremely satisfied with that mobile experience, versus 20% of the GenX group, 13% of Baby Boomers, and 9% of consumers 70 years and older.

Adobe also found that millennials and GenX respondents perceive personalized experiences to be just as important as “simplification,” a category that includes elements such as recommendations based on viewing history.

TV Everywhere viewing is still on the rise, but the rate of growth has slowed considerably, according to Adobe Digital Index’s latestUS Digital Video Benchmark report (PDF)

Authenticated TVE viewing was up 63% year-over-year, Adobe found in the report, which based its findings on 159 billion online video starts and 1.49 billion TVE authentications from Q2 2014 to Q2 2015. As a point of comparison, TVE usage skyrocketed 246%, when Adobe posted similar year-on-year results for Q1 2013 through Q1 2014. 

“What we’re starting to see is that potentially some of the friction in the process of setting up TV Everywhere or figuring out which device you want to use might be starting to cause a slowdown,”  Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst for ADI, said in a statement. “We think generally the demand is there, but we may have reached a tipping point where to get to the next level it needs to be simpler to sign in.”

ADI also found that 12.7% of pay TV viewers were watching content on their devices in Q2 2015, a 19% year-over-year gain, but down 4% from Q1 2015.

According to the report, the iPad was the top device used for TVE, with about 22% of users tapping in via Apple’s iconic tablet. That was followed by PCs (18.3%), the iPhone (18.2%), the Apple TV (12.8%), Android devices (9.1%), Macs (7.4%), Roku (6.8%), gaming consoles (2%), Amazon Fire TV (1%), and smart TVs (0.7%).

Apple devices alone accounted for up to 61% of TVE viewing, possibly paving the way for “an all-in-one solution from Apple,” she noted.  A new, more capable iteration of the Apple TV is expected to be announced next week.

“It doesn’t take much for something to come along that makes everything so much easier to use that adoption goes into a hockey-stick pattern,” Gaffney said. “That could very well happen. That’s what happened with the iPhone.”

Looking beyond TVE, the primary vehicle for watching TV sites is the PC, as the platform averaged 1.68 starts per month, versus .44 for smartphones, and 0.94 for tablets. 

Despite hurdles that keep some pay-TV subs from setting up TV Everywhere accounts, overall authenticated video usage has surged 467% over a 24-month period, according to Adobe’s latest report on U.S. digital video trends.

While major sporting events continue to serve as the primary TVE catalyst (three times as many TVE viewers watch sports than watch movies), viewership increases are being seen across multiple forms of content, covering areas such as broadcast and episodic cable, according to Adobe’s report, which based its 2013-2014 findings on 191 billion total online video starts, 2.67 billion TVE authentications, and 250-plus sites and apps in the U.S. and Canada that served as TVE “access points.”

The analysis found that 12.5% of pay-TV subs were actively viewing TVE content in the fourth quarter of 2014, up from just 4.4% in the first quarter of 2013.

Active viewership of 11.6% in 2014 suggests that TVE is “only a few quarters away from” shifting from a platform for “early adopters” to one that is used by the “early majority,” as well, Adobe said.

While convincing users to set up TVE accounts “is a bit of a hurdle,” those who hop over it tend to return on a frequent basis, as consumers logged 2.1 billion authenticated videos in 2014, up 266% year-on-year. On average, 13 million viewers logged in at least once per quarter during 2014 to watch TVE content, Adobe said.

Among devices, the iPad remains the most popular for TVE streaming, with a 29% share of authenticated video starts in Q4 2014, followed by the iPhone (18%), Android devices (16%), PCs (12%), Macs (8%), Roku (7%), Apple TV (5%), gaming consoles (2%), and iPods (1%).

Adobe also set forth some predictions, holding that the proliferation of new devices and faster connections will drive mobile to overtake desktop video viewing by the fourth quarter of 2016.

Adobe also expects TVE active viewership to reach 18% by the end of 2015, driven by auto-authentication, social logins, and marketing campaigns from MVPDs.

Additionally, Adobe sees the category of gaming consoles and OTT devices to achieve a 20% share of TVE in 2015, as consumers continue to gravitate usage to products such as the Google Chromecast, Roku devices, Apple TV boxes and gaming consoles.

Apple devices – from the Apple TV and Macs to iPhones and iPads – are the top choice for authenticated TV Everywhere video starts, according to a new study from Adobe.

Per the latest Adobe Digital Index (ADI),  29% of all TVE video starts originate from an iPad, and more than 60% of all TV Everywhere starts come from an Apple product, whether that’s from an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Mac computer.

As the chart above shows, those starts outpace what Adobe is seeing from platforms that include smart TVs, Roku devices, Android smartphones and tablets and gaming consoles.

Among other findings, the report, which based its findings on visits across more than 10,000 websites, 2.67 billion TVE authentications, and 191 billion total online video starts, found a 2% increase in the overall share of mobile visits to U.S. sites – from 35% to 37% -- driven by the smartphone category and the emergence of larger “phablet” products such as the iPhone 6+.

Popularity of phablets are having an effect on tablet market share, which is down 5.5% -- from 9.1% to 8.6% -- of U.S. site visits, which Apple’s iPad taking the biggest hit, dropping from 7.2% to 6.6%.

“Phablets are ultimately relegating tablets to niche uses,” ADI principal Tamara Gaffney said, in a statement.

Adobe also presented some new data on the Apple Watch ahead of today’s Apple media event, which is expected to focus on the new gadget, which was unveiled last September.

Based on a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers, ADI also found that 27% of consumers who own a smartphone or tablet and don’t currently own a smart watch are likely or very likely to buy one in the next six months. Of those, 67% said they would also be likely/very likely to purchase one of Apple’s new models.

NEW YORK – Several “tent-pole” sporting events such as the World Cup, Super Bowl and the Sochi Games helped to up the ante for live streaming in 2014, but anticipated demand for others on the horizon will require that all players in the distribution ecosystem pursue even greater levels of scalability.

That was a key theme here Wednesday morning during a session dedicated to live streaming trends and business models at NewBay Media’s NYC Television Week.

“Scale will be the theme in 2015” and likely beyond as more consumers take advantage of IP-based delivery and alter their viewing habits, Jens Loeffler, principal technical evangelist at Adobe, said.

And it’s not just about scaling up to support more streams, but also the overall quality of those streams as viewers demand a “TV-like” experience from their mobile connected devices,” Eric Black, vice president, technology at NBC Sports Group, said. “But we’re confident that we’re going to get there,” he said, during the session, moderated by Multichannel.com news editor Mike Reynolds.

Adobe’s Loeffler agreed that sports presents a special problem for streaming because a lot of it involves fast-moving content. And with more 4K streaming ahead and the need for rates of 60 frames per second, there will need to be a bigger focus on more efficient video compression technologies.

Matthew Murphy, the senior vice president of digital video distribution for Disney and ESPN Media Networks, stressed the importance of the business model of streaming, noting that his programming properties swaps ads into its digital content using dynamic ad insertion technology and includes those elements as part of the digital ad buy.

That, in turn, causes a greater emphasis on measurement, Loeffler said, referencing the work underway between Adobe and Nielsen to bring digital content ratings to all screens, including OTT devices. That effort aims to “bring the television model to digital,” though the process will create more opportunities to do more targeting and expand, rather than replicate, the traditional TV model, he said.

Murphy was also asked about new projects underway, including Dish Network’s new OTT service and ESPN’s coming NBA OTT service in which the league will hold an equity stake.

“First and foremost, we are committed to our MPVDs and the existing models we have,” Murphy said. But he acknowledged that Disney and ESPN are also attuned to shifting consumer behavior.

As for the Dish OTT service that is nearing launch, he said that will target a relatively small group of consumers who only take broadband service with a slimmed down, entry-level package, while still leaving the door open to fuller pay-TV services. 

Despite a trend that is seeing more programmers, including CBS and HBO, launch or plan to launch over-the-top, direct-to-consumer subscription video products, usage of authenticated TV Everywhere services is still on the upswing.

According to Adobe’s latest Video Benchmark Report, the total amount of online TV authenticated video starts spiked 388% in the second quarter versus the year-ago period, though those numbers did get healthy boosts in months that featured tent-pole, live sporting events such as the Winter Olympics, March Madness and the World Cup.

Adobe’s report, based on 165 billion total online video starts and 1.53 billion TV Everywhere authentications across 250 U.S. pay-TV service providers, also found that broadcast and cable networks with direct-to-consumer online TV offerings saw their unique monthly viewership jump 146% across all online TV channels while the amount of online TV content watched per viewer grew by 55%. Adobe estimates that 105 TV channels now power more than 300 online TV sites and apps in the U.S.

With respect to authenticated video starts, gaming consoles and OTT access types jumped 194% year-over-year, while browser-based access shrank to 41%.

Other findings amplified that more and move video consumption is moving online. Adobe said its customers produced a record 38.2 billion video starts in the second quarter of 2014, up 47.3% year-on-year.

As device share goes, Adobe said smartphone video starts has surpassed tablets. But smartphones weren’t the fast-growing video platform. That distinction belonged to gaming consoles and OTT devices, which saw usage skyrocket 127%. In comparison, smartphone online video starts grew 59%, while the tablet category slowed to 29%.

And content providers and MVPDs are paying the freight with ads at a greater rate, particularly when it comes to sports-related content. According to Adobe, viewers watched 2.08 ads per video start in the second quarter, up 25.8% year-on-year. During the quarter, the ratio of ad starts pre video start was 66% higher in sports content versus non-sports content.

TV Everywhere isn’t perfect as authentications challenges remain and the amount of programming offered continues to be fragmented, but usage of those services is clearly on the rise, the Adobe Digital Index found in its Video Benchmark Reportfor the first quarter of 2014.

TV Everywhere content consumption surged 246% versus the prior-year period,  a figure that excludes data from the Sochi Olympics, which was a “major” TVE event during the first quarter, ADI said.

ADI’s report also found that the number of unique visitors per month for TVE rose 157% year-over-year, and quarter-over-quarter across “all access points,” or connected devices such as tablets, PCs, smartphones and gaming consoles. ADI's findings are based on aggregated and anonymous data across 250 pay-TV providers and 160 TV Everywhere sites and apps, sampling from TV Everywhere authentications and 151 billion total online video starts. 

ADI also estimated that 21% of pay-TV homes in the U.S. accessed TVE content in Q1, versus 16% six months earlier. Additionally, 95 TV channels now power more than 160 TVE sites and apps in the U.S., 30 more than half a year earlier.

“More than one fifth of all pay-TV households in the U.S. now watch TV online across screens,” said Jeremy Helfand, vice president, Primetime, Adobe, in a statement. “With rapidly rising consumer expectations for TV across devices, the TV industry is moving through a rapid transformation and finding new ways to bring TV to whatever screen audiences want to watch.”

Among device categories, ADI said the new Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles and OTT media players like the Apple TV “are likely drivers of growth,” as devices in that combined category saw an uptick in video starts of 123%, well ahead of video start growth among tablets and smartphones.

Game consoles and those OTT devices also saw the strongest market share growth, with a 539% increase, ADI’s report found. Additionally, iOS apps for the first time surpassed browsers as the most popular access point for TV Everywhere content, achieving a 43% market share.

Finding themselves frequently at the same table when it comes to multiscreen video deals, thePlatform, the white-label online video publisher owned by Comcast, and Adobe have decided to formalize that relationship and strike a strategic co-selling deal.

Under the accord, thePlatform has integrated its mpx video management system with Adobe Primetime, and the two will sell this pre-integrated mix to programmers and distributors that are looking to drive video to PCs, tablets, smartphones, and other IP-connected devices.

They believe the deal, which pairs thePlatform’s online video workflow management with Adobe Primetime’s modular mix of its video player software development kit (SDK), data analytics, ad-insertion services, will accelerate deployments and drive down total cost of ownership.

“We are incredibly complementary,” Ian Blaine, CEO of thePlatform, said, noting that the two companies recently collaborated on NBCUniversal’s multiscreen coverage of the Sochi Games. “We end up at the same table a lot of the time when talking to customers and the businesses we want to enable.”

This pre-integration, he said, will save time when compared to start-from-scratch scenarios. “I think you’re saving months of work,” Blaine said.

“We’ve seen some efforts take years,” added Ashley Still, director of product management at Adobe.

“The real goal is to enable better monetization of online TV” as it gets delivered via more platforms, Blaine said.

While thePlatform and Adobe believe their pre-integrated approach provides a foundation for multiscreen and TV Everywhere services, it doesn’t cover everything, including the integration of recommendation systems. And they say they remain open and modular enough on the video player and content management system ends to integrate products from other vendors in the ecosystem, Blaine said, but acknowledged that the majority of thePlatform’s work today does involve Adobe.

But they still stand to benefit on all deals tied to the new co-selling relationship. While Adobe and thePlatform aren’t divulging the precise nature of the business relationship, they’re “both incented to help the other one,” Blaine said.

And they claim it goes deeper than just a revenue share. “We’re not doing this as lip service, but something that will shape our roadmaps,” Blaine said.

Adobe Primetime Turns 2.0

Separately, Adobe has released the 2.0 version of Adobe Primetime that includes a new cloud-based ad insertion service for linear and on-demand content across platforms, and Concurrency Monitoring, an extension of its PayTV Pass service that allows customers to manage and monitor stream counts on a per-device basis in real-time.

At this week’s NAB show in Las Vegas, Adobe is also demonstrating its support for MPEG-DASH adaptive bit rate video packaging as its “core video engine layer,” and delivery of IP streaming of 4K/Ultra HD content. Adobe expects its 4K-optimized products to begin shipping this summer.

In addition to PC browsers, smart TVs, and Android- and iOS-powered tablets and smartphones, Adobe Primetime 2.0 also extends support to the Xbox 360 and Roku devices, the company said.