Latest from Next TV in Cab

TV Still on Top in the Age of ADD: CAB

Leslie Jaye Goff — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 16:45:00 +0000

Despite the plethora of platforms on which to watch content, multiscreen TV continues to grab more of American viewers’ attention than all the others combined, according to a new report from the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau.

Taking a comparative look at the attention consumers give to multiscreen TV, Google/YouTube, AOL, MSN, Yahoo and Facebook, the CAB found that ad-supported TV content garners 80% of consumer attention. That’s 80% of 175 hours the average person spends per month watching TV and consuming content (search, social, mobile, e-mail and video) on the four Web portals and Facebook.

Television outpaces YouTube by a wide margin among all adults and among younger adults ages 18-24, the CAB said. In a side-by-side comparison, ad-supported TV garnered 95% of all users’ time vs. YouTube’s 5% while TV took 88% percent of younger adults’ time vs. YouTube’s 12%.

The CAB combined a number of industry-standard metrics, including Nielsen ratings and comScore data from Q4 2014, to create the report, “Get Real: Video Advertising 2015.”

Television websites either lead or occupy multiple spots in the “top 5” across the major online content genres: news, sports, food, kids, weather, comedy, gaming, home, music and entertainment. TV content also fuels top-ranked tablet apps in the 11 largest content categories, the CAB said.

To look at performance in terms of impressions, the CAB drilled down to specific shows and networks compared against YouTube. For September of 2014, it found, the 2,367.6 million monthly impressions created by one TV series — in this case, HGTV’s Property Brothers — equaled those of YouTube’s top 10 channels combined, at 2,355.4 million.

“Smart marketers will clarify their definition of Internet video as an extension of a Multiscreen TV buy,” Sean Cunningham, CAB’s CEO, said. “Using video to sell more stuff isn’t about how many places you can technically ‘reach’ people for one to two seconds, and it’s not about how many splintered impressions you can aggregate. It’s about how much time and attention you can amass with audiences committed to the same content.”

National Cable Upfront Drops 6%: CAB

Mike Reynolds — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 16:45:00 +0000

After reaching a record level, national cable networks saw their upfront intake decline by 6% for the 2014-15 television season, according to The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau.

All told, national cable secured $9.6 billion in upfront TV/video spending from advertisers during the annual Madison Avenue bazaar, down from $10.2 billion during the 2013-14 upfront selling season.

The drop, which CAB attributes to clients keeping their TV ad dollars in hand until they need to be expressed on-air as a means to gain financial flexibility to make investments closer to the beginning of campaigns, ended a four-season run of significant upticks by the medium.

According to CAB, national cable network saw their collective upfront dollar base jump 52% from $6.7 billion in 2009-10, following the end of the recession, to last year's $10.2 billion mark, an increase of some $3.5 billion over that span.

“Several big-spending advertisers stated that they anticipated spending fewer ad dollars in this year’s Upfront, and nearly all cited increased flexibility as their reason why,” said CAB president and CEO Sean Cunningham. “Cable networks are meeting this instinct for immediacy with multiscreen brand programs around hit shows.”

Cable TV/Video Upfront Dollars

2014/2015: $9.624 billion, - 6% (- $577 million)

2013/2014: $10.220 billion + 4.3% ($423 million)

2012/2013: $9.797 billion, + 5% ($511 million)

2011/2012: $9.286 billion, + 16% ($1,283 million)

2010/2011: $8.003 billion, + 19% ($1,278 million)

2009/2010: $6.725 billion

Source: CAB

Shedding Tiers, Recalibrating Scale, Seeing Stars

garyarlen@gmail.com (Gary Arlen) — Mon, 05 May 2014 14:30:00 +0000

Takeaway: Integrated video programming and overhauled delivery structures were pondered but not deeply discussed in Los Angeles. Meanwhile in New York last week, the online video business looked like cable circa 1980s -- primed to ramp-up formidably.

The most enlightening conversation I had in Los Angeles last week came on the day before the Cable Show began, aptly framing the tension of industries in transition. I had breakfast with a collegemate who has been an A-list Hollywood producer for 30 years; his credits include celebrated titles you know well on big screen and cable and broadcast networks. (I'll eschew name-dropping to protect his privacy; just trust me.)

He is fascinated with the new digital distribution options, and is negotiating with BuzzFeed and other broadband programmers to create shows for new media. But, he says, his big studio collaborators are skeptical: to them, such productions don't scale to the levels of tentpole movies they want. They know digital distribution options exist, but after nearly a decade of pondering, the stalwarts of entertainment empires still don't know how to recalibrate their thinking about scale for the new platforms.

My pal's outlook hit home the following day at the Cable Show's first General Session, when Suddenlink Communications chairman and CEO Jerry Kent advocated that the industry must find new forms of content bundles, what he called “more affordable types of programming” including dropping “certain programmers because they’re too expensive.” Although Kent stopped short of endorsing à la carte programming, his remarks suggested that cable operators should -- and some are -- shed tiers or at least rearrange their program line-ups to meet viewer needs.

Similarly, Liberty Global president and CEO Michael Fries, on that same opening panel, acknowledged that cable is "competing with hyper-giants who can roll out networks overnight without building infrastructure.” Although not specifying Facebook, Google’s YouTube or other digital distributors, Fries’ remarks underscored the emerging competitive landscape, which (as it turned out) was a theme of FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's message the following morning.

Meanwhile, as this soul-searching was transpiring in L.A., far more aggressive competitive video visions were actually taking shape in New York. Many of these plans involve familiar cable faces such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Steve Buscemi plus popular talent including James Franco, Zoe Saldana, Ellen DeGeneres and Kevin Nealon. Those are a few of the names in new shows for the expanded AOL On Network original programming lineup, unveiled at the "Digital Content NewFronts," the broadband content industry's version of TV upfront ad pitches. AOL also announced its first long-form series Connected.

Even more significantly AOL revealed that Nielsen will provide "truly TV-comparable audience measurement" for all new AOL series. The beta test of the Nielsen Digital Program Rations, which now measures TV-originated content when it is viewed online, will let advertisers compare Gross Rating Points for broadband and television content.

That's where it gets competitive.

The Digital NewFronts also had a semblance of cable's transformative period 30 years ago when big advertisers began committing budgets to the new channels. For example, BuzzFeed, which has video advertisers such as GE and Purina, emphasized its efficient scale compared to both broadcast and cable. Founder Jonah Peretti stressed that video is the biggest shift in his company's agenda, reminding advertisers that the popular site plans to move beyond mindless quizzes and celebrity squibs into extensive video delivery online.

Ze Frank, the company's executive VP of video, described how "social video" exceeds the value of "consumable video" (his term for today's TV and film programming.

Yahoo revealed its alliance with LiveNation to video stream one live concert every day for a year, including behind-the-scenes material to accompany each show. Kellogg will sponsor the series. Yahoo also previewed its "Originals" schedule, which includes Sin City Saints about a Las Vegas basketball team and Other Space, a comedy sci-fi series.

Among dozens of video-centric plans unveiled in New York were ones from Microsoft Xbox Entertainment Studios president Nancy Tellem, a former top CBS executive, who showed original content under the curious - and threatening - slogan: “This is Where TV Wants To Be.” And The New York Times is re-launching its Times Video operation, organizing channels under banners such as Op-Docs, Modern Love, Vows and Verbatim, a new series of court transcripts read by comedians.

Such concepts bring to mind the "try-anything" approach of HBO, Showtime and other networks during cable's incubation era in the '80s.

We return now to the Cable Show in Los Angeles, where operators were continuing their revered practice of omphaloskepsis, occasionally confessing that efforts to expand into new media have been frustrating. Yet there were signs all around about the structural changes. The exhibit show floor was a showcase of software companies, far more vital today than hardware upgrades. Vendors were showing software for managing the next generation of operations -- not merely devices to delivery video. (Also significant on the show floor and on stage was the paucity of celebrities, long a mainstay for cable shows - especially in Los Angeles; but that's a different topics.)

The re-launch of TV Everywhere promotions, as presented by CTAM, may change cable's ability to hold its own in the evolving video landscape. At sessions such as the "Feeding the Screen" panel, network executives admitted that they face fundamental barriers to expanding TVE.

"You have rights issues and the tension between advertisers and distributors," explained Mike Biard, president-distribution at Fox Networks.

Tonia O'Connor, president-content distribution at Univision Communications, offered an enlightened way of addressing the new video landscape.

"We're looking beyond our core audience, looking to 15-to-34 year-olds," she said. "They have a very broad definition of television."

That revamped definition of "viewing" plus the need for new structures is at the core of the industry overhaul that was an unspoken theme in Los Angeles last week. In the exhibit hall and on panels, technology wannabes were laying out a new agenda. Startup companies such as aioTV showed its side-car add-on to any set-top box, enabling integration of linear TV and broadband video. At a Technical Forum session on content delivery networks and "streaming clouds," Comcast Fellow Brian Field presented a well received vision about virtualization and application/caching built to the new scale.

Startups such as Frequency were on hand to pitch content integration for TV online. And Imagine Park was loaded with dreams of new visual experiences and user interfaces.

My pal the Hollywood producer may actually see his visions take shape.

Cable Show: Poor Marketing, Low Awareness Hinder TVE

Mike Farrell — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 23:45:00 +0000

Los Angeles – While lackluster marketing efforts and poor consumer awareness have slowed the adoption of TV Everywhere, a panel of top programmers at the 2014 Cable Show said new efforts around major events like the World Cup and efforts to make the TVE experience more consistent across distribution platforms could give the service the boost it sorely needs.

TV Everywhere, or the ability for cable customers to watch select shows on any device at any time, has been touted as the industry’s answer to the over-the-top threat. But problems around authentication, a limited number of networks participating in the service because of rights issues and the difficulty for some consumers to access the service have hindered its acceptance. At the Cable Show Opening General Session Tuesday, Turner Broadcast Systems CEO John Martin called for programmers and distributors to work together to improve the customer experience.

That theme continued to dominate on Wednesday, with top programming executives committing the bulk of a panel session moderated by Los Angeles Times staff writer Meg James called “Finding the Screens: Television Networks and the New Video Landscape,” to the TV Everywhere issue.

Despite the problems that have plagued the service, customers are beginning to see the value of TV Everywhere, especially when the service is promoted through major events like the 2014 Winter Olympics.

“We know the content is great and the customer wants to watch it,” said NBC Universal executive vice president, content distribution Matt Bond. But somewhere between the content and the customer there is a breakdown. And I think it’s pretty simple – there is not one brand, it’s been balkanized across various brands across the industry and authentication is a challenge.”

But despite those hurdles, Bond said TV Everywhere usage is growing, especially around major events like the Olympics.

Event programming could be the key to greater adoption of TV Everywhere, said HBO executive vice president, domestic network distribution Shelley Wright Brindle. She added that major events and even the introduction of the service on new platforms can drive awareness and spur users to use the service.

Wright Brindle said that with events, people are “willing to overcome the hassle,” of signing on to the service. She added that when HBO Go is launched on a new platform like Apple TV, registration for the service spikes.

“What it really means if you provide them with the experience or the content they will do it,” Wright Brindle said.

On that track, Univision Communications is taking advantage of a major upcoming sporting event – the 2014 World Cup – to help drive awareness and usage of TV Everywhere.

Univision president content distribution and corporate development Tonia O’Connor said the programmer will use the World Cup as a vehicle this summer to drive TV Everywhere authentication and usage.

“That’s our Olympics,” O’Connor said. “Our audience is extremely passionate about soccer and we are going to use that content with our distribution partners to make sure we can increase authentication.”

While marketing efforts behind the service have been scarce, that should begin to pick up. But Wright Brindle added those are not the only issues. Problems surrounding programming rights have also affected not only the networks that can be on the service, but where ad on what devices the service can be watched.

“Is it really TV Everywhere,” asked Wright Brindle. “It’s ‘Some TVs, Somewhere.’”

Fox Networks president, distribution Mike Biard admitted that rights have been a hurdle to the adoption of TV Everywhere, but added that cable networks and broadcasters have different issues than premium networks, like advertising.

“It’s frustrating from our seats because we have the content and we want to make it available,” Biard said. “It’s just that there are a lot of steps to get there.”