Nexstar Media Group’s digital division said it saw a 45% increase in total unique users at its websites and mobile applications in January.

There were 133 million viewers, generating 820 million page views, according to Comscore Media Trend.

Nexstar, a leading TV station owner, has been making investments in digital media. Last year it acquired The Hill, the political news site. Within Comscore’s news and information category, Nexstar Digital ranked No. 2, with The Hill the No. 2 site in the politics category.

“Our meteoric digital growth this past year is a reflection of the trust our users place in Nexstar Digital as a source of credible, relevant, engaging local news and entertainment,” said Karen Brophy, president of Nexstar Digital.

“Nexstar Digital continues to show progress with our content-first strategy, reflecting our organization-wide commitment to deliver trusted, unbiased, fact-based journalism that engages and informs our audiences across all screens and provides a brand-safe premium environment for our advertising clients. At Nexstar Digital, we deliver what matters most, including content, audiences, solutions, and most important, results for our advertising clients," Brophy said. ■

Charter Communications said it has promoted Jodi Robinson to EVP, Digital Platforms and Jake Perlman to EVP, software development & IT. Both will report to Charter’s chief product and technology officer Rich DiGeronimo.

Robinson has overseen the digital platforms organization since 2019 and the user experience design and development organization since she joined Charter as an SVP in 2014. Prior to Charter, Robinson was VP of internet & interactive technology at Starz Entertainment, and earlier held a variety of software development and architecture roles at Level 3 Communications and Sun Microsystems. 

In her new role will oversee the expansion of the Charter’s Digital Platforms organization, which currently leads video product management, customer self-service platforms, the internal design agency, and the data platforms organization. Experiences that support customer service representatives and field technicians, and customer online ordering and video engineering will also be under Robinson’s purview. 

“Under Jodi’s leadership, the digital platforms team has produced great success with the Spectrum TV App along with driving adoption and increasing customer satisfaction for Spectrum’s top- rated self-support application, the My Spectrum App. Expanding our award-winning digital practices to employee-facing experiences will increase efficiency and elevate our ability to serve the needs of our customers,” said DiGeronimo.

Under Perlman, Charter will unify the previously separate shared enterprise software development, infrastructure, and deployment processes with the IT and Software Engineering organizations, the company said.

“We are experiencing a rapid transformation in the technology that customers and employees use,” DiGeronimo said in a press release. “We must continually refine and improve our products to differentiate and to meet and exceed the expectations of our customers and employees.”

Perlman joined Charter as an SVP in 2016, initially overseeing video and shared software services. He added video engineering, voice engineering, lab infrastructure and deployment support to his team in 2019. Before joining Charter, Perlman served as chief information officer for Bright House Networks. Prior to that he held various IT positions at CenturyLink. 

“Jake brings a broad range of software development experience to the IT function, with the most recent example of developing the company’s Advanced Home Wi-Fi product,” DiGeronimo said in the press release. “By uniting IT and the software engineering teams, Jake will be able to drive top-notch development practices that will power best in-class experiences for our customers, as well as our employees who serve them. I am confident that Jake and Jodi’s leadership will continue to accelerate our collective success.”

The European Commission has unveiled what it bills as an ambitious reform of the digital marketplace and it clearly appears to deliver on that billing. It includes proposed new rules for social media, online markets, ISPs, and other platforms that operate in the European Union, as well as a definition of who qualifies as a digital "gatekeeper" and stiff penalties for gatekeepers who get out of their lanes.

The new rules were set out in the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act.

Also Read: FTC Investigating Video Streamer, Social Media Data Practices

The Digital Service Act covers network infrastructure companies, access providers, domain name registrars, cloud hosting services, online marketplaces like Amazon, app stores, and social media platforms, with tougher rules for "very large" platforms, which the EC says pose "particular risks in the dissemination of illegal content and societal harms."

The reforms include transparency reporting, complaint and redress mechanisms, vetting third-party suppliers, user-facing transparency about online advertising, external audits, sharing data with authorities and researchers, codes of conduct, and more.

The goal of the act is to "improve the mechanisms for the removal of illegal content and for the effective protection of users’ fundamental rights online, including the freedom of speech," as well as to strengthen public oversight of online platforms, particularly those very large platforms that reach over 10% of the EU population--Facebook, Amazon, etc.

The Digital Markets Act is "a set of narrowly defined objective criteria for qualifying a large online platform as a so-called 'gatekeeper.'" If they meet the definition, they will have a list of "do's and don'ts" that apply to their daily operations.

A company will be considered a gatekeeper if it: (1) "has a strong economic position, significant impact on the internal market and is active in multiple EU countries"; (2) "has a strong intermediation position, meaning that it links a large user base to a large number of businesses"; and (3) "has (or is about to have) an entrenched and durable position in the market, meaning that it is stable over time."

Any company to which those apply (1) must allow for interoperability by third parties in certain situations; (2) must allow businesses to access the data they generate when they use a gatekeeper platform: (3) must provide advertisers tools and info to verify the their ads on the gatekeeper platform, and 4) allow business users to contract with customers outside the platform.

Those are the do's--or, more accurately, "musts." The don'ts include (1) favoring their own services or products in rankings; (2) preventing consumers from linking to businesses outside the platform; and (3) preventing the de-installation of pre-installed software or apps.

Failure to do or not do what they are supposed to could result in fines up to 10% of a company's total annual worldwide sales and periodic payments of up to 5% of average daily sales.

“As representatives of the world’s leading companies across all the segments of industry, we recognise our shared responsibility to maintain a safe, competitive, and innovative online environment,” said Guido Lobrano, of tech association ITI. “All relevant stakeholders need to work together towards these goals. While ITI and its members will develop detailed views on the legislative proposals in the coming weeks, we support the Commission’s effort to safeguard citizens from illegal content online and will continue to advocate for rules that maintain a well-functioning, competitive online ecosystem. We look forward to discussing these and further aspects of today’s proposals with the European institutions in the coming weeks. We are committed to serving as a useful resource to all stakeholders involved in the process.”

But ITI did not like the designation of "gatekeeper," which it found pejorative. "There should be no negative implication attached by default to companies designated as gatekeeper under the DMA criteria," it said, adding that it was not appropriate for the legislation "to label the designated companies with an inherently negative definition. This designation is only a prerequisite to attach more stringent obligations to platforms that play a systemic role in a market. Talking about a 'provider of core platform services' would be, for example, more appropriate."

The Digital Entertainment Group, a trade entity that used to count and tout the amount of VHS tapes rented at places like Blockbuster Video, and later, the number of DVDs peddled at outlets like Walmart, believes SVOD services like Netflix and Disney+ fall into the “home entertainment” bucket, too. 

And if you look at it that way, business is a-boomin'. 

According to the DEG, U.S. consumers spent around $25.2 billion on home entertainment in 2019, defined the the DEG way, with $15.9 billion of that revenue, 63%, derived by subscription video on demand. The SVOD tally represented a 23.7% uptick from 2018. Overall, home entertainment was up 8.4% year over year, the group said.  

Green shoots also include the digital “transactional” business — that is, movie sales through outlets like Google Play, Amazon, Vudo, Fandango, etc. Sales there were up 5.1% to $2.6 billion. The Disney/Marvel comic book movie Avengers: Endgame was the top-selling home entertainment movie title last year, DEG said. 

Not surprisingly, physical media continues to decline — sales of movies and TV shows on DVD and Blu-ray declined 18.2%, to $3.29 billion.

So, are subscription video-on-demand platforms like HBO Now and Showtime OTT really “home entertainment,” and not extensions of the traditional broadcast and TV businesses? In this new era of digital consumption, categories are being redefined, and DEG is claiming the growth area of SVOD as a key contributor to the home entertainment bucket. 

ABC News has promoted Colby Smith to SVP, content and partnerships, where he’ll oversee the development of the news division across all emerging platforms, spanning editorial, product and audience development, as well as partnerships, distribution and marketing.

In that role, he’ll also work across the organization to identify and develop original programming opportunities for non-linear platforms and new digital video services, James Goldston, president of ABC News, said in the announcement.

Smith previously was VP of ABC News Digital.

Smith’s new, expanded role also follows a recent, digitally-focused partnership between ABC News and Roku that will see the free, ad-based The Roku Channel serve as an OTT launch destination for ABC News Live, a new 24/7 live linear news stream from ABC News. It also follows a hookup between ABC News and FiveThirtyEight tied to political coverage.

RELATED: The Roku Channel Tunes in Live and Linear News

Among other digital efforts, Goldston noted that ABC News has launched an app on Amazon Fire TV and hinted at an augmented reality capability that’s coming to ABC News’s iOS app. 

Almost 60% of the digital ad budgets of marketers are allocated to video, and more than half of buyers plan to increase digital and mobile video spending over the next year, according to a new study from the Interactive Ad Bureau.  

Per the Digital Content NewFronts: 2018 Video Ad Spend Study, advertisers are poised to raise spending on digital video and mobile by 53% compared to two years ago, to an average of more than $10 million annually.  

Of that spend, there’s a growing emphasis on original digital video programming, with the vast majority (more than 8 in 10) agreeing that the category is an essential part of their media buy. The biggest drivers there are quality of programming (45%), attractive costs/CPMs (40%), and effective audience reach and quality of environment (38% each).   

About half of buyers plan to spend more on social video advertising in the next 12 months. 

The study’s findings are based on an online survey of 353 marketer and agency execs conducted from March 6-16. To qualify, those execs had to be involved in digital video ad decision-making at a company responsible for $1 million-plus total ad spend in 2017.  

“Marketers’ commitment to digital video—especially original digital video—has been skyrocketing over the past few years,” Anna Bager, executive vice president, industry initiatives, IAB, said in a statement. “These findings reflect consumers’ enthusiasm for the dynamic storytelling which original video programming delivers in spades, and the power of the medium to deliver strong ROI. There is no question that we will see buyers out in full force throughout this week’s NewFronts presentations, as they look to invest more and more of their budgets in the latest original digital video programming opportunities.” 

The study also found that 83% of advertisers believe that cross-platform measurement has improved versus a year ago, and that 44% of advertisers had strong interest in buying interactive ads on connected TVs.  

“Today, data needs to be extremely specific and clean — vetted, collected and shared in a privacy-conscious and ethical manner.” —Allison Metcalfe, LiveRamp

The TV industry has been struggling to bridge the gap between traditional linear TV and digital channels. On one hand, traditional linear TV has grappled with cross-device viewership, loss of perceived value compared to digital slow-to-measure campaign reporting, and an ongoing battle against the immediacy of digital. There’s also the growing number of cord-cutters that threaten its very existence.

On the other hand, there is digital, a leading medium for content consumption, but not devoid of its own challenges — fraud, transparency and flawed last-click attribution among them. To say the industry is at a crossroads would be an understatement. Brands often react prematurely by de-prioritizing television, or they try to simply swap dollars and strategies between TV and digital, which underscores the massive convergence between the two.

That’s where advanced TV comes in.

The era of advanced TV means that TV and digital are no longer mutually exclusive. Further, advanced TV is seemingly the best of both worlds. In theory, better data and technology will enable TV to not only regain its rightful position in the marketing ecosystem, but it should actually help the medium grow.

Solving for the Data Equation

In 2017, transparency became table stakes; That is, it was universally demanded by consumers. As a result, brand reputation emerged as a key concern for advertisers and marketers hoping to foster long-term trust and loyalty. Advertisers now need to be able to understand the sourcing and methodology of a target segment to ensure that it is compliant with relevant laws and best practices; and they need to put up proverbial “guardrails” with regard to data quality, which is no easy feat, given the proliferation of third-party data flooding the marketplace. There is no single-source currency, and many data sets are anonymous or come from digital, which means they must be modeled prior to use for targeting or measurement in TV, which is subject to different governmental regulations and consumer expectations.

Today, data needs to be extremely specific and clean — vetted, collected and shared in a privacy-conscious and ethical manner. Access to clean, proven data is the first challenge that the industry is working to address as TV advertising evolves.

Digital and TV: Working Together

The second challenge is clearly outlining the similarities and differences that exist between the TV and digital ecosystems. By doing this, brands and marketers will be able to solve current growing pains related to tracking viewership and cross-screen strategies. Informed with these critical considerations, marketers can begin to quickly and effectively implement identity solutions to make smarter targeting decisions that deliver measurable impact. And although change can be uncomfortable, multichannel video programming distributors, programmers, agencies and brands can all agree on one thing: the fundamental need to follow viewers wherever they consume content. Industry stakeholders — even competitors — are also united by the desire to be “customer obsessed.”

Taking a step back, when advertising budgets are reallocated, TV is typically first on the chopping block. That is because marketers believe they can reinvest those dollars into digital for a greater return-on-ad-spend (ROAS), whether that’s reach, impressions, etc. By the end of last year, headlines screamed about digital finally surpassing TV for the first time. To put this in context: there are tens of thousands of digital advertisers, and a significant amount of impressions are still fraudulent. By point of contrast, the TV ecosystem is underwritten by a few hundred national advertisers, and while there are issues such as skipability and declining viewership, there is no fraud.

The true value of bringing data and technology to TV is better targeting and measurement. Thus, there will be growth within the TV ecosystem itself. It’s about using the best of digital to the benefit of the TV market.

Issues With Fragmentation

The last hurdle to clear is fragmentation, which has proven particularly cumbersome following the rise of cable. It continues to be problematic today as connected/over-the-top (OTT) solutions amplify the issue.

Inevitably, certain players want to create their own Customer Data Platforms, and in the process we risk a future with high walled gardens in addressable TV, akin to what we have in digital.

Some of the discomfort in today’s data-driven TV ecosystem stems from the fact that key players have led measurement standardization to date. Many assume that a shift in measurement and the implementation of more identity solutions in addressable TV metrics needs to be all encompassing.

Resolving the Identity “Crisis”

Layering identity resolution in advanced TV empowers marketers to target individuals or households, in much deeper, relevant and more nuanced ways for a holistic view across the ecosystem.

Connected TV is a cookie-less environment with no device ID, and linear TV is often only able to target at the household level. That’s where people-based measurement fits into the picture.

People-based marketing in the TV ecosystem gives marketers the power to track and tie consistent, anonymous IDs across an entire marketing campaign. For example, a target segment can be built for a digital campaign on desktop and mobile, and then analyzed to show the lift digital had on TV, and the loop that TV advertising closed for digital.

It will be imperative that marketers apply learnings across both channels in order to understand the inherent opportunity and how that will impact ROAS.

Meeting in the Middle

The reality is that change will be steady, and that the market will ultimately reach a state of equilibrium. In the meantime, we need to allow and account for market maturation, and give data-driven TV strategies time to gain adoption, while proactively seeking new technologies and solutions that allow TV to evolve on its own.

Allison Metcalfe is general manager of TV for LiveRamp, an identity resolution provider specializing in people-based marketing.

Las Vegas -- Speed and agility are hallmarks of any over-the-top video service, but striking a balance between full independence and a collaborative relationship with CBS News have also served as key tenets at CBSN, the digital, 24/7 news service launched in 2014.

CBSN is, at its core, a digital, over-the-top news service that features live feeds and covers breaking news alongside on-demand access to past news stories. In addition to being available as a free, ad-based standalone offering via apps for mobile and TV-connected devices, it is also offered via CBS All Access, CBS’s subscription-based streaming product.

“We’re set up to take advantage of the fact that it’s a digital stream,” Christy Tanner, executive vice president and general manager at CBS News Digital, said here Tuesday in a keynote conversation with Will Richmond, editor and publisher of VideoNuze.

CBSN, which is expanding into Canada, emerged as a dedicated digital property in part because CBS saw a market need for it, but also because CBS did not have a full-time cable news outlet.

“That was freeing in a way to start something new,” Tanner said, noting that CBSN didn’t have to worry about cannibalizing a 24/7 cable news outlet. Launching the service was “a bet we could take that was relatively low risk,” she added.

However, CBSN pays its own way. “We can more than support ourselves in this [digital] space,” Tanner explained.

CBSN operates separately from CBS’s broadcast TV news organization, but, in a collaborative twist, the digital entity will, on occasion, produce elements for the TV side of the house. A guest on CBS This Morning, for example, might appear for two minutes, and then head over to CBSN for a 10-minute segment on the same topic.

“We like to go a little deeper sometimes,” Tanner said, noting that those segments do end up getting some play on the CBS Evening News.

“We do coordinate extensively with all the [CBS] shows,” including 60 Minutes, she said.

“For the most part, what we have is a new model for a news organization,” Tanner said. “It our shop, everyone’s digital…we’re all intertwined. That’s how the future news organization will be structured.”

And that structure will continue to evolve. The CBSN news operation “will be a lot different two years from now,” she predicted.

CBSN’s demo tends to skew younger, with an average age of 38, than CBS News, whose audience is 20 years older, on average.

“We certainly do see cord-cutters tuning in,” Tanner said.

Though the situation can change on the time of the day or the day of the week, about 50% of CBSN streams come way of TV-connected devices like streaming players, smart TVs and gaming consoles, with 20% coming from mobile devices, and 30% from desktops/PCs.

In addition to getting usage on its own apps via those platforms, CBSN is also getting some traction with Xumo and Pluto TV, two ad-based streaming services that aggregate content into digital “channels” via a wide range of sources, including CBSN.

CBSN, so far, has not focused on carriage with virtual MVPDs [multichannel video programing distributors] such as Sling TV and DirecTV Now, but is not necessarily closing the door on that form of distribution. In fact, carriage of CBSN tied into a broader distribution agreement between CBS and fuboTV, an OTT TV service, that was announced last year.

RELATED: CBSN to Launch on CBS All Access, fuboTV

“We’re talking to everybody,” Tanner said.

CBSN, she said, has strived to remain non-partisan with respect to the political landscape.

“We made a conscious choice to be based on fact, not opinion…and knowledge, not debate,” Tanner said.

As for the future, Tanner said CBSN is getting pitched hard to integrate its service with voice-based navigation and search platforms.

“It’s a huge opportunity, as we are both video and audio news service, but it raises a lot of questions about how to choose from results…I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in this space.”

CBSN, as a standalone app, will remain a free, ad-supported service (CBS All Access, the paid OTT service, includes CBSN as an added benefit). CBSN is also available to local affiliates to embed the service into their own digital properties.

“We’ll see how it evolves,” Tanner said of the service’s business model, adding that CBSN does think about what kind of content that consumers would pay for. “But right now we’re providing so much value [with] breaking news that you don’t want to put a pay wall in front of that.” 

Cable MSOs sit in one of the more disrupted spots in the communications industry. By disrupted, we mean the easily changeable nature of customer loyalty, as consumers react to a less-than-perfect experience and the growing influence of other communications entities trying to acquire those customers. 

Consumers these days are increasingly willing to cut the cord and migrate to less-expensive streaming alternatives such as Roku, Google Chromecast and Apple TV. Leichtman Research Group data shows the clear reason why. An annual survey of TV households shows the average cable bill rose about 39% from 2011 to 2015, which is almost eight times the rate of inflation. The most recent cable bill average is now over $103 per month, with zero chance of that price remaining flat going into the next year.

Threats on Multiple Fronts

Bill sticker shock notwithstanding, cable providers must now face the new challenge of the eventual introduction of 5G networks delivering Gigabit performance, new fixed wireless access options and yet another unique ability to create a bundled offering that displaces the cable provider completely. Can you blame a customer with a high bill for looking at other options, especially from companies that can bundle services together just as well?

Cable MSOs have thus been forced to reshape their businesses, with much of that coming in the form of a complete digital transformation of infrastructure, and processes that help meet the expectations of consumers and business customers. Today’s cable networks have brought broadband access to households that now have become accustomed to HD and 4K video services and internet speeds of 100 Megabits per second-plus. Over the next few years, we can expect further digital transformation in the form of hybrid networks that provide higher capacity, less risk of delay or latency, lower power consumption and hopefully the ability to satisfy the end users’ demand for service at a price point that doesn’t increase the rate of cord-cutting.

With demand for internet bandwidth continuing to grow at more than 20% per year thanks to video streaming, enterprise cloud computing, big data, social media and mobile data delivery, meeting these demands must be cost-efficient, energy-efficient and reliable.

As we watch top-tier cable providers invest in fiber-to-the-home deployments, cable’s traditional fiber-coaxial networks will still provide the anchor points for service evolution and transformation, and will still have the capability to roll out new services, as ongoing investment has already been able to deliver more bandwidth.

Ongoing investments in the Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) and DOCSIS 3.1 have benefited the customer, with bandwidth performance metrics showing upwards of 10 Gbps downstream and 1 Gbps upstream. The embrace of CCAP has the transformative effect of increasing business agility, forging a smaller footprint, and creating lower power consumption and more IP video capability, giving the user more capabilities and enhanced security — all of which should help reduce total cost of ownership as a whole.

As SDN/NFV (software-defined networking/network functions virtualization) becomes a greater influence on the cable provider, one cannot discount the existing expectations and needs for what will be a hybrid network environment in the short to medium term. Cable providers will thus have physical and virtual functionality evolving in parallel. This, along with investments in remote PHY, which supports both FTTx (fiber to the x) and SDN/NFV initiatives, all contribute to the digital transformation around an IP network between the core and the node. The move to a virtualized, software-based architecture can help deliver network optimization, increase agility and create new opportunities for MSOs. However, any cable operator planning to reap the benefits from NFV and SDN must shift its focus from technology to business, and ensure all business support systems are up to the task. As a wise man once said, if you can’t bill for it, it’s a charity.

Virtualization Hits Home

Network-level virtualization will also transfer to the home, as we already see services move from a physical set-top box environment to an eventual virtual one. The $400-plus set-top box with a hard drive is set to be replaced by a cloud-based DVR that sources not just content, but applications such as program guides and DVR as cloud-based functions.

Cable MSOs will no longer be limited by the functionality of a dedicated set-top box and will make gains from much faster time to market for new products and services offered both from within and outside the cable provider. How about that customer call requiring a $100-plus truck roll to correct an issue that may or may not exist? It can likely be mitigated by a remote software update. What about replacing that $400 set-top box every three years or so? Virtual CPE means a $50 dumb box in the home can extract value from the cloud and be easily updated and configured on the fly and extends the life of home-based equipment. Analytics can also now be embedded in the cloud for easier data management and decision-making.

Can we calculate a long-term price for all of this digital transformation? For the cable provider, it means more innovation, faster delivery of new digital services and a much “stickier” service environment to demonstrate to the customer that all this innovation is actually worth paying for. That translates to retention.

And let’s face it: If cable bills aren’t going down any time soon, creating a product and service advantage will be a paramount requirement for the industry in the coming years.

Paul Hughes is director of strategy at Netcracker Technology.

Cinedigm, a company that specializes in digital distribution of films and TV series to platforms and services such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple iTunes, said it has completed an $18 million expanded line of credit financing with East West Bank.

Cinedigm, which also works with MVPDs such as Comcast, Dish Network and AT&T/DirecTV, said it will tap into that line of credit for a range of purposes, including the acquisition and/or distribution of content, the payment of interest and fees, working capital needs and general corporate purposes, and repayment of the company’s existing revolving credit facility.

The new credit facility has a maturity date of March 31, 2020 which may be extended for two successive periods of one year each at the sole discretion of East West Bank, so long as certain conditions are met, Cinedigm said.

The new line of credit also comes a few months after Hong Kong-based Bison Capital acquired the majority of Cinedigm’s outstanding Class A Common Stock.

“We are pleased to have closed this expanded credit facility, further strengthening our balance sheet and adding working capital to support our key business initiatives,” Chris McGurk, Cinedigm’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement.

“The completion of this new and expanded $19 million credit facility with East West Bank is particularly timely and important given our new content distribution and OTT channel initiatives in China and the U.S. spurred by the recent majority investment in Cinedigm by Bison Capital, a leading Chinese investment company,” added Cinedigm CFO Jeffrey Edell. 

Patty Hirsch has been named SVP and GM of Warner Bros. Digital Labs (WBDL) and head up a team that powers Warner Bros. Digital Networks’s portfolio of digital offerings.

Hirsch will also oversee DramaFever, an OTT-delivered, subscription service focused on TV shows and movies from Korea and romantic comedies. Warner Bros. acquired DramaFever in 2016.

She’ll work with Seung Bak, current head of Warner Bros. Digital Labs and CEO of DramaFever, on a multi-week transition plan, after which Bak will leave the company to pursue entrepreneurial projects, the company said.

Hirsch is based in New York and reports to Jay Levine, executive vice president of WBDN.

Prior to joining WBDN, Hirsch was an exec focused on multi-platform digital offerings, including SVP, digital for Time Inc., and GM of its Sports Group. She is also late of CBS Interactive, where she was VP & GM digital media, and was with Muze (now part of TiVo/Rovi), Synacor and Charter Communications.

She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Colorado.

“I am thrilled that Patty is joining the fast-growing Warner Bros. Digital Networks family,” Craig Hunegs, president, WBDN, and president, business and strategy, Warner Bros. Television Group, in a statement. “Along with her wealth of knowledge, Patty brings to Warner Bros. Digital Labs a passion for, and commitment to, innovating through technology that will help take this group to new levels of success.”

FandangoNow, Fandango’s digital movie rental and sell-through service, has completed an integration with Movies Anywhere, the Disney-owned service that uses the KeyChest digital rights system.

With the digital tie-in, FandangoNow customers can use the Movies Anywhere platform, including apps and the web site, to access and view movies from studio partners that include Walt Disney Studios (including Disney, Pixar, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm), Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Universal Pictures (including DreamWorks and Illumination Entertainment), and Warner Bros.

Movies Anywhere estimates that its library holds nearly 7,500 digital movies, including the just-released Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Tied to that release, Movies Anywhere has added several profile picture options that, for example, let users pick from the Rebel Alliance Starbird, Stormtrooper or the First Order emblem.

Movies Anywhere supports several platforms, including Amazon Fire devices, Android and Android TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, iOS, Roku and web browsers.

RELATED: M-Go to Become FandangoNOW

FandangoNow joins a growing group of digital retailers that support Movies Anywhere, including Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Apple’s iTunes and Walmart-owned Vudu.

RELATED: NBCU’s Fandango Acquires  M-GO

“We are thrilled to welcome FandangoNOW, a go-to online destination for movie fans, as our newest digital retailer,” Karin Gilford, GM, Movies Anywhere, said in a statement. “Movies Anywhere is rapidly revolutionizing the way that consumers access and enjoy their digital movie collections. The app has been used to store over 100 million movies to date.”

FloSports, a subscription-based OTT service dedicated to sports such as wrestling, swimming,  volleyball, cycling, gymnastics, and softball, has inked a deal with Big Ten Network (BTN) that gives it the distribution rights to more than 1,000 non-televised BTN events.

Events tied to the FloSports deal, which include basketball and ice hockey games, exclusive to BTN Plus, a service that costs $119.95 per year or $14.95 for a “Conference Pass” and less for offerings that are tied to individual schools in the conference. Following the new deal with FloSports, BTN Plus will continue to be available within BTN2Go, the 24/7 online video stream of the Big Ten Network, with no charge to current subs.

Related: OTT Players Could Change Television’s Sports Game [subscription required]

FloSports will offer BTN events on sport-specific subscription channels such as FloWrestling, FloTrack and FloVolleyball.

“We’re excited to partner with the Big Ten Network, as they bring incredible student-athletes and events to our die-hard community of sports fans,” FloSports co-founder and CEO Martin Floreani said, in a statement. We look forward to building up these event properties to bring more value to the events, athletes, and fans.”

Launched in 2006, FloSports landed a $21 million B round last fall, with Discovery Communications and WWE among the contributors. FloSports surpassed 150,000 subscribers following a record Q1 2017.

“Our subscriptions are really driven by the growing fan base of the individual sports that we’re in. Each sport gives us a different view, but when you add them all together, we’re creating a massive global audience of highly passionate and engaged fans,” Floreani said in an interview (subscription required) earlier this year.

Wicket Labs, a startup that is run by execs who are late of thePlatform, has raised a $2 million round of seed financing and has introduced a data-driven “Scorecard” product that can help OTT providers and other direct-to-consumer digital media companies keep tabs on key areas such as engagement, churn and customer-acquisition costs.

Wicket Labs said Madrona Venture Group, Divergent Ventures and undisclosed angel investors joined the $2 million round. It also announced the appointment of new members to its advisory board -- Krishan Bhatia, EVP of business operations and strategy for NBCUniversal’s ad sales unit; Dustin Hillard, CTO of Versive, a machine learning company based in Seattle; and Mike Berkley, previously SVP of product management for Viacom.

RELATED: Startup Brings Vision to Video Cloud’s ‘Blind Spot’

In tandem with its partners, Wicket Labs’s new Scorecard product is designed to obtain data from various sources that are traditionally housed in separate silos and aggregate,  analyze and normalize that information into a form that can help to drive decisions that can aid with engagement, customer acquisition, conversion rates, and churn.

That combined and analyzed data can provide key predictive information about customers and audiences, Marty Roberts, CEO of Wicket Labs, explained.

RELATED: Learn More at the TV Data Summit, part of #NYCTVWK

Roberts co-founded WicketLabs with chief strategy officer Ian Blaine, who also started thePlatform, the online video publishing company that Comcast acquired in 2006. Roberts joined thePlatform that year and eventually rose to co-CEO before departing in 2015.

Roberts said the data is particularly helpful to publishers who are transitioning from print to digital as well as a growing array of OTT video services, including authenticated TV Everywhere offerings from MVPDs and programmers, that continue to chip away at viewership of traditional TV.

Rather than relying on their gut feelings, data will help them make decisions and get a better fix on their audience, and how customers are coming through the door (i.e. through social media, digital ads, search, email) and get a better sense of their company’s value, Roberts said.

“They are all learning a new vocabulary,” he added.

Fred Graver, an industry vet who was a key in building Twitter’s TV business, has been named SVP, digital content and social for Discovery Digital.

In that role, Graver will  oversee the digital network teams across Discovery’s U.S. portfolio to extend the brand’s reach across all digital media platforms, the company said. He’ll report to Karen Leever, executive vice president/general manager, digital media at Discovery Communications, and be based in Discovery’s New York office.

RELATED: Next TV Summit: Twitter's Fred Graver: 'We Know The TV Business'

Graver most recently was global head of TV for Twitter, forming and managing programs across Canada, Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany.  In that role, he also created a global engagement strategies for The Voice and Big Brother.  He is also an exec late of Travel Channel and MTV Networks and is interactive board member for the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and a board member for the Writer’s Guild Foundation. 

"I am thrilled to have Fred join the Discovery Digital team," Leever said in a statement. "He brings with him a wealth of experience and a passion for the Discovery brands. As a creative visionary, he is perfectly suited to drive our networks' digital and social strategies forward as we continue to pursue our goal of creating iconic Discovery content for audiences across all platforms."

“The Discovery brands speak directly to every meaningful group on the internet, through authentic, real, and hugely entertaining programming,” added Graver. “The creative teams here are the best in the business, both on air and on digital, and I look forward to working with them. It will be a thrill and a challenge to drive new audiences on every platform and device.”

The infographic (pictured) from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism is intuitive and simplistic. You can easily see that older people prefer TV news, while young audiences go for online and social media. No surprise there.

But it's misleading!

True, the "Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017" (unveiled this week) confirms that the screens-of-preference for younger audiences are mobile and dynamic. But identifying the platform does not necessarily tell you the source of the news. Consumers may look at an online or social media site to find reporting from established journalism sources (e.g., CNN, The New York Times, Fox News Channel) or just as easily from ersatz self-proclaimed bloggers or alt-news sources. The 136-page report delves more deeply into the distinction between the reception platforms and the actual content of the news.

The Reuters Institute, which conducted the global research (30 countries on five continents) with the University of Oxford, acknowledges that the findings are "a reminder that the digital revolution is full of contradictions and exceptions."

The results are also a roadmap (however ephemeral) toward future news consumption patterns, quantifying current usage patterns and offering eye-opening ideas for media providers about where to focus for future news packaging. The findings raise questions, such as whether today's 18-to-24 year-olds (only 24% of whom now consider TV as a primary news source) will migrate to TV sets by the time they are 55+ years old. (Doubtful.)

And the study's structure forces us to consider whether "online" and "social media" platforms are truly distinct from one another. An argument can be made pro or con about their congruence. Again the big blur quickly arises, given the propensity of established media companies to put their scoops on their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts — often before they go on the air.

Dozens of other fascinating factoids emerge from Reuters' study. For example, despite the popularity of social media, only 24% of respondents think it does "a good job in separating fact from fiction." Actually that's not too far different from the 40% who question whether traditional news media performs that task very well.

Nonetheless, 51% of U.S. respondents said that they now get news via social media, up 4% from last year and twice as many as in 2013, according to the study. (If you click the above link into the full report, the U.S. data starts on page 102.)

Avoiding News
Among the most threatening findings in the Reuters analysis was that 29% of people say they sometimes or often avoid news altogether because it can have a negative effect on their moods. Those are serious concerns not only for building an informed electorate but for the news networks that have enjoyed, as Reuters calls it, "a very substantial Trump bump" during the past year -- a boomlet that could quickly evaporate.

Of similar concern for traditional platforms is the finding that smartphones are now as important for news access inside the home as outside, suggesting that media consumers don't need to turn on a TV set. The study even caught a glimmer of the role of voice-activated digital assistants (such as Amazon Echo) as a new platform for access to on-demand news. Again, this suggests that legacy news sources must explore ways to become apparent via this emerging platform.

One encouraging aspect of the Reuters' study is that more Americans "than ever before (16%)" are willing to pay for online news, a 7% increase from last year. It also cited last year's Pew Center study that technology platforms now "command nearly two-third of all digital advertising revenues." In its roster of top U.S. news brands, local TV stations, Fox News, CNN and NBC/MSNBC took most of the top spots, with more than 25% of viewers indicating that they go to those channels every week. Online, CNN (22%) and Fox News (20%) attracted more weekly visitors than The New York Times, local TV news online and the websites of local newspapers.

In its evaluation of brand attributes, Reuters found that 49% of Fox News viewers say it is best for "accurate and reliable news" compared with 32% who say the same of CNN. Similar comparisons of FNC and CNN viewers generated similar preferences among each network's audiences for "understanding complex issues," "strong viewpoints" and "amusing and entertaining."

Although the Reuters analysis is merely another snapshot of the flux in the digital news era, its findings offer significant direction for networks and information purveyors about what audiences expect.

CNN said it’s amplifying its technology coverage with the debut ofCNN Tech, billing it as a “multimedia digital destination” that’s focused on news and features about innovation, what’s new in Silicon Valley, and what else is going on in science and tech.

CNN Tech will feature multiple forms of content spanning text, video, “social-first storytelling,” interactive elements, a newsletter, events and podcasts. CNN said the new offering will also build on series such as Way Up There with Rachel Crane, Tech vs. Taboos, and CNNgo original Mostly Human with Laurie Segall.

CNN said the launch means it’s pivoting from tech as a beat to a standalone business that aligns with other focused news initiatives such as CNN  Politics, CNNMoney and CNN Style.

The CNN Tech site will be led by executive editor Sam Grobart, who joined CNN from Bloomberg Businessweek in March.

"Those three pillars—the business of tech, innovations and scientific breakthroughs, and our relationship to it all—will form a strong, distinct base from which our talented writers, editors and producers can take advantage of CNN's unparalleled reach and ability to tell the stories that people want and need to hear,” Grobart said in a statement.

"This is the first step in an ongoing journey. CNN is as committed to CNN Tech as we were about CNN Politics beginning in 2014,” added Ed O’Keefe, SVP of premium digital content at CNN. “We have aggressive plans in the months to come to hire the top talent in tech, iterate on our site, and produce some of the most original, boundary-pushing video in the industry.  Stay tuned."

Over-the-top subscription video-on-demand services are a black box in the sense that they don’t release viewership metrics, but new proprietary data analysis from Parrot Analytics attempts to penetrate the sector and peer at what lurks inside.

What Parrot found in the first quarter of 2017 is that, for the first time, a non-Netflix show was the most popular digital original series around the globe, as Amazon Video’s The Grand Tour — featuring the former BBC Top Gear trio of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May — took the top spot in five out of 10 markets, including the United Kingdom.

Netflix’s Stranger Things was the top digital original in the U.S. in that period, but the surprise was that the announcement of the series’ season two release date, set for October 31, caused an average spike in demand of 262% in all ten global markets covered, Parrot Analytics found in latest quarterly Global Demand Report.

In the U.S., other events caused spikes in popularity in certain shows. Amazon’s Goliath, for example, got a lift in January when it won a Golden Globe, and Netflix’s Grace and Frankie ticked up when season three was released on March 24.

Season two of Hulu’s The Path premiered on Jan. 25, with episodes doled out weekly until April 12. Though that strategy didn’t follow digital’s typical binge-viewing model, The Path still saw demand rise under this more linear TV-like release schedule, the research firm said.

Among other regional examples, The Grand Tour, Stranger Things and Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle were the top digital original series during Q1 in the U.K. In France, three Netflix titles — Orange Is the New Black, Black Mirror and Stranger Things — led the way, while The Grand Tour, Stranger Things and Marvel’s Luke Cage were the top trio in Japan.

To determine that popularity, in the absence of hard usage data from each OTT service, Parrot Analytics bases its findings on what it calls Average Demand Expressions, relying on a platform that collects consumer demand data from several sources, including video streaming-media and social-media platforms, photo-sharing platforms, fan and critics’ ratings systems, as well as file-sharing platforms. Once that data is captured, Parrot Analytics combines it using an artificial intelligence system that pumps out a single measure of demand.

Though original titles from Netflix, Amazon Video and Hulu tend to rise to the top of the demand heap, Parrot Analytics also monitors demand for content from other sources, including YouTube Red (YouTube’s SVOD service), Crackle (Sony’s ad-based VOD service), and Seeso (NBCU’s comedy-focused SVOD).

Jordan Levin has been named  CEO of Awesomeness, the digital content J.V. focused on younger audiences that is now operated by NBCUniversal, Hearst and Verizon Communications.

Levin, most recently the chief content officer of the National Football League, replaces Brian Robbins, an AwesomenessTV co-founder who exited the company in February.

RELATED: Jordan Levin Joins NFL as Chief Content Officer

According to multiple reports, Jeff Shell, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, announced the hiring of Levin this week in a memo, noting that Levin will work alongside Awesomeness president Brett Bouttier to oversee a portfolio that includes AwesomenessTV, Awesomeness Films, DreamWorksTV, Awestruck and the recently announced Awesomeness News.

“Jordan is currently transitioning out of his role at the NFL and will begin at Awesomeness on May 30,” Shell wrote.

Levin, a founding exec of The WB Television Network, previously was  EVP and GM of Xbox Entertainment Studios, a founder of cross-platform studio/talent firm Generate (now part of Defy Media), and previously worked with Shell at the Walt Disney Company.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer  Studios has hired Sam Toles to the new post of SVP, digital and new platforms, where he’ll head up efforts around digital native and short-form content development and distribution.

Toles will report to Kevin Conroy, MGM’s president, digital & new platforms and will be based in Los Angeles.  Toles will also be tasked with using MGM’s existing intellectual property and creating new IP, working with theatrical, scripted, unscripted and distribution teams, that can be offered on new digital platforms.

Toles most recently was SVP/GM of Vimeo’s Entertainment Group, where he helped with the launch of Vimeo’s first slate of original programming including HBO’sHigh Maintenance, the Emmy-nominatedGarfunkel and Oats: Trying to be Specialand the Oscar-nominated animated shortPear Cider and Cigarettes. 

Toles’ career started in theatrical marketing at New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers, followed by home entertainment marketing roles at Paramount Pictures and Rhino. He then joined Fremantle Media as VP of business development, overseeing media licensing for their extensive stable brands includingAmerican Idol,America’s Got TalentandThe Price Is Right. Toles also served as VP of content strategy for Gaiam, which distributes a digital SVOD service.

“Sam’s experience in digital media will accelerate our efforts in developing and creating compelling new content for today’s digital platforms, and will help to shape our company’s strategy as new platforms emerge,” said Conroy, in a statement.

“I am so glad we could attract Sam to join MGM. He is an innovative thinker and has his finger on the pulse of what’s next. We’re all about what’s next,” added Mark Burnett, MGM’s president, television group & digital. 

Nat Geo Wild and Mashable have inked a deal to co-product and co-distribute two original series for their respective digital and social platforms. 

They partnership will “revive vintage National Geographic footage” from the Nat Geo archives and tap Mashable Studios’ expertise in producing digital-first series. 

The first series will look at how animals use tools in their natural habitats to survive, while the second will be a comedy that will combine Mashable’s “sense of internet humor” with archival Nat Geo fare. 

The digital series will be produced by Mashable Studios, and both series are slated to start production in early 2017. 

Related > Viewer Watch 2017: Download the Complete Report

With new business models proliferating almost as fast as new consumer-electronics devices at this year’s CES, TV executives are recalling 2016 as a year of landmark changes that will produce even more profound developments in 2017.

“In the last year, there has been more change in the video business than we saw in probably the past five years,” said Matthew Strauss, executive vice president and general manager of video and entertainment services for Comcast Cable. “We’re just continuing to find the competitive landscape shifting. There are more services being delivered over the top to consumers. There is the growth and proliferation of Internet-connected TV devices like Roku, Apple TV or Amazon Fire. And you are also seeing new services that are delivering bundled over the top channels like Sling TV, Sony’s PlayStation Vue and DirecTV Now.”

In response, programmers and operators have introduced a flurry of new products. “In terms of video, this has been one of the biggest for Cox in all the years I’ve been here,” Steve Necessary, executive vice president of product development and management at Cox Communications, said.

Less obviously, operators and programmers continue to make massive investments in their technology infrastructures with important implications for their offerings in 2017 and beyond.

“As a company, we are investing and positioning content to be consumed on more and more platforms every day,” Discovery Communications chief technology officer John Honeycutt said, stressing that the programmer is rapidly deploying new cloud and software-based infrastructures so it can adapt to consumer needs and quickly roll out new services. “We are in the middle of a revolution in our supply chain.”

Related: Old Controversies and New Businesses

DIGITAL-FIRST REALITY

Much of this reflects longstanding changes in consumer behavior and the underlying economics of the TV, digital and media industries.

Vincent Letang, executive vice president of global market intelligence at Magna, said 2016 was the first year digital advertising exceeded total TV advertising in the U.S., garnering 39% of the total ad spend versus 37.4% for TV. Digital advertising is set to exceed total TV advertising worldwide for the first time in 2017, he added.

“We are forecasting that in five years, digital will grow to 56.0% of total advertising [in 2021 in the U.S.] while TV will plateau at 29.9%,” he said. Meanwhile, content creators and distributors are following the flow of money into digital media, fueling rapid growth in consumption of TV shows on mobile devices, computers and TVs connected to the Internet.

“The cliché of how consumers ‘want my content when I want it, where I want it and how I want it,’ is now a truism,” Mike Vorhaus, president of Magid Advisors at Frank N. Magid Associates, said. “Just five years ago, it was hard to find a lot of content. But now, in 2017, I’m really the captain of my media ship in a way that was not true in the past.”

Given ongoing rapid growth in the usage of mobile and connected TVs, it is difficult to call digital video “mature.” But researchers stress that the tectonic changes in how video is consumed and delivered have already made digital media a central part of the TV business.

“After four or five years of talking about alternative ways to access video and watching significant growth in its usage, we are now at a point where it is pretty much established,” Howard Horowitz, president and founder of Horowitz Research, said. “It’s not a fly in the ointment, but part of the business. Digital self-managed access to video content is with us and mostly that is a good thing for all the players.”

DISRUPTIVE GAINS

Others agree. After ticking off a long list of new products and initiatives designed to realign their offerings with newer consumer behavior, Comcast’s Strauss said: “Our third-quarter video results were the best we’ve had in 10 years. We added 32,000 video customers, which is an 80,000 improvement year over year. And if you look at the last 12 months, we are video-positive.”

Some programmers have been buffeted by the changes, which have hurt ratings, but those that have aggressively moved to capitalize on the newer delivery platforms are pleased with the results.

Bernadette Aulestia, executive vice president of worldwide distribution for HBO, noted that the launch of the OTT service HBO Now has allowed the programmer to tap into new markets and see healthy growth in the overall business. “Less than 1% of [the OTT] HBO Now subscribers are coming from our linear multichannel subscribers,” she said.

Executives from Dish Network and AT&T cited similar experiences with their respective OTT channel bundles, Sling TV and DirecTV Now, which are designed in part to tap into viewers outside of the pay TV ecosystem.

“There are about 20 million households in the U.S. that are either not engaged with pay TV or have opted to leave the pay TV ecosystems,” Tony Goncalves, senior vice president of strategy and business development for AT&T Entertainment Group, said.

That doesn’t mean that the industry can sit back and pretend it will be business as usual in 2017.

An acceleration in the decline in pay TV subscribers has caused Magna to revise its estimates of pay TV subscribers downward. There is also a great deal of uncertainty about the ad market.

These trends raise important questions about the changing use of video on various platforms — traditional TV, mobile, Internet-connected TVs, set-top boxes and other technologies. How these trends will impact the health of the industry and the kind of products that get launched in 2017 is the subject of the next story.

Digital video ad spend will reach $9.59 billion by the end of 2016, showing unprecedented growth over the last year. We’re watching more video than ever – thanks to the proliferation of new platforms, but the smart money is betting on mobile. However, there is no shortage of innovation in the category. 

With that in mind, here are four predictions for digital video advertising in 2017. 

VR’s embrace – and the inevitable growing pains.

Consumer interest in virtual reality and 360-degree video has soared with sales of virtual reality devices expected to hit $1.1 billion in 2016 and $2.7 billion by 2020. VR global search interest, for example, grew four-fold year-over-year. And the world’s top technology companies – from Facebook to Google – have all made major investments in VR, fueling its adoption. With these developments, brands are finally beginning to consider VR and 360-degree video for advertising. They know that these types of immersive experiences can drive engagement unlike any other form of content. 

But as branded VR and 360-degree video scale in 2017, there will be serious barriers to success – particularly on the creative side. VR requires a completely new approach to branded storytelling, which means a new production infrastructure to manage content development, including advanced hardware and software. As a result, the video advertising workflow fundamentally changes – it becomes even more complicated and expensive. For branded VR and 360-degree video to stick, it will need to drive greater engagement to offset the additional investment. 

Vertical video adoption will drive up costs.

Snapchat exploded this year, threatening Facebook and YouTube with more than 10 billion daily video views. Its user base in the U.S. also grew by nearly 30%. That adoption, along with other platforms like Periscope, has conditioned consumers to accept vertical video at a scale never seen before. This has forced the advertising industry to rethink everything about mobile video – from formats to content. 

More publishers and platforms – such as Hearst and YouTube – are now offering vertical video support. And advertisers need to change how they think about content for video ads. After all, beyond adoption, vertical video ads are more engaging – with up to nine times more completed views, than horizontal video ads. But having to ideate and develop new content with completely new aspect ratios across many channels – social, mobile, OTT, VOD, web and more – only drives up costs. As mobile video spend increases in 2017, expect a large chunk of those dollars to go towards vertical video.

Managing video creative will be much harder.

Today, there is no such thing as a single-channel strategy, and there hasn’t been for roughly a decade. The customer journey spans multiple screens, formats and platforms. But with multi-channel campaigns now dominant, video has become the go-to asset for driving campaign engagement. In fact, advertisers’ video spend grew by 85% over the last two years. In addition to surging consumer viewership, video advertising simply performs better than most other ad formats.  

On the demand side, video ad content is at an all-time high, driven by advancements in programmatic buying, which have improved targeting for video-driven campaigns. Programmatic has also enabled ease across transacting video inventory. 

While this is great news, the explosion in growth raises a host of challenges for those managing creative assets. Video file types differ by channel – think linear TV versus YouTube versus OTT or on-demand – and regardless of format are usually large and unwieldy. Additionally, each of these files must be adapted to the specifications required at its destination. Logistically speaking, managing video assets and related metadata will only grow more difficult in 2017, as video advertising continues to expand.  

No surprise – viewability will be critical for ROI.  

As video advertising has ballooned, viewability has become one of the biggest measurement challenges for brands and marketers. Next year, this will play out most significantly in the mobile space. Confusion still exists around how viewable ad formats are across mobile web and in-app. 

Earlier this year, the MRC rolled out a first pass at guidelines around mobile viewability measurement, offering directions for both web and in-app environments. But those guidelines were largely based off of desktop approaches. Mobile is a different animal, with its own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, in-app ads are typically more viewable than desktop given how scrolling works across mobile screens. Next year, mobile viewability standards must evolve further to provide advertisers with even more reassurance – especially as spend on mobile video continues to skyrocket. More dollars means a demand for better insight and more transparency.   

As more advertisers recognize the importance and impact of reaching customers through digital video, switching over from traditional formats like TV, 2017 will be a critical year for the future of the channel.

--Ian Wheal is the global strategy director at Adstream 

Image source: Wikipedia 

New Form, an entertainment studio with an array of digital distribution deals under its wing, announced this week that it has raised a $18 million “B” round from ITV and Discovery Communications

ITV is taking a minority stake and forging a strategic partnership with New Form that will bring certain content properties from New  Form to the ITV Hub starting next year. Discovery is adding to its earlier investment in New Form.

Update: With the B round factored in, New Form has raised total funding of about $30 million, the company confirmed.

New Form said the new funds will be used to further invest in development and production model, expand internationally and invest in “social programming.”

New Form said it has produced 30 pilots and sold 20 of them since launching in 2014. Its existing distribution partners include CW’s The Seed, Refinery29, YouTube Red, Fullscreen and Go90, among others.

“This investment marks a significant validation of New Form’s focus and creative output over the last two years,” Kathleen Grace, New Form CEO,  said in a statement. “Our vision for storytelling, our understanding of the audience and our unique production process, coupled with our track record with finding like-minded distributors, has made us the most prolific studio in the business and we are thrilled to have ITV and Discovery as partners for New Form’s next chapter.”

New From said LionTree Advisors acted as exclusive financial advisor, and Stubbs Alderton & Markiles LLP acted as legal advisor on the deal. Squire Patton Boggs acted as legal advisor to ITV on the transaction.

Tech titans such as Amazon, Facebook and Google are redefining the digital video market. They are putting pressure on the future of the traditional media and entertainment (M&E) industry by pushing a new content aggregation and distribution model – “super platforms” - that deliver a wide array of digital services, backed by large user communities and large amounts of cash. 

Fueling this market disruption is the huge demand for digital video. The popularity of over-the-top (OTT) cannot be denied. More than 35% of North America Internet traffic during prime hours comes from Netflix. Nearly every week there is an announcement about a new service trying to carve out its own piece of the digital video pie. Just recently the NFL made a deal with Twitter to stream Thursday night NFL games online.

While these developments are great for consumers—less cost, more choice and convenience, and no iron-clad pay TV contacts—they threaten traditional content providers (TV and cable networks) and aggregators (cable and telco companies) who lack the infrastructure of a super platform. Without a viable digital play, these parties risk diluting their prominence and relevance to the modern viewer.

What can these providers and aggregators do? There is no one solution that fits all. It’s about applying the methodology that bests helps them leverage their strengths. A successful digital business model should have scale, monetization and personalization. That can mean building a direct business-to-consumer digital service from the ground up, or working with affiliate partners who are already have those digital and customer credentials in place, enhancing the editorial, quality of experience, and packaging capabilities of traditional M&E companies. The clock is ticking though.

Battle Plans

Despite the pressure from these new competitors, traditional M&E companies have some distinct advantages in editorial voice and market penetration that can serve them well in the digital realm. For content providers looking to go digital, there are four key strategies they can employ:

1. Work Across Digital Content Aggregators While Maintaining Affiliate Relationships

Content providers need to work with digital content aggregators to have some influence on how consumers experience their content on those platforms while benefiting from their scale and consumer relationships. It will be important to strike mutually beneficial relationships to target digital audiences while being flexible to diversify across a number of platforms to better match where the market is going.   This requires adding capabilities to provide marketing and advertising initiatives across multiple channels and the ability to quickly pivot based on which platforms provide the most value.

2. Move Fast

Speed of service is everything in digital. Turn to digital platforms that can handle multiple customer loads at scale and at a cost advantage, and agile, continuous delivery-based product engineering to allow new services to be rolled quickly.

3. Stay Close to the Consumer

Where possible, strike one-on-one relationships with consumers by leveraging available analytics tools to better cater to their needs while embedding those insights into every touchpoint the consumer engages with, even if provided by a digital platform. This is difficult for some M&E companies who have traditionally transacted over B2B relationships in the value chain – but a required capability for any B2C digital business.

4. Support Multiple Digital Models

No one digital business model will suffice. Be able to quickly launch, test and adjust multiple models that cover the wide variety of old and new customers coming aboard digital platforms of content aggregators and your own.

The strategies for aggregators that support the content distribution channel are somewhat different but still hit on the major themes of scalability, personalization and monetization; leveraging some advantages unique to them:

1. New Packaging Models

Content is the draw so repackage traditional content into appropriately priced bundles that offer targeted programming at affordable prices with optimized margins. Digital gives aggregators the luxury to test and adjust bundles to find the one that works the best.

2. Scaling Up

Aggregators need to maintain parity with super platforms that offer significant scale and service agility. They can do this by launching streaming services alongside their traditional distribution channels, or bundling different services from across their business, similar to a triple-play offer.

3. Leverage Consumer Insight, Maintain their Trust

Aggregators have a unique advantage in understanding customer behavior and preferences across numerous providers. They can use this insight to build stronger consumer relationships in the digital realm and use it as a draw to enable content providers to be profitable on their platforms. The key to maintaining this advantage is to put safeguards in place that protect privacy and security, two key concerns for digital consumers.

4. Leverage their Advantage in the Living Room

The living room is still a prized space to own in media. Aggregators have an advantage through consumer premise equipment – especially if it can provides numerous services, not just entertainment. Future opportunities lie in the Internet of Things and smart home initiatives. Aggregators should promote development tools and interfaces that produce innovations in these growth areas, creating relationships across numerous digital services providers, starting of course with media.

The battle for the digital content consumer continues to escalate, but traditional M&E brands are not down for the count. They can still compete or partner with newer, digital entrants if they invest in the appropriate capabilities that take advantage of and extend their current strengths and use those advantages to carve out their place in the digital market, capturing growth while driving profitability in their traditional business.

Youssef Tuma is a Managing Director and Global Lead for the Accenture Digital Video Business. He can be reached at  youssef.d.tuma@accenture.com.

In his opening keynote appearance at the inaugural LiveFronts, a streaming-centric conference organized by Brave Media, NBC Olympics executive producer Jim Bell said just 3% of viewing of the Rio Games last summer came via digital platforms.

The number "shocked" Bell.

"It simultaneously confused and pleased me," he said. "Like, 'We're still here. Linear!'"

Heading into Rio, Bell said he had expected the digital share to be more like 25%. Going forward, "It's definitely going to shift" toward digital. Nevertheless, on a revenue basis, the broadcast network still accounts for about 75% of all money the company makes on the Games, he added.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Michael Bishara, an industry vet who has played a key role in pay TV’s transition to streaming distribution and authenticated TV Everywhere services, is joining Discovery Communications as SVP and GM of OTT and digital syndication.

There, he’ll head up Discovery’s OTT initiatives as well as its digital businesses for VOD, -Download to Own, Home Video and Short-Form Video Syndication products, and help the programmer grow revenue and audience reach across its digital portfolio. He reports to Karen Leever, EVP & GM, Discovery Digital Media, and is based in Discovery’s New York office.

Discovery launched its TVE product late last year and recently extended access to the Roku platform.

Bishara most recently served as SVP, digital products and  GM, OTT and TV Everywhere for Synacor, a Buffalo, N.Y.-based company that specializes in authentication products and customized portals. He previously founded and was a managing member of Sentient Digital Consulting Group, a digital media consulting firm focused on TVE for the HBO/Disney brands in Canada and supporting the development and launch of HBO GO Canada. He is also late of HBO, where he served in several roles, including SVP, HBO GO Digital Group

“Michael is an accomplished executive whose ‘first in the industry’ experience with early iterations and evolutions of OTT products has provided him with an intimate knowledge of how to develop, launch and optimize a product,” Leever said, in a statement. “We’re thrilled to have him on the team, and are looking forward to engaging even more audiences with our award-winning content in the future.”

“Discovery Communications is uniquely positioned in digital with its strong portfolio of brands – and consumers’ deep engagement with them,” added Bishara. “I look forward to working with such an incredible team and am excited by the tremendous opportunity to extend these brands and deliver new experiences while simultaneously driving incremental revenue.”

Bishara has a B.A. in Sociology and an MBA in Marketing Management from State University of New York at Buffalo. 

Update: Synacor said Anand Subramanian is now leading product at the company. He joined Synacor following Synacor's acquisition of NimbleTV in January 2015.

Media company Wurl TV has partnered with IGN Entertainment to launch a new, video game-centric cable TV offering, IGN TV.

Programming centers around video game and entertainment news, with game reviews, movie and TV reviews, and IGN original programming, including eSports Weekly, Daily Fix, Up At Noon, and Game Scoop!

RELATED: Wurl Launches Batch of Streaming Channels

The agreement also includes an on-demand offering for IGN TV. IGN currently has more than 68 million monthly users on its site and apps, with 9 million subscribers on YouTube.

Read more at B&C.

Vimeo said Lionsgate is the first Hollywood studio to partner with the OTT specialist for the debut of a television store with global reach.

Vimeo said the new service is making high-end premium scripted U.S. content available in more than 150 countries, with Lionsgate on board to license and feature the bulk of its catalog of TV series, including Orange is the New Black, Casual, The Royals, and Mad Men, alongside catalog series and titles that include Weeds, Nurse Jackie, Boss, Blue Mountain State and Manhattan. 

Vimeo’s VHX OTT Platform Offers In-App Subscriptions

They said Lionsgate movie titles will be added to the Vimeo service for rental in the U.S. subsequent to launch.

Vimeo’s service is slated to launch on October 18 at the MIPCOM 2016 Global Market in Cannes, with kickoff ceremonies led by Jim Packer, Lionsgate president of worldwide television & digital distribution; and Sam Toles, Vimeo's head of global content acquisitions and Distribution Sam Toles.

"We're proud to launch Vimeo's first ever transaction-based global television store with Lionsgate's acclaimed television series," Barry Diller, chairman and senior executive of Vimeo parent company IAC, said in a statement. "Their television slate includes nearly 80 series on 40 different networks, and they are a great partner with whom to kick off a service that will bring premium scripted shows from the U.S. to our hundreds of millions of viewers around the world.  They are the first of many top Hollywood studios we expect to attract in the months to come."

"Our collaboration with Barry Diller and Vimeo is the latest example of our commitment to partner with world-class platforms to serve online, next generation consumers," added Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer.  "We're proud to be the exclusive launch partner of platforms such as Vimeo that are transforming the face of entertainment and bringing our content to consumers around the world through an expanding array of touchpoints."

Separately, Vimeo also launched a new membership plan for its core video hosting services,  Vimeo Business, that’s aimed at small- and mid-sized businesses, startups, and agencies.

Vimeo Business runs $599 per year, and includes lead-generation features, such as clickable calls-to-action and email capture forms in the embedded player and performance tracking and analytics.

Mediamorph, a provider of cloud-based rights management systems for programmers and video distributors, has closed a $21 million “C” round of funding led by Advance Vixeid Partners and by senior advisors to Lee Equity Partners that include former NBCU chairman and CEO Bob Wright and former USA Networks president and COO Barry Baker.

Mediamorph, which has raised a total of $43 million, said it will use the funding to expand its global reach and enhance its platform, which helps partners manage the financials and rights components of  video and integrate that info into the supply and distribution chain.

Along with the new funding, Mediamorph also announced the appointment of several new board members, including Nomi Bergman, president of Advance/Newhouse Partnership and the former president of Bright House Networks; Bob Greene, managing director, Liberty Global; and Baker.

Rob Gardos, Mediamorph’s CEO, said the C-round was oversubscribed, and that most of the company’s growth is coming from MVPDs and OTT players in the U.S. and abroad. 

Mediamoroph’s platform brings together rights and financial data in a way that helps its partners make informed decisions on how to track and further monetization their media assets.

“There’s so much content coming from different places and the rights are getting more and more complex,” Gardos said.

Recently added Mediamorph customers include Hulu, Millicom, Norway’s Altibox, and Discovery Networks. Other Mediamorph clients include Liberty Global, A&E Networks, AMC Networks, BBC Worldwide, CenturyLink, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Starz Media, Turner Networks, Warner Bros, and Viacom, among others.

Founded in 2007, Mediamorph is private and doesn’t disclose specific financials, including whether it's profitable, but Gardos said company revenues have grown 100% year-over-year.

“We’re experiencing a massive inflection in Media & Entertainment, where rapid change has made it critical for companies to deploy high-performance systems in order to survive and grow,” Bergman said, in a statement. “Mediamorph is a vital technology platform in this ecosystem and I am excited to provide additional industry insight and expertise.”

Looking to differentiate while broadening its relationship with content partners, Comcast has teed up its first slate of exclusive original content for “Watchable,” the free, ad-based OTT service introduced last fall.

Watchable’s new focus on exclusives is kicking off with three short-form, original series  from Refinery29, mitú and Cut.com. Another batch of six originals series from Cut.com, CollegeHumor, PopSugar, Studio71 and BuzzFeed Motion Pictures will be launched in the coming months (see list below for more details).

Adding exclusive content to the mix was a “natural” step for Watchable as it looked to differentiate while also deepening its relationship with content partners, Jamie Gillingham, vice president of strategic development at Comcast.  

Comcast isn’t disclosing the financial terms of its exclusive content arrangements for Watchable.

“The way we’ve been approaching it is that it’s about the idea first,” Craig Parks, VP of programming for Watchable, said, noting that Comcast was pitched on more than 400 concepts and ideas for its new exclusives initiative.

Watchable is currently available to all via mobile apps for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, Web browsers, as well as on the set-top for Comcast pay TV subs who are on the MSO's X1 platform.

Comcast also has not revealed a lot of user data for Watchable, but Gillingham noted that the average session time for Watchable on X1 is more than 30 minutes. Watchable’s traffic on mobile platforms have been growing at a rate of 40% per month thanks in part to Comcast-led promotions and those delivered through content partners.

Watchable currently offers about 350 shows and has roughly 60,000 videos under management, with most episodes in the four-to-nine minute range.

More about Watchable’s strategy around exclusive content will be featured in the Next TV section of the August 29 issue of Multichannel News.

The video below offers a snippet of three original series from Watchable that debut today: Ballin’ on a Budget; Cholos Try; and How to Human.

Watchable’s Exclusive Slate

Watchable is introducing three exclusive series today:

-Ballin’ on a Budget(Refinery29): Series features comedienne and rapper Awkwafina, who takes to the streets of New York to show viewers how to live the high life on a low budget.

-Cholos Try (mitú): This series from the digital-first media focused on young Latinos is a new, longer-form of the popular online series that follows four “Cholos” from East L.A “who go out of their comfort zone and immerse themselves in cultures and lifestyles across America.”

-How to Human (Cut.com): This part how-to/scripted comedy series takes irreverent look into the many ways people can improve our lives, with a focus on a young woman who is “learning the true meaning of ‘ failing forward.’”

Watchable will also premiere a handful of additional exclusives in the coming months:

-Knock Knock (PopSugar):  Series features fashion designer Rachel Antonoff taking the audience inside the homes, offices, dressing rooms, and other intimate spaces of people such as Saturday Night Live star Aidy Bryant, veterinarian Dr. Jan Pol, and designer Lisa Frank.

-I Want My Phone Back (CollegeHumor): An on-the-street game show series with host Alana Johnston and a cast of improvisers take to the streets of Los Angeles to see if contestants will put

their mobile devices in the hands of total strangers, for up to $1,000.

-100 Years of Beauty (Cut.com): Based off the YouTube series, Cut.com will present a new how-to makeup and hairstyling series that teaches viewers how to create contemporary looks inspired by celebrated historical figures such as Frida Kahlo, Billie Holiday, and Imelda Marcos.

-Logan Paul VS (Studio71): Features social media star Logan Paul as he takes on “potential life-threatening challenges,” including wrestling a bear, Navy Seal training, bull riding, and wilderness survival.

-Would You Rather (Cut.com): Series explores how one might pick between two difficult choices such as dealing with narcolepsy or insomnia, or having to survive an AI uprising or a Zombie Apocalypse.

-Am I Doing This Right? (BuzzFeed Motion Pictures): BuzzFeed star and comedienne Kelsey Darragh takes on the art of “adulting,” otherwise known as “growing up.” 

NBC Olympics said it will offer a temporary pass to consumers as NBCUniversal and its stable of networks prepare to deliver 4,500 hours of streaming coverage at NBCOlympics.com and via the NBC Sports app during the Summer Olympics from Rio.

Though full access to the TV Everywhere site and app will require MVPD credentials, NBC Olympics will provide a temporary pass that will offer 30 minutes of coverage prior to authentication on the first visit, and five minutes each subsequent day.

NBC Olympics noted that, for the first time, it will stream coverage of all nine NBCU Olympic networks (broadcast nets NBC and Telemundo; and cable channels Bravo, CNBC, Golf Channel, MSNBC, NBC Sports Network, NBC Universo, and USA Network). If a competition event is not televised by one of those networks, coverage from it will be streamed online through NBC Olympics’ utilization of the feeds provided by the host broadcaster, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS).

Connected TVs are also being added to the streaming mix, as NBC Olympics will support authenticated access on Amazon Fire TV devices, the Apple TV, Chromecast adapter, Roku platform and Win10.  All OBS streams will also provide video overlays that provide synchronized data for streaming on desktops, mobile devices and tablets.

NBC Olympics will produce two digital-only programs -- Gold Zone with hosts  Andrew Siciliano and Tanith White; and Daily Dismount, with White, Jonathan Horton and Courtney Kupets) – and a social-focused, short-form video series called Ever Wonder, with hosts Julie Donaldson and Jenna Corrado.

NBC Olympics noted that Streaming will bepowered by Playmaker Media, the live and on-demand streaming service recently launched by NBC Sports Digital, in partnership with Adobe, Akamai, Microsoft, iStreamPlanet, and Comcast Wholesale.

NBC Olympics is also providing some next-day coverage of the games in 4K, and will also mix in 85 hours of virtual reality coverage from the event.  

Part of the consumer appeal of Hollywood’s buy once, play anywhere Digital HD initiative is that studios often make new releases available for purchase digitally weeks before they’re available on DVD or Blu-ray Disc.

HBO Home Entertainment is taking that concept to the extreme with the latest season of Game of Thrones.

Season six of the hit show will be available for digital purchase on Aug. 1, three and a half months before HBO makes it available on disc. Digital HD is embraced by most of the major studios, with titles being enabled with UltraViolet. Disney remains the lone holdout, instead going with its own Disney Movies Anywhere initiative.

Read more at B&C.

Epix has hired Jonathan Dakss to the post of chief digital officer, where he’ll help the premium programmer expand its digital footprint.

Dakss reports to Rob Sussman, Epix’s GM and EVP of business operations and strategy, and will be based in New York City.

Dakss joins Epix from NBCUniversal, where he was VP of Media Labs, a tech innovation incubation division, and oversaw programs tied to virtual reality and 360-degree video, social TV and second-screen experiences. Prior to NBCU, Dakss started his own company, WatchPoint Media (sold to GoldPocket Interactive in 2003), based on technology he created at the MIT Media Lab. GoldPocket, an ITV pioneer, was sold to Tandberg Television (now part of Ericsson)  in 2005.

“Jonathan’s experience developing new revenue-generating products and business solutions at digital powerhouse NBCUniversal will be a great asset to the EPIX team,” Sussman said, in a statement. “We’re thrilled to have him join us to advance our leadership position and direct a digital team that has been at the forefront of TV Everywhere innovation, being the first cable network to launch on Xbox, PlayStation, Roku, and Android devices, as well as our recent launch of offline viewing on Android and iOS.”

“I’m excited to be working with EPIX, which has been a leader in digital development from its inception,” Dakss added. “The opportunity to build on the innovations that EPIX has introduced as the first network to launch across a number of different platforms is exciting and I look forward to expanding our products into the next generation of digital platforms and experiences.”

Lionsgate, which is in the process of acquiring Starz in a deal valued at $4.4 billion, formed Epix in 2009 with Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Premium programmer Starz said it has promoted Brad Martens to senior vice president, broadcast engineering; and Jason Wyrick to SVP, digital platforms.

Both execs report to Ray Milius, executive VP of programming and operations, and are based at Starz's Colorado headquarters. 

Martens, who joined Starz in 2008, heads upengineering, operations and transmission of the Starz and Starz Encore channels, and oversees the broadcast engineering and operations team and supervises quality control of on-air and on-demand product playback and distribution. Before joining Starz in 2008, he was a project engineer with Beck Associates, where he focused on HD technology, and was senior director of engineering and operations for TCI/AT&T Broadband’s Digital Media Center.

Martens is a graduate of the University of Colorado – Denver with a B.S. in Business and Information Systems.

Wyrick heads all technical aspects of externally facing systems including the recently launched and revamped Starz app, which supports both TV Everywhere and a new direct-to-consumer OTT service, Starz.com and affiliate integrations. He also oversees the Digital Platforms team of more than 50 developers, creators and application engineers, and collaborates with the programming, marketing, IT development, sales and legal teams in planning, strategy and execution of Starz content, services and products, including mobile apps, web experiences and customer support.

Wyrick, who joined Starz in 2005, most recently VP of digital platforms. He graduated the University of Colorado - Boulder with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Engineering.

comScore, moving into the TV market, said that the amount of time viewers spent watching was up 7% in fourth-quarter 2015.

comScore’s 2015 Cross-Platform Future in Focus report said that in viewing households, 1,004 hours were spent watching live TV, up from 936 hours a year ago. Time spent watching programs on DVRs up to 15 days after they originally aired also rose, to 356 hours from 332 hours.

“The availability of more viewing options appealing to a wider array of tastes, in addition to the continued expansion of premium, original, scripted programming on cable networks, has likely contributed to this effect,” the comScore report said.

Earlier this year, comScore, which specialized in measuring Web usage, acquired Rentrak, which uses set-top box data to gauge TV viewing.

Among millennials, time spent viewing live TV has been eclipsed by use of desktop computers and mobile devices. Live TV still accounts for 47% of time spent.

“It’s possible that digital share of time spent among 25-54 year-olds might also soon surpass live TV," the report said.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Fuse will launch a mobile app as part of several new digital initiatives developed to increase the network’s reach with its audience, the network announced Wednesday. 

The network has launched its new Fuse app on both iOS and Android devices, according to network officials. The app will feature exclusive access to select Fuse original series prior to their linear premiere, including the March 31sophomore season debut of Fluffly Breaks Even starring Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias.

“With Gabriel Iglesias’ broad appeal and tremendous social media following, Fluffy Breaks Even is the perfect title to showcase on the Fuse mobile app,” said Fuse Media CEO Michael Schwimmer in a statement.

In addition, the network will develop original products for the app including Live Alive, a series of concert specials premiering this Spring. The first concert in the series will feature Australian soul band Hiatus Kaiyote, said network officials.

The Fuse mobile app will also provide consumers the ability to set TV schedule reminders, share what they’re watching with their social networks, and watch content on the big screen via their Apple TV device.

Fuse will also launch a new podcast network that will feature three weekly half-hour podcasts launching of Fuse.Tv that will offer in-depth conversations with Fuse experts, artists and tastemakers from the hip-hop, pop and K-pop worlds, said network officials.

“The expansion of Fuse Media’s digital strategy underscores our commitment to reach Latino and multicultural millennials in new, innovative ways,” Schwimmer said.

Cox Media Group has partnered with New York-based social media and audience analysis firm Shareablee, giving Cox social media data for more than 70 of its brands, including TV, digital and radio.

Cox plans to use Shareablee’s data to grow digital subscriptions and increase referral traffic from social media.

“Using Shareablee’s in-depth audience insights, we can provide our audience across more than 70 brands with content tailored to their interests and interactions,” said Apryl Pilolli, manager of social media analytics at Cox Media Group, in a statement. “Shareablee’s comprehensive data, deep understanding of the local media vertical, API and unsurpassed client services involvement were also key deciding factors in our selection of the social analytics product.”

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Time Warner Inc. chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes said the media giant will  increase its investments in new digital products and infrastructure, building on its HBO Now and CNN’s Great Big Story online initiatives.

Time Warner launched HBO Now, its standalone online service in April. Last month, Turner and its 24-hour news network CNN announced a new social media delivered short form video network – Great Big Story – targeted at millennials.

“Having great content is no longer enough,” Bewkes said. “While we are living in the Golden Age of television programming, for many consumers, the television viewing experience is stuck in the Bronze Age.”

Time Warner said it is still in the middle of its budgeting process. But on a conference call with analysts to discuss third quarter results, chief financial officer Howard Averill said the investments could reach into the “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Turner chairman and CEO John Martin said that investment will be “mostly outside of the programming arena,” focused on new business and building new brands like the Great Big Story initiative, its August purchase of a majority stake in streaming video pioneer iStreamPlanet and its recently resurrected internal comedy focused digital business Super Deluxe.

Bewkes also said Turner is rethinking the length of its subscription video on demand windows.

“Our company has led the industry in making our content available to consumers on an on-demand basis,” Bewkes said. “Due to ongoing shifts in consumer behavior, we think it’s important to provide even more on-demand content as part of our network offering. As a result, we’re  evaluating whether to retain our rights for a longer period of time and, forego or delay certain content licensing. This would effectively push SVOD window for content on our networks to a multiyear period,  more consistent with traditional syndication.”

The moves come after a mixed third quarter for the company. While earnings per share hit a record $1.25 per share, revenue rose 5% and adjusted operating income nearly tripled in the absence of one-time charges, affiliate fees declined and domestic advertising revenue was flat.

Total revenue was up 5% to $6.6 billion at the media giant, driven mainly by its Warner Bros. film unit and Home Box Office. But affiliate fees at its Turner Broadcasting unit were down 1%, compared to consensus estimates of 2% growth.  

“It looks to us like the see-saw ride in media investor sentiment just got another jolt of cord-cutting fears,” wrote Sanford Bernstein media analyst Todd Juenger in a note to clients.

Pivot, Participant Media’s two-year old network-aimed at digital-savvy millennials, is looking to reach that audience of 17-to-34-year-olds with content it hopes will inspire them to make positive change in the world. During the recent New York City Television Week, Pivot general manager Kent Rees spoke with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about how that millennial generation will affect the future of television, as well as about Pivot’s plans for linear and digital distribution. An edited transcript of their conversation follows.

MCN:Two years in, how would you define the Pivot brand?

Kent Rees: Pivot is a network dedicated to content that inspires social change. It came out of our parent, Participant Media, and Participant was founded on the idea that if you show people content that inspires them and gives them different ways to take action on the most pressing issues facing the world, that they would want to get involved and do things directly. Pivot is the TV version of that same idea.

MCN:Pivot’s target is young, millennial audiences who aren’t predisposed to watching traditional television. How difficult is it to reach such a fluid audience base?

KR: We concentrate on a specific kind of millennial whom we call the conscious consumers. These are people who are passionate about the world around them, where their food comes from, what they’re children are eating — it’s really a psychographic and a mentality that is very unique and specifically intense within the millennial audience. They want to get involved, and they see Pivot as a credible resource for them as a way to be entertained and inspired at the same time.

MCN:How big a role will millennials play in defining television’s future?

KR: I think millennials are really reaping the benefits of the content explosion that you’ve seen over the last 10 years. They are not necessarily driving the change, but taking full advantage of the technological explosion in the industry and the opportunities that come from that.

MCN:How is Pivot taking advantage of the technological advancements in digital content distribution to reach millennial viewers?

KR: We offer an authenticated app that you can use to watch the network streaming on a 24-hour basis. We also have a lot of great digital content on our sister site, dubbed Takepart. com, where you can dig deeper into a lot of issues that we create.

I think a really great success story for us was [original series] Fortitude, which had a digital companion series where scientists went episode to episode and talked about the impact of what you saw in the episode and how it related back to global warming.

MCN:How do you see the television landscape developing over the next few years, and how does Pivot fit into that landscape?

KR: We’re bullish on the fact that television is an important way to reach people and a great way to provide content. That’s at the heart of what we do: it’s content that inspires social change, and I think TV is the perfect place to do that among all these other platforms.

Mark Lopez has been an hombre ocupado since taking the helm of Univision Communications’s digital-facing initiatives in April.

The former Google executive, now executive vice president and general manager of Univision Digital, has helped the Spanish-language media firm rapidly spool up a variety of projects, including a partnership with Snapchat; the debut of a mobile app that turns viewers into a judge for La Banda, the music- focused reality show; the launch of a fantasy soccer service based on Liga MX; and Univision’s “Creator Network” that taps into online video’s growing talent pool.

Next TV editor Jeff Baumgartner recently spoke with Lopez about these new projects and their role in Univision’s digital transformation. An edited transcript follows.

NTV:What was the big driver in your decision to join Univision?

Mark Lopez: I think the projects we’re putting together here are a great opportunity. When you look at the U.S. market opportunity and the consumers who make up that opportunity, the bulk of that growth is within the multicultural consumer.

Univision is uniquely positioned to go after that opportunity from the standpoint of the assets that the company has — the brand affi nity that the Hispanic consumer has … the amount of experience with content development the company has historically, and currently the focus that [Univision has] to really bulk up [its] digital assets.

When you look at all of that, it provides a great platform to really build a very unique project, which, to me, is really about a next-generation media company going after the multicultural consumer, the growth consumer in the U.S. That’s really what attracted me to come to Univision to put that together.

NTV:Now that you’ve been on board for about six months, what are your top priorities as 2015 wraps up and we head into 2016?

ML: For us, the acceleration of our digital business is paramount — getting to scale faster when it comes to our core Hispanic consumer. We define scale as both extending our TV content and programming onto the digital realm and finding additional, incremental distribution areas for that content, whether that’s … YouTube, Snapchat or also extending into second-screen apps like the Screenz [an interactive TV developer] app that we’ve done.

It’s about scaling that piece, but also looking at digital-only opportunities as we develop original content and as we help our other assets outside our core Spanish-language area develop and grow faster.

NTV:We’ve seen an increasing number of programmers develop and launch direct-to-consumer offerings that play outside of the traditional programmer-distributor dynamic. Is this something Univision will also have to consider — a standalone digital service that features your primary offerings?

ML: I think we have opportunities to leverage our brand … to develop digital-only content initiatives, whether that’s original programming, whether that is tapping into the influencer market through the Univision Creator Network, or partnering with production houses like what we’re doing with Dirty Kitchen out of Colombia to develop original content.

We want to piggyback on what we currently have to develop, versus doing it all from scratch.

For us, the multicultural Hispanic space is a space that we have a ton of experience with our brand that spans 30 years, and we think that we can win in this space when it comes to digital.

NTV:Is a big digital presence still a nice-to-have complement, or has it become critical table stakes?

ML: When we look at our audience footprint, we really look holistically at what we have with both linear and digital. Univision as a whole reaches close to 40 million media consumers monthly. We know that the growth [along] those touch points is going to come mainly from digital. That’s why it’s critical for us. To develop the footprint and the scale, which we currently have, we want to accelerate but also to develop the knowhow to go after that consumer across the board.

NTV:What’s the biggest challenge in reaching consumers via digital? Finding ways to reach them when compared to how it’s done via traditional TV?

ML: I think reach and engagement is a challenge, but it also goes around the capabilities of provisioning content for each of the distribution windows that you’re going against.

It’s very different for us when we produce content for our O&O properties than it is for producing content with our UCN partners for YouTube [or] producing comedy content across Flama or even doing a Snapchat Live Story with our soccer content. All of those things bring different capabilities to the table and I think the winners will be the ones that can develop across all of those windows that matter and get content in front of consumers.

NTV:Let’s talk a bit about some specific digital-facing projects that are underway, starting with the Snapchat partnership. How did that come together, and what results have you seen so far?

ML: [Snapchat is] a very important window for a lot of our programming. Initially, we worked with them on our sports content to develop Live Stories for our live soccer matches, our U.S.-Mexico matches that they could basically promote on their Live Story feed. That worked very well, basically developing incremental audience for that content.

When you can develop 2 [million] to 3 million additional unique users out of that event, it’s definitely incremental in nature. From there, we really have migrated to develop more content pieces that we can distribute through Snapchat holistically among other distribution networks.

NTV:Univision’s Conecta app ties in engagement across Facebook, Instagram, Periscope, Snapchat, Vine, YouTube and Twitter, allowing users to become La Banda’s “fourth judge.” How has this helped to increase engagement with the show?

ML: We developed that in partnership with Screenz. We ran that against La Banda, which is our reality show focused on music and it provides tremendous engagement during the show … Conecta allows us to get, on average, 30 minutes of extra engagement with that audience through the app.

NTV:Your Creator Network is an outlet for YouTubers and Viners. How is Univision leveraging that program, and are you making some of that content available through TV and digital?

ML: You could see the UCN [Univision Creator Network] being a standard MCN [multichannel network], but it’s not by any means. What we’re trying to do first is listen to what is trending in the marketplace — some of these creators are producing amazing content — and see what opportunities we have to bring them into both our tentpole events and with linear programming.

NTV:How do you pick who gets selected for that? Do they register or apply?

ML: As part of our UCN, we have a dedicated team that works with our creators. We work with the long tail as well as the fat tail. We work with the up-and-coming creators that have potentially very low traffic on YouTube … and want to go on and create more long-form video.

I would say that a lot of it is trial and error, but also it’s getting deeper relationships with the content creators and having the assets and the team in place to be able to do that. It’s critical for us, because that’s where the next generation talent will come from.

NTV:Univision Deportes launched its own soccer fantasy league in the U.S. this summer. What kind of a following has that seen since its launch? Is that purely ad-supported?

ML: We saw an opportunity to develop soccer-related fantasy product. We decided to launch our own that’s ad-supported, so we have partners like Ford. It’s scaling very nicely and focusing on soccer and what … we can bring on TV and [turning] that into a fantasy experience online.

Our hope for that is to take this dedicated audience and keep growing it and potentially continue to scale the advertising business, and look at potential ways to partner with [companies] that have different business models besides advertising.

NTV:In addition to locking in more engagement with viewers, particularly millennials, how are you monetizing some of these digital efforts? Have you blocked off some separate ad inventory for this, or are you looking at complementary subscription-based offerings?

ML: On the advertising side, I think we need to bring the entire message out to the marketplace. It is complementary to each other … We have current relationships with Hulu and with Netflix and with new services that are coming into the marketplace, like the new Verizon [go90] service. Our goal is also to become strategic partners from a content perspective to other distributors and partners, so we can balance a little bit of the revenue mix and it’s not all depending on advertising.

Disney/ABC Television Group is taking its approach to digital content and analytics to the next level, tapping two top executives in the retail and online communities – former Walmart executive Cindy Davis and AOL veteran John Frelinghuysen -- for newly created roles aimed at beefing up its digital presence.

Both Davis and Frelinghuysen will report to Disney Media Networks co-chairman and Disney/ABC Television Group president Ben Sherwood.

Davis, a long-time Walmart executive, has been named Disney/ABC’s executive vice president, consumer experience, and will be responsible for improving existing research capabilities across multiple platforms and enhancing Disney’s consumer insights and analytic capabilities to support our business strategies.

She also will be responsible for developing an overall consumer experience strategy that will provide greater personalization and product opportunities across platforms, enhance the MVPD ecosystem, support marketing efforts, and inform advertising and other revenue opportunities. Davis will also help define and shape Disney's shift to a more programming services and consumer-centric business model, the company said.

Frelinghuysen was named executive vice president, digital media, strategy and business development, and will oversee all aspects of strategy and business development across Disney/ABC Television’s portfolio of content and brands for digital content, products and technology and all mobile platform efforts. 

He is charged with defining and executing plans to effectively monetize both new and existing short-form and long-form content and distribution across multiple screens and platforms. Frelinghuysen will also work closely with business unit presidents to enable the implementation of their initiatives.

 “These two dynamic new leaders bring considerable talent and experience to Disney/ABC that will help drive our business forward and position us for even greater success,” Sherwood said in a statement. “I’ve asked Cindy to significantly expand our capability to understand our audience and help us use these new insights to improve the consumer experience on all platforms. John’s mission is to define and execute plans to monetize both new and existing content, as well as to harness the power of the collective Disney/ABC portfolio into a more unified and holistic consumer experience.

“We have an incredible team here at Disney/ABC, made up of some of the best and brightest in the industry," Sherwood added. "I’m delighted Cindy and John are joining us, and am confident that they will help lead us to even greater heights.”

Davis most recently served as executive vice president, global customer insights and analytics, for Walmart, a position she had held since 2011. While at Walmart she established a Center of Excellence for Customer Insights & Analytics that integrated sales data, customer surveys, social signals and analytics to predict customer needs and created the Customer Knowledge Platform that became the foundation for understanding customers across channels and serving them seamlessly and relevantly. She also re-introduced Syndicated Data into Walmart and Sam’s Club to provide a marketplace view of customer and competitive behavior, driving significant sales and market share growth.

Prior to her Walmart tenure Davis served as executive vice president, membership, marketing and eCommerce, for Sam’s Club for four years, after a stint as president of global development and communications at direct marketer Rapp Collins Worldwide.

“I can’t imagine a better company to be joining than Disney/ABC Television or a better time to be joining this team,” Davis said in a statement. “Combining a deeper understanding of today’s viewers with its legacy of brilliant storytelling, Disney/ABC is poised to further engage consumers with the entertainment and news they want, when and where they want to enjoy it. I look forward to helping champion the consumers’ voice within Disney/ABC in a way that drives innovation for viewers and value for the business, our distribution partners, and our shareholders.”

Frelinghuysen has more than 20 years’ experience in digital strategy, most recently serving as senior vice president and head of strategy for AOL, a position he held since 2013. Prior to that, he was a partner at management consulting giant Bain & Co., in the Media, Entertainment and Information practice.

From 1987 to 2007, Frelinghuysen worked at Booz Allen Hamilton, the last three years as Lead Partner and Practice Leader, U.S. Media and Entertainment, and participated in the private equity buyouts of Nielsen and Clear Channel Communications. He also worked closely with cable networks like MTV Networks and BET, helping develop growth strategies, driving ratings improvement and boosting marketing and promotions.

“I am thrilled to be joining the Disney/ABC team,” Frelinghuysen said in a statement. “There is an unprecedented opportunity for creating new content experiences and driving revenue growth in digital video. Disney/ABC's global brands and content assets provide an outstanding platform for innovation and realizing the digital opportunity." 

Looking to strengthen its connection with tough-to-reach millennial audiences, Oxygen is taking the digital route to offer early access to the first episode of season two of Sisterhood of Hip Hop about a week before its scheduled debut on regular TV on June 9.

In a first for Oxygen, the network’s pre-linear, digital premiere of the docu-series' new season will hit the Internet on Wednesday (June 3) on Oxygen.com, via Oxygen’s TV Everywhere apps, and will also give viewers a chance to access it without pay TV credentials at Bossip.com. The episode will also be available in the early digital window on set-top VOD and via Hulu.

A big aim of the digital access campaign is to broaden access to the premiere of season two and to cultivate interest in future episodes.

“We’re really trying for a wide sampling opportunity for the millennials,” Ellen Stone, executive vice president of marketing at Oxygen and Bravo, said.

Bossip.com, a site dedicated to African American pop culture and entertainment, will be the only external Web site to post the season two premiere in the early digital window. The site will also provide clips and other editorial coverage around the series.

“We have had a lot of success with them [Bossip.com] in terms of engaging their audience with our content and our programming,” Stone said, noting that the site has an audience of about 3.5 million. “While we wanted it to be a good sampling opportunity, we also wanted to make sure that we'd hit it right, and Bossip was hands-down the place to go." 

For the pre-linear premiere, Oxygen will be inserting ads promoting its own shows rather than selling a separate ad inventory. “It’s really all Oxygen, all the time,” Stone said.

Oxygen is also pairing the season two TV premiere with a Watch & Win sweepstakes, whereby the network will post a special hashtag during the show. Viewers who see it and share it on Twitter will automatically be entered to win $25,000.

Season two of Sisterhood of Hip Hop is scheduled to premiere on Oxygen on Tuesday, June 9 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Additional information about Oxygen’s pre-linear digital campaign, and how it blends with a broader TV trends, will be featured in the Next TV section of the June 8 issue of Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable.

E! has consolidated its E! News and digital divisions into one operation, dubbed News and Digital, and named John Najarian executive vice president of the new group.

The NBCUniversal-owned pop culture network said bringing the two content-oriented divisions -- including all associated social/interactive and product/operations functions -- together under one umbrella would enable it to align the content strategies of its website, E! Online, and its flagship E! News program, and leverage its news gathering and storytelling efforts to deliver a "relevant, consistent voice throughout our news platforms,” Najarian said in a statement.

Romina Rosado, previously VP, E! Online, was named senior VP, content, for News and Digital, overseeing content strategy, news gathering and reporting, and content curation for both E! News and E! Online. Gerald Abrahamian, was promoted from VP to senior VP, product, technology and operations; he will lead cross-functional collaboration, managing digital product strategy and driving new revenue opportunities, E! said.

E! named Edward Zarcoff senior VP, digital programming & production; he will oversee the network’s digital production efforts with responsibility for all website video production, as well as breaking news and branded-video production for E!’s partner sites and platforms. On the user engagement side, Bryce Kristensen was named VP, social and interactive experiences, responsible for aligning interactive and social strategy across all content, overseeing E!’s social accounts and on-screen experiences, and managing social platforms strategy and partnerships.

“Creating an integrated organization is an important step as we evolve the network’s linear news strategy and multi-screen approach,” Najarian said.

E! Online last week was ranked No. 12 on a list of top 25 social U.S. brands of 2014, released by market research firm Sharablee, which found the website had generated 112 million user actions -- defined as likes, comments, shares, retweets and favorites -- across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The National Basketball Association and Tencent Holdings Limited have expanded their partnership that will establish the league's largest international digital partnership in the world's largest nation.

Becoming effective on July 1, the five-year deal encompasses a number of segments.  As the exclusive official digital partner of the NBA in China, Tencent will present a record number of live NBA games and deliver enhanced original NBA programming and highlights, including NBA preseason and regular-season games, the All-Star game, the playoffs, including The Finals, NBA Summer League and the NBA Draft through personal computers system and mobile devices.  NBA live games and content will be available for fans to access through Tencent’s NBA sections on QQ.com, v.QQ.com, QQ and Mobile QQ, Qzone, Weixin, Tencent Video app, and Tencent News app. 

Additionally, Tencent and the NBA will launch the first-ever NBA League Pass offering in China, providing fans with access to a full season of live and on-demand NBA games online and via mobile devices. 

Tencent and the NBA will also jointly manage and operate the NBA’s digital assets in China, including the official NBA online destination NBA.com/China and sites for all 30 NBA teams, NBA events and merchandise.  Additionally, Tencent will launch the NBA Game Time Application, featuring extensive video highlights, news and statistics, providing fans with the most comprehensive access to the NBA on mobile.  Tencent will further assist the NBA in growing its social media presence on Tencent platforms, including Weixin, QQ and Qzone.

The NBA and Tencent will unveil the NBA Community, including an NBA dedicated gaming section within the Tencent Games platform, a more integrated social commerce platform, and a premium subscription service offering registered users special access to NBA content on Tencent.  The NBA’s partnership with Tencent will also include the development of NBA-themed interactive games, and the promotion of existing NBA-licensed interactive games, designed for mobile devices and distributed on Tencent’s platforms.  Additionally, NBA ID, the league’s loyalty program in China, will be integrated into the NBA Community providing fans the opportunity to earn points for using NBA services and redeem them for special privileges and merchandise.

“The NBA represents both a widely-followed sport and an active healthy way of life in China,” said Tencent president Martin Lau. “This multiyear agreement enables us to bring substantially more NBA games and content to consumers than has ever been available in the past, and we look forward to working with the NBA league, teams and players to further enhance the sport’s profile and popularity.”

Noted NBA commissioner Adam Silver: “NBA fans in China are among the most passionate and knowledgeable basketball fans in the world, and we are thrilled to expand our partnership with Tencent. Tencent is one of the most innovative, leading brands in China, and their extensive reach will give our fans unparalleled access to the league and its teams.”

Silver, in a recent interview, talked about the league's continuing growth in China and its development in India.

Digital advertising in the U.S. will grow 13% this year, driving an overall 3.2% increase in total ad spend to $186.6 billion, according to a new forecast from Boston-based consultancy Strategy Analytics. 

By comparison, the TV ad spend is expected to grow only 1.7% while print advertising will decline 7.9% year-over-year, the company said.

The year’s digital ad increases will be fueled by search (up 45%), social media (31%), video (29%) and mobile (20%). The digital growth alone, however, is not enough to bolster traditional media revenue, which Strategy Analytics expects to be 0.2% lower in 2015 than in 2014.

“Despite digital’s best efforts, the drop in traditional ad revenues means we’ll see fairly modest growth in overall U.S. ad revenues in 2015,” Michael Goodman, co-author of the report, said. “[We] will have to wait for more significant growth in 2016, courtesy of the U.S. presidential elections and summer Olympics.”

Other ad categories that Strategy Analytics predicts will grow in 2015: outdoor (up 4.8%), cinema advertising (3.4%) and radio (1.8%).

At $78.8 billion total, U.S. TV ad revenue would comprise a 42.2% share of the overall U.S. ad spend, down 0.6% from its haul in 2014. Next is digital with 28.3% ($52.8 billion), up 2.5% from 2014, and print with 14.9% ($27.9 billion), down 1.8%. The remaining 14.6% will come from radio ($17.6 billion), outdoor ($8.7billion) and cinema ($0.8billion), each relatively unchanged from last year.

Looking ahead to 2018, report co-author Leika Kawasaki said TV’s share of the ad spend will drop to 40% while digital will grow to 35% share, but TV networks are unlikely to feel any major pain from the change. “TV’s declining share is less about ad dollars flowing out of TV and more about dollars flowing into digital from print and radio,” Kawaski said. “TV networks … will see little, if any, real decline in revenue, just a shift in the source from linear TV ads to online video.”

Print advertising, on the other hand, is expected to fall to $20.3 billion by 2018, or less than a third of its 2007 level, accounting for only 10% market share.

When it came to compensation, 2014 was another good year for the cable television industry across various disciplines.

The Cable and Telecommunications Human Resources Association’s (CTHRA) 2014 Annual Compensation Surveys found that the average salary adjustment budget grew 3% across the industry, matching the uptick in 2013.  MSOs increased at a 3% clip, equal to the prior year, while programmer’s added 3.1% to their salary budgets, versus a 2.9% bump the prior year.

However, advances were much greater among those working in technology and digital media. In addition, compensation soared across a number of sales positions.

For their part, executives, especially among MSO leaders, notched sizable incentive grants.

“Rising salaries illustrate the cable industry’s nimble response to changes in the competitive landscape, which includes a fierce battle to attract and retain technology and digital media talent,” said Pamela Williams, CAE, CTHRA’s executive director.

Added Hali Croner, CEO of The Croner Co., which conducted the surveys for CTHRA:  "Cable operators are now competing with more companies for technology talent. The presence of over-the-top companies has upped the game for MSOs seeking to find, recruit and retain top digital talent."

Data for the 2014 survey was gleaned from 65 participating companies -- 16 distributors and 49 programmers – up from 63 in 2013. CTHRA said the participants represented the majority of the industry’s employers, including all 25 of the top national cable channels, all five national broadcast networks, new content providers and seven of the eight largest cable operators, plus DirecTV.

Survey results are industry-specific, providing analysis of pay practices for nearly 150,000 incumbents, including both exempt and non-exempt positions, from technicians to the executive suite.

Read the full press release here.