We live in a time when there is an insatiable appetite for video. Ultra short-form content is taking over with Snap, Facebook, and Instagram stories. If your children were born in the last decade, then chances are they were introduced to digital video before they could talk.

The takeaway for service providers is that the competition for eyeballs is fierce and it's only going to get more intense over the next five to 10 years. Staying on top of these trends requires a micro-level understanding of how your audience is engaging with your content. It's all possible with TV Apps.

TV Evolved
TV is evolving in a big way. It's everywhere. Yes, in our living rooms, but also in our pockets. TV means something different for the current generation than it did for us Gen Xers. It means watching what you want when you want to watch it. There are now hundreds of OTT services launching TV apps that are personalized to best suit their audiences' viewing patterns. TV at your fingertips, whenever you want it, and personalized for you? Sorry, there's no going back.

There should be no more disputing the effect that OTT is having on the cable industry, an industry that was once impenetrable from outside competition and disruption. And the cord-cutting movement shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

So What Defines a TV App?
A TV app delivers content to a viewer over the internet and on one of a plethora of internet-connected devices, such as Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Smart TVs. An app developed and deployed on any of these devices for the purpose of delivering video to a viewer is referred to as a TV app. Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have deployed TV apps across a variety of internet-connected devices freeing us from pre-programmed content and enticing us to "cut the cord." Whether or not you are a cord-cutter, TV apps are becoming the primary vehicle for viewing today's most popular movies and TV shows. It's important to note that "TV" is being de-coupled from the "Television" in our living rooms. TV is everywhere now.

OTT Services Are Data Driven
OTT, or over-the-top, services allow consumers to watch live and on-demand TV outside of traditional cable services. OTT services are delivered to consumers primarily through TV apps. These apps enable media companies to deliver a much more personalized viewing experience. Also, providers can create detailed metrics for tracking user behavior over the aggregate. Are viewers browsing more than their watching? If so, maybe it's time to reorganize the content. Is the user-interface intuitive enough for my target demographic? Without the proper analytics in place, providers will never know. Basic video analytics isn't sufficient, and often, the platforms that are delivering the video aren't able to capture the app-level analytical information that's required to paint the complete picture.

A Brand-Specific Experience
One of the distinct advantages of TV apps is they can deliver a brand specific experience. And for the media companies moving over to OTT, while trying to enhance engagement and viewership, this is critical. Not only do today's consumers have more control over their viewing patterns, but providers can understand more about their audiences than ever before. Also, having an app that is specific to a particular brand allows that brand to immerse the user and present information whenever and wherever possible. TV apps are a powerful platform for increasing a brand's position in the market.

Engagement and Personalization = Retention and Acquisition
What specific content drives engagement? How long are they watching? How many ads can they tolerate? If I want to have a subscription or transactional viewer, what's the proper price point? Without a firm understanding of these data points, providers will struggle to stay ahead of their audience and keeping them engaged will be next to impossible. Engagement, personalization, and a solid user-experience are required for subscriber acquisition and retention when it comes to OTT.

TV Apps Are the Last Mile
The TV App experience represents the last mile - the culmination of a tremendous amount of work that has gone into the creation or aggregation of a library of high-quality content. Business plans, product plans, roadmaps, production schedules, blood, sweat, and tears... After all that, is there any point in packaging this into a "so-so" viewing experience? Of course not.

When a media company delivers a brand-specific experience to their audience, they create a more personal connection with them which allows them to understand their needs better. 

Doing It Vs. Doing It Right
The biggest barrier to the OTT market is deploying TV apps across a variety of diverse platforms. It also requires an intimate understanding of the OTT ecosystem, platform SDKs, online Video platforms (OVPs), analytics, entitlement, monetization, etc... TV Apps often require dozens of third-party services properly integrated and configured to deliver the expected experience as well as report the correct information back to the service provider.

It's like the cross-country road trip you've been planning for months - the vehicle is essential to maximize the experience.

Vendors that offer TV Apps to service providers should have a proven track record of deploying OTT-specific services. Developing the apps isn't enough—it requires a deeper understanding of the ecosystem and how the various components are needed to work together. Considering how much effort it takes to develop and or acquire engaging content, the TV App should not be an afterthought; in fact, it's the most important part of the equation.

Thomas Schaeffer is CEO of Float Left, a Jupiter, Fla.-based developer of custom TV apps. Photo by KidStock/Getty Images

In the race to appeal to younger viewers, traditional content companies are increasingly turning toward short-form video and digital content providers, with several deals on the books over the past 12 months and more likely to come.

The latest to go short is Time Warner Inc.’s CNN, which paid about $25 million for online video company Beme, home of YouTube star Casey Neistat. As part of the deal, Beme’s 11-member staff, including Neistat — who has some 5.8 million YouTube followers — will join the news network and start a new media brand focused on millennial viewers.

Other companies have dipped their toes in the digital waters to varying degrees, ranging from NBCUniversal, which has spent about $600 million in online media sites BuzzFeed and Vox Media over the past 18 months, to 21st Century Fox, which in September paid about $6.5 million for a stake in DriveTribe, a new online motoring venture from former Top Gear stars Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond.

Earlier last month, Discovery Communications said it would invest about $100 million for a 35% stake in a new digital venture called Group Nine Media that would combine its science site, Seeker.com, and Sourcefed Studios production arm with pop culture site Thrillist, news site Now This and animal advocacy site The Dodo.

EXPERIMENT TIME

“Everyone is trying to figure out what the right format is,” Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan said in an interview. “There is going to be a lot of experimentation.”

Programmers have been trying to attract young viewers since the beginning of television. But as more and more content is available on more and more devices, snagging the coveted millennial audience means the delivery mechanism is almost as important as what is being delivered.

“What has been tried is to take a regular cable or broadcast linear service and try to make it fit,” Eagan said. “That doesn’t always work, whether it’s on a mobile device or some other device. I think they realize they not only have to change the content, but the format.”

In a recent interview, Discovery chief commercial officer Paul Guyardo called the Group Nine investment part of the programmer’s three-pronged strategy, consisting of its full product bundle, its participation in skinny bundles for more price-sensitive consumers and the creation of short-form video and content partnership Group Nine, which is aimed squarely at younger viewers.

“That’s an ad-supported model that does rely primarily on short-form [video], because that’s how millennials want to consume their content — it’s all about highlights and sound bites and snippets,” Guyardo told Multichannel News. “If you look at the way we’re building it, we’re building it in a very Discovery-esque way.”

Like Discovery, each programmer seems to be forging its own path with digital investments. At NBCUniversal, the BuzzFeed and Vox Media deals seemed to be more geared to enhancing its social media and digital advertising strengths. BuzzFeed reaches more than 500 million people per day on its various platforms, more than any other pure digital media company, and has a strong presence on social media sites like Facebook. Vox Media, which has eight separate brands including news site Recode, sports site SB Nation and the food-centric Eater, has about 170 million unique monthly visitors and 800 million total monthly content views (on- and off-platform), and two of every three of its users are on mobile devices, according to the company.

Pivotal Research Group senior research analyst Brian Wieser said practically every programmer is looking to secure a digital business, and buying established providers is frequently the quickest path to success. There are many reasons to take the digital plunge, he said.

HEDGING BETS

“Some of it is hedge,” Wieser said. “In the event alternate forms of content packaging become more common, someone knows what they’re doing. Some of it is for show to Wall Street and other constituents, just to say that ‘we’re doing this too.’ And there also can be the belief that combining small entities into larger ones, and you can build an even bigger business.”

Another reason could be a desire to align with a particularly strong management team. That’s what Wieser believes was a big driver for Disney’s 2014 investment in Vice Media, then a fledgling Canadian publisher and multimedia company with a brash CEO in Shane Smith who wanted an inroad into more traditional media. With Disney’s initial $200 million investment (it invested another $200 million later that same year), Vice announced it would take over A+E Networks’ H2 channel, rebranded as Viceland. A+E Networks, which itself owns about 15% of Vice Media, is jointly controlled by Disney and Hearst.

While sluggish early ratings put a bit of a damper on the initial enthusiasm for the channel, it has been attracting young men with shows like the self-explanatory Weediquette and skateboarding reality-competition series King of the Road. In November the channel said it would launch four new shows aimed at that demographic in the next two months — Payday, which follows the lives of four 20-somethings over the course of a single pay period; Big Night Out, which showcases how millennials party around the world, and Bong Appétit, which follows cooks who create high-end, cannabis-infused foods.

“Everyone wants a piece of Shane Smith’s pixie dust,” Wieser said.

MORE MOVES SEEN

The analyst added that he expects more deals to be done, but to what extent will depend on each individual company. At Fox, which in the past has leaned more toward developing new properties internally, Wieser believes that practice will continue.

Time Warner and NBCU are expected to continue on their previous path of making small venture investments in digital companies, he added.

“Do we expect to see more [deals]? Sure. I don’t see why not,” Wieser said. “You can argue that most companies don’t need to hurry because it just doesn’t change that quickly. But the perceptions of change are often greater than the reality.”

SIDEBAR: All About the Digits

Major programmers are increasingly investing in much smaller digital companies to attract younger audiences and tap into online ad streams.

InvestorInvesteeInvestmentDate

NBCUniversal . . . . . . . . . . . BuzzFeed . . . . . . . . . . . . $400 million . . . . . . Aug. 2015/Nov. 2016

NBCUniversal . . . . . . . . . . . Vox Media . . . . . . . . . . . .$200 million . . . . . . . August 2015

Verizon . . . . . . . . . . . .. . AwesomenessTV .  . . . . . . . $159 million . . . . . . . . April 2016

Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . Group Nine Media . . .. . . . . . $100 million . . . .  . . .  November 2016

Time Warner . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beme . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 million* . . . . .  . . . .  November 2016

21st Century Fox . . . . .  . . .DriveTribe . . . . . .  . . . . . $6.5 million . . . . .  . . .September 2016

AMC Networks . . . . . .  . . Funny or Die . . . . .  . . . . . . . N/A . . . . . . . . . . .  November 2016

* Estimate

SOURCE : Individual companies and published reports

Bravo Media and Mashable announced a development deal in which they’ll co-produce four short-form originals that will debut this year across their respective social and digital platforms.

The first series in the batch is slated for a release in the late spring of 2016, they said, noting that this will be Mashable’s first TV network collaboration in producing original content.

Each series will be developed by Bravo and Mashable Studios, the company’s dedicated division for the production and distribution of original digital video content.

The partnership follows a recent collaboration between Bravo and Mashable Studios around The Real Housewives franchise, including a short-form digital series called Real Thoughts with Real Housewives that was distributed across Mashable.com, Facebook, YouTube and Bravo’s digital platforms.

“At Bravo Media, we’ve celebrated record-breaking digital engagement across platforms due largely to our innovative approach to digital video.  We are always serving the freshest content to existing Bravo fans while simultaneously drawing in new audiences with a passion for pop culture,” Lisa Hsia, EVP, digital at Bravo and Oxygen Media, said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to expand our ongoing relationship with Mashable following the resounding success of ‘Real Thoughts with Real Housewives’ to continue to revolutionize digital storytelling.”

"We formed Mashable Studios last year because we saw a tremendous opportunity to harness our expertise in digital video and apply it to creating original series that could live across a variety of platforms, and this partnership truly exemplifies that vision," added Adam Ostrow, Mashable’s chief strategy officer. “We’re incredibly excited to be expanding our partnership with Bravo to create compelling content and reach an even wider audience."  

To take advantage of viewing patterns that increasingly snackable programming, Comcast is putting short-form video on its X1 platform.

More than 30 broadcast and cable networks are contributing short-form video, which will be available on Xfinity on Demand.

The move lets Comcast compete with streaming programmers, who make short-form material available online and via mobile devices.

“In addition to traditional programming on the TV, the average person is also spending nearly an hour viewing online video every day. Yet the vast majority of online video has not been accessible on traditional TV platforms, and we’re focused on changing that with X1,” said Matt Strauss, executive VP and general manager for video services at Comcast Cable, in a blog post.

The networks providing short-form video in include: A&E, ABC News, AMC, American Heroes, Animal Planet, BBC America, Big Ten Networks, CNBC, Cooking Channel, Destination America, Discovery, Discovery Life, DIY, E!, ESPN, Esquire Network, Food Network, Fox Business, Fox News, Fox Sports, FYI, HGTV, History, IFC, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, LMN, MSNBC, Music Choice, NBC, NBC News, OWN, Science Channel, Sundance TV, TLC, Travel Channel, Velocity and WE TV.

Read more at B&C.

It really is a technical marvel. In mere seconds, electromagnetic radiation zaps all the moisture out of last night’s leftovers, making what was the remnants of a memorable dining experience at least somewhat edible. Beyond my only means of what some would call cooking, the microwave has become a microcosm for how we as citizens of the Internet approach the world – in short bursts of time.

Video in its long form — movie content, serialized television dramas and half-hour network comedies — have become the bedrock of attracting the digital consumer who wants to catch up on their favorite entertainment on any number of devices, and often, when away from home.

Within the video market, the revolutionary opportunity is to find an innovative way to monetize short-form video content. Ask any 18-year-old – they don’t watch serialized TV, they watch short-form video on YouTube or Vimeo created by personalities to which they subscribe. The ability to partner and/or bring this content into a digital service provider (DSP) ecosystem, along with packaging this short-form content with higher margin offerings, may be the next big shift in content consumption.

Just like the amenities provided by digital service providers has evolved (HD, DVR, TV Everywhere), so too has what the consumer views as “television.”  Gone are the days of warming ourselves by the glow of the living room TV — today’s digital content consumer is just as likely to be sitting in that same living room bingeing their favorite series, or scrolling through their Vine feed watching original content from creators they determine.

Should digital service providers see the popularity of short-form content as a threat? Debatable. Should those same DSPs see this collection of long and short-form video content and avid consumption as an opportunity? Absolutely. The tales of the demise of the cord (cord-cutting) have been greatly exaggerated. Consumers still  and, if done properly, will always look to their digital service provider based on the trust engendered within that relationship. What has changed however is what those consumers expect to find when looking. It is not television or Internet service they seek in a vacuum – it is content, regardless of delivery mechanism, or its length.

So how do digital service providers capitalize on this microwave content consumption society without drifting from their core business? Easy – give them exactly what they want, content.

Droves of digital service providers already empower an on-demand view across devices for consumers. Start there. Those pure-play, other-the-top providers like Netflix and Hulu -- they are not the enemy (contrary to popular belief); they can be a strategic path to revenue.

We see examples across geographies and service tiers of DSPs bringing these content providers (and creators in many instances) into their ecosystem, and that is the key – in their ecosystem. Consumers interact with these services regardless; why not keep them within one singular ecosystem?

This strategy provides consumers that content they crave, all the while building stickiness with the digital service provider brand. What about content from non-traditional means like YouTube, Vine, and Vimeo? Where do the pipes that provide this new source of content come from? That is right, the digital service provider.

For DSPs, the ever shrinking attention span and evolving consumption habits of this new generation of consumers are not an obstacle, they are a gift. The long-term winners of monetizing short-form video will be those who make it easy for consumers to find the content they want, make it viewable on any device, anywhere, and allow for it to be paid for in the manner the customer wants.

In short, many of the necessary tools to monetize this microwave generation reside right there in the tool belt of the DSP. Building a successful short-form strategy starts with key pieces of what already works for long-form – offer compelling content that’s easy to browse, buy and consume. 

Brice Clinton is a Senior Engineer for CSG International and an adjunct professor at Northwestern University