Advertisers who want to reach gamers can find them watching streaming television, according to a new report from Samsung Ads.

The report says that not only do gamers watch TV, but they tend to switch back and forth between playing and viewing much more than commonly thought. 

Using data from its smart TV sets, Samsung says gamers spent 25% more time watching streaming TV than non gamers.

More to the point, gamers using Samsung devices for gaming watched free ad supported streaming television (FAST) services like Samsung TV Plus at a 25% higher rate than non gamers.

“Gaming and streaming go hand-in-hand,” Justin Fromm, head of insights at Samsung Ads told Broadcasting+Cable. 

According  to the Entertainment Software Association,  62% of adults over 18 call themselves gamers. 

Those gamers look very much like the general audience, but they are actually more avid entertainment viewers, Fromm said.

“A marketer who wants to reach this audience, which can be very elusive, needs to kind of take a holistic approach to their planning. The research demonstrates that you can reach gamers both in CTV streaming as well as in games,” he said.

Rather than engaging in marathons of game playing, more than 65% of gamers said they regularly switch between  paying and streaming within an hour with 92% consuming games and entertainment in the same day.

“If you're looking to find gamers in video entertainment content, streaming is the way to do that,” Fromm said. “They are more likely to stream and more likely to stream with ads and more likely to watch FAST channels. They are a voracious kind of audience when it comes to content.”

During the Walt Disney Co.’s earnings call last month CEO Bob Iger said he saw the statistics on how much time people were spending on TV playing games and that spurred him to buy a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games.

But Samsung’s data says those gamers are still consuming a ton of TV content.

Samsung is in unique position when it comes to gamers. Gamers use Samsung phones, Samsung monitors as well as the company’s smart TV sets for gaming. Samsung smart TVs have a gaming hub that lets users play cloud based games without a console.

“Samsung is kind of embedded in gaming lifestyle,” Fromm said.

Samsung Ads also conducted apoll of Samsung Smart TV owners who identified themselves as gamers.

More than two-thirds said they would be open to ad-supported game services, with nearly 40% of total respondents open to a free or discounted cloud gaming service that shows ads in order to offset the cost of games.

Fromm said advertisers looking to reach games should be advertising both in games and on CTV.

“We know that they're kind of doing all of these things at once,” he said. “Advertisers shouldn’t think of these as two separate experiences.”

He added that advertisers have to be thoughtful about the creative they use to reach gamers, whether they’re playing games or watching TV content.

The messaging should be consistent, Fromm said. “You want to make sure you’re not creating a disparate message that can be distracting or confusing for your consumer.”

Comcast’s NBCUniversal said its clients will be able to buy ads in video games and esports through an agreement with Anzu.lo and that the NBCU had made a small investment in the ad-tech startup.

Anzu.lo offers an advanced platform that lets marketers run non-intrusive ads in mobile, PC and console games. The ads can be interactive, data-driven and programmatic and accessible through NBCU’s ad sales system.

The global arrangement makes NBCU Anzo.lo’s exclusive third-party seller in the U.S. and U.K.

Also: NBCU Unwraps Livestream Shopping Show in Time for Holiday Season

“NBCUniversal continues to reach consumers at scale on any platform and on every screen. In addition to streaming, gaming is one of the fastest growing ways to reach young audiences,” said Krishan Bhatia, president & chief business officer at NBCUniversal. “This partnership with Anzu will allow our marketers to engage with an audience of over 3 billion gamers worldwide, and we’re only getting started.”  

Anzu offers advertisers data on lift measurement, audience verification, data enrichment and fraud detection through companies including Moat, Comscore, Human, Lumen and Kochava.

Also: NBCU Using New Capabilities From FreeWheel To Sell Third-Party Inventory

As part of the deal, Anzu will have access to NBCU’s ad sales platform, including its client and agency relationships, and marketing teams. Anzu’s cross-platform ad monetization solution also will help game developers generate significant revenue while respecting their players and adding to the overall gaming experience. 

“We’re excited to bring our best-in-class tech and exclusive inventory to one of the world’s leading ad sales teams,” said Itamar Benedy, co-founder & CEO of Anzu.

“This new partnership means more brands and agencies will be able to take advantage of our solution to reach an engaged and untapped audience within the world’s most popular titles while preserving the gamer experience. We also believe, over the next few years, most Fortune 500 brands will incorporate gaming into their ad strategies and the partnership with NBCUniversal brings us a step closer to this becoming a reality,” Benedy said. ■

Netflix managed to impress Wall Street with better than expected subscriber performance in Q3, silencing its critics for the time being and causing at least one analyst to wonder if the streaming video pioneer could knock The Walt Disney Co. from its perch atop the media landscape.

Netflix added about 4.4 million subscribers in Q3, ahead of its guidance of 3.5 million additions. That performance comes after a Q2 when the streaming giant added just 1.54 million new customers and caused some industry pundits to speculate that the company was headed for a prolonged subscriber slowdown, exacerbated by the pandemic and increased competition from other streaming services. 

The subscriber beat comes shortly after another streaming juggernaut, Disney Plus, said last month that its fiscal Q4 customer additions would be in the single-digit millions, well below past quarters. But as analysts are changing their perceptions about Disney and its streaming service, at least one believes that Netflix, which earlier this year announced plans to enter into video game production and has ongoing forays into merchandising and film and TV production, could replace the Mouse House as the premier entertainment conglomerate. 

In a research note Wednesday (Oct. 20), Barclays Group media analyst Kannan Venkateshwar noted that about eight years ago, Netflix co-CEO and chief content officer Ted Sarandos’s goal was to “become HBO faster than HBO becomes us.” 

With a strong content slate expected to drive subscriber increases through Q1 2022, growth opportunities in Latin America, strong margins and the company’s unique approach to content, Sarandos may have been selling himself and the company short nearly a decade ago, according to the analyst.   

“Now HBO isn’t even in Netflix’s rear-view mirror,” Venkateshwar wrote. “Management framing of new opportunities seems to indicate that the benchmark now may be to surpass Disney’s flywheel.”

The Barclays analyst pointed to Netflix's entrance into gaming earlier this year and that other new business lines like merchandising — which he estimated is a $5 billion annual business for Disney — and the way the company sees its content as “continuous experiences” across video, gaming and live entertainment platforms, only adds to the momentum.

“This in turn could make Netflix’s business model and engagement almost impossible to replicate for most, except maybe some of the gaming platforms,” Venkateshwar wrote. 

The comparisons to Disney weren’t lost on Netflix management either. On Netflix’s quarterly video interview call, chairman and co-CEO Reed Hastings said while it could take several years, the plan is to integrate interactivity, gaming, and consumer products into its content.  

“Maybe imagine three years from now and some future Squid Game is launching, and it comes along with an incredible array of interactive or gaming options and it‘s all built into the service,” Hastings said. “And then, of course, you've got your off-Netflix aspects, the experiences that we're building out, consumer products, all of that coming together. 

“So a company like Disney is still ahead of us in some of those dimensions of putting that whole experience together, but boy, are we making progress,” Hastings continued. “And so exciting over the next three to five years, kind of closing that gap. And hope to pass them on that spectacular all-around experience.”

The fact that Netflix let it leak out that it is taking the first steps toward entering the lucrative video game market less than a week before it is slated to release its Q2 results, left some analysts cautiously enthusiastic. While the prospect of the SVOD giant entering yet another market that it could potentially dominate raised spirits, the timing caused some caution among those who suspected it could be a move to divert attention away from possibly lukewarm quarterly results. 

Investors appeared on the fence as well, with Netflix stock closing at $542.95 each on July 15, down about 1%.

Netflix hasn’t released any details as to how it will attack the video game market, but has confirmed to several outlets that it has hired former EA and Oculus executive Mike Verdu to head up a game publishing team as VP of gaming development at the SVOD pioneer. While Netflix again has issued no details on its plans, Bloomberg reported that the company will make video games part of its service as early as next year at no additional charge. 

The idea that Netflix would eventually get into the video gaming business has been kicked around for years. In a research report earlier this week -- before news of Verdu’s hire -- Canaccord Genuity analysts Maria Ripps and Michael Graham wrote that video gaming is a natural extension of the business, given that Netflix already has several content titles based on video games, and releasing downloadable games could help the company capture a bigger chunk of younger viewers. The analysts noted that the recent extension of its deal with producer Shonda Rhimes included potential gaming and virtual reality content. 

Whatever the plan, the notion that a streaming service with more than 200 million paying customers worldwide is thinking about streaming video games, sent video game retailer GameStop’s stock down 7% July 14, and down another 3% in early trading July 15.  

In a research note, Bernstein media analyst Todd Juenger offered two pros, two cons and two concerns about the notion of Netflix entering the video game space. On the pro side, Juenger noted that adding video games to the product mix enhances Netflix’s overall value.

"If your subscribers are sometimes/frequently choosing video games as an alternative to watching Netflix, then why not offer them that option within Netflix?,” Juenger wrote.

Also on the pro side: an increased value proposition and increased engagement will drive higher penetration, higher ARPU and reduce churn. 

On the con side, Juenger questioned the timing of the leak, a week before earnings, which most analysts expect to be weak, come out.

“The idea that, knowing Q2 results and the Q3 guide will be received as weak, Netflix leaked this story now (before reporting Q2 next week) in order to change the narrative, distract, divert attention from the core business,” Juenger wrote. “Give everybody something else to focus on and talk about.”

Also on the down side is that the move could be seen as a defensive one because Netflix sees that the market for SVOD is getting too crowded.

“Bears could view this expansion into a new product category as a tacit (or not so tacit) validation that management sees the core business reaching the point where growth significantly slows, and therefore the company needs to do something new/extra to keep growing,” Juenger wrote.

As far as concerns, Juenger said moving into a new market could be a distraction for management, when one of the selling points for the stock has been its executives’ laser focus on the core business. Video games could force some to take their eye off the SVOD ball just when the market is filling up with competitors, all bent on gaining audience share.

“Now, having said that, it is possible to walk and chew gum simultaneously, and one could argue that the lines are already blurred between what constitutes on-demand video entertainment versus interactive video game entertainment,” Juenger wrote. “And the IP works in both settings. On the other hand, the track record of legacy video entertainment companies developing their own video games is very poor.”

Other reports have pointed to Google, which in February scrapped its own in-house video game studio -- Stadia Games and Entertainment-- after less than two years. 

Juenger also expressed concern over pricing, adding that if Netflix included gaming as part of its SVOD service, it would probably eventually have to increase the price down the road, risking alienating subscribers who may not want to play video games. Making gaming a separately priced/a la carte option could solve that problem, but Netflix would lose some scale economics in that scenario.

Netflix could offer gaming as part of its Premium Tier only, but Juenger said that flies in the face of the company’s edict that content remains the same across all versions of the product. 

“All of these options raise the very common business tension of balancing flexibility versus simplicity,” Juenger wrote. “The current Netflix pricing model is extremely simple. Three plans, three prices, the only difference is the number of simultaneous streams (and in some markets, a fourth option, one stream, mobile-only). To the extent Netflix tries to give consumers explicit choices and options around how to include video games, or not, in the service, and whether that includes a new form of in-game spending, all creates complexity to the offering which has a proven detrimental impact on adoption (the paradox of choice).” 

Juenger added that on the positive side, Netflix has reams of consumer information on which  to base its approach, and likely has anticipated and addressed most of the concerns around pricing and product design through countless focus groups and research. And in the end, if it doesn’t work out, Netflix can just walk away from gaming.

“To its credit, Netflix has always erred on the side of choosing the risk of moving too fast and bold, rather than the risk of moving too slow and safe,” Juenger wrote. “There is a rather high probability, frankly, that in hindsight, ten years from now, this idea will look like a no-brainer.”

MoffettNathanson initiated coverage of the video gaming sector Thursday, adding that sub-par broadband speeds in a large chunk of the country could affect growth at some of the biggest game makers. 

In a 104-page report, MoffettNathanson research analyst Clay Griffin issued “buy” ratings on top game makers Activision Blizzard and Take-Two Interactive and slapped a “neutral” rating on Electronic Arts. He outlined three “mega-trends” in the industry, two of which have at least some ties to the cable broadband business, with increased digitization of game distribution being the largest.

Griffin wrote that the movement from packaged games sold in stores to titles that can be directly downloaded to PCs has been going on for years, but that digital distribution of console games only recently passed 50% of total unit sales. While Griffin noted that Electronic Arts finished the last fiscal year with a 62% digital full game mix and Take-Two and Activision reported even higher percentages, he doesn’t see the total elimination of video game stores just yet. One of the reasons for that is the lack of availability of ultra-high broadband speeds throughout the country. 

“The convenience argument — ‘avoid the store, just click to buy’ — is diluted by the fact that modern games are huge files,” Griffin wrote. “Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War weighed in at 136 GB on XBox Series X/S. Broadband speeds have improved, but according to the FCC, about ⅓ of the country doesn’t yet have a connection capable of 100 Mbps.”

Griffin added that even at 100 Mbps, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War would take three hours to download.

President Joseph Biden has proposed spending about $100 billion for broadband deployment as part of his American Jobs Plan infrastructure package that would help close that digital divide. While the government’s definition of sufficient high-speed internet has been in the 25 Megabit per second range in the past, some Democrats have pushed for that minimum to be raised to 100 Mbps. 

Cable operators have noticed an uptick in take rates for higher speed broadband tiers during the pandemic, and many expect that trend to continue. Broadband speed has been a priority for cable operators for years — Comcast has increased the average speeds of its broadband service every year for the past 20 years, Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said during the company’s Q1 earnings call.  Charter Communications said during its Q1 earnings call that most of its broadband customers opt for its entry-level 200 Mbps package. 

About a week ago (June 17), the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIS) released an interactive map that shows key areas of broadband need across the country using data from public and private sources. According to that map, there are large pockets of the U.S. that have average broadband speeds of 25 Mbps or less. 

Though game developers have made it possible to start and play games without finishing the download and broadband speeds are expected to improve, game files will likely get bigger, too.  Data caps that limit downloads to 1 Terabyte per month seem huge on the surface, but could become another barrier, “especially as video streaming steadily replaces cable/satellite,” Griffin wrote.

Among gamers, that transition is already happening. 

Griffin cited a Deloitte study that showed 26% of Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2015) and 16% of Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) cited playing video games as their favorite entertainment activity. Watching TV shows or movies at home placed last for Generation Z (10%) and a close second for Millennials (18%, compared to 14% that picked listening to music). In comparison, 39% of Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) picked watching TV shows and movies at home as their favorite entertainment activity, with only 3% selecting video games.

While entertainment choices will likely shift once Generation Z gets older, that isn’t always the case, pointing to the 16% of Millennials who picked gaming as their favorite entertainment activity. 

“Over half of Millennials are now over 30 years old. Old enough where the “chains of habit” are starting to get pretty heavy,” Griffin wrote. “The implications of this are clear. Even if Gen Z were to look more like the Millennials do now a generation forward, Millennials and even Gen Xers, will undoubtedly be more involved with video games than Boomers are today.” 

Griffin referred to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick’s often-quoted remark that “people consume the media they fell in love with when they were 17 for the rest of their lives. We think there’s some credence to that idea.”

Showtime has signed actor Pablo Schreiber to star in its new drama series Halo, the network said Wednesday.

The series, based on iconic Xbox video game franchise, will feature Schreiber (First Man, Orange Is the New Black) as Master Chief, Earth's most advanced warrior in the 26th century and the only hope of salvation for a civilization pushed to the brink of destruction by the Covenant, an unstoppable alliance of alien worlds committed to the destruction of humanity, according to the network

Showtime also announced it has signed actress Yerin Ha to play a new character within the HALO world.

Halo is produced by Showtime in partnership with 343 Industries, along with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television, according to the network. 

As advertised, video games were the focus of the White House meeting Thursday (March 8) on media and violence, prompted by the Florida school shootings.

That's according to one of the participants, Parents Television Council program director Melissa Henson, who when asked whether the group had talked about network TV violence and whether she had the sense the President was looking beyond video games, she said: "No, the focus of the conversation really was video games," though she added that PTC research showed the problem went beyond video games.

Her invitation by the White House suggested that the Trump Administration could be looking beyond video games to TV, and that is still not beyond the realm of possibility; PTC has been pushing the administration to widen its net to broadcast TV violence.

But Henson said in a press conference following the meeting that the conversation remained focused on video games. The meeting kicked off with clips from violent video games that drew what Henson called a "shocked silence" and the President's commentary on how violent they were. She said she could not identify which games the clips were from.

Henson said Trump did not appear to have come with an agenda or a proposed course of action; she characterized it as a listening session.

She also said the video game representatives defended the clips as from games that were for mature audiences and never meant for children.

Henson said she had expected that defense, and didn't buy it -- saying the company had to know kids would also get access to the games -- but hoped the discussion was the first step toward media reform.

The White House confirmed the video game focus in a summary of the meeting: "Today, President Trump and senior members of the administration met with leaders in the video game industry and experts on violence to discuss violent video game exposure and its impact on our children. To date, the administration has led many discussions about how to prevent violent behavior in our schools, with a focus on stopping those intent on committing mass murder. During today’s meeting, the group spoke with the president about the effect that violent video games have on our youth, especially young males. The President acknowledged some studies have indicated there is a correlation between video game violence and real violence. The conversation centered on whether violent video games, including games that graphically simulate killing, desensitize our community to violence. This meeting is part of ongoing discussions with local leaders and Congress on issues concerning school and public safety and protecting America’s youth."

YouTube aims to have the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) event being held June 14-16 in Los Angeles covered in spades, with a unique event hub for dozens of live streams from the event.

“YouTube will give gamers around the world front-row access to everything E3 again this year with dozens of live streams scheduled throughout the week,” Ryan Wyatt, global head of gaming content for YouTube, wrote in a blog post. “To make moments like this even better, we are launching event pages in YouTube Gaming, which serve as destinations for watching the biggest gaming and eSports events.”

YouTube’s E3 hub will offer up both live and archived content, live chat options for gamers, catch-up announcements and a spot for gaming trailers, where YouTube users will be able to vote for their favorites.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the virtual water, cable network Syfy and movie producer The Asylum are readying an onslaught of merchandise, including a video game and a paperback how-to guide, tied to the July 30 debut of Sharknado2: the Second One, the campy sequel to its social media phenomenon Sharknado franchise.

First out of the blocks is a paperback original – How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters: Fight Back When Monsters and Mother Nature Attack, the result of a partnership between Syfy, The Asylum and Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group at Random House. Available now, the tome is billed as the “first and only comprehensive guide to surviving the dangers of a post-apocalyptic world where Mother Nature is angry and monsters are hungry.”

In addition to tips for surviving the aforementioned Sharknado – which are apparently common enough for a planned third sequel in 2015 – readers will also receive “vital information” to endure other such TV-type disasters as firenados,  swamp volcanoes, arachnoquakes and piranhacondas.

For more info visit: www.sharnadobook.com

For the less literary fans of the franchise, Syfy and The Asylum, through their licensing and merchandising agency Earthbound, have also partnered with game developer Other Ocean and publisher Majesco Entertainment on SHARKNADO: THE VIDEO GAME for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Players assume the lead role as Fin as they race to destroy a series of shark-infested tornadoes threatening New York City. The game will release prior to the July 30 premiere of Sharknado 2.

In SHARKNADO: THE VIDEO GAME, players will:

• Run through the streets of Manhattan wielding a broadsword

• Bounce off of the backs of tiger sharks to reach higher ground

• Feed buckets of fish to angry sharks to avoid dying

• Surf New York’s flooded avenues, avoiding hammerhead stampedes

• Collect official Sharknado trading cards

• Grab a chainsaw and fly into the heart of a sharknado, destroying it from the inside

To learn more about SHARKNADO: THE VIDEO GAME visit: www.otherocean.com

“Whether it’s boxer shorts, books, towels or video games, the Sharknado franchise is becoming an extraordinary consumer products phenomenon along with its worldwide pop culture popularity," said vice president, Syfy Ventures Jeff Li in a statement.  "We’re delighted to extend Sharknado to print and video gaming platforms, giving fans new ways to enjoy and interact with the world’s craziest disaster.”

Sharknado was released last year and became an instant social media hit – it generated 387,000 social mentions during its debut –  which helped rack up strong ratings in subsequent airings. The tongue-in-cheek sci-fi hit depicts man-eating sharks, caught up in a series of waterspouts over the ocean, destroying Los Angeles as they rain down on the populace. Former Beverly Hills 9021 actor Ian Ziering starred as Fin, the chainsaw-wielding hero of the movie. The second installment of the franchise is set in New York City.

 “The extensions of our brands like Sharknado and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid into books and video gaming are part of The Asylum's overall growth and commitment to our fans,” said Sharknado producer and co-founder of The Asylum David Latt in a statement. “We look forward to taking a bite out of publishing and video gaming with the upcoming release of these properties and Sharknado 2.””