With the media environment changing and economic conditions becoming more difficult, Kantar has looked ahead and made predictions to help media companies and advertisers navigate 2023.

The big trends involve the evolution of VOD to have a broadcast-like appointment viewing quality, ad supported streaming helping viewers offset inflation, and the need for advertisers to contextualize campaigns to put the most effective ads in front of targeted consumers.

“We foresee a year full of challenge and opportunity for the media industry. As global price rises impact consumer spend and advertising, campaign planning could be optimized through improved data application, making budgets go further. From post-cookie solutions to better campaign planning, data is our fuel - but its usage is changing,” said John McCarthy, strategic content director for Kantar’s media division. “The future will continue to deliver a host of new technologies, each brimming with potential, and it’s important not to get lost in the hype.”

Kantar’s predictions and prescriptions include:

VOD embraces appointment TV strategies – Marking a new chapter for the TV and video market, the winners in the platform wars will deploy hybrid strategies balancing VOD (video on demand) and linear content. Broadcasters are adopting aspects of VOD strategy that fit their positioning while preserving their points of difference, and VOD platforms are adopting concepts like ‘appointment TV’ and curated content discovery. The market will shift away from all-at-once release strategies and box-set bingeing for new content in order to maximize revenues.

Ad-supported models answer to inflation worries – U.S, data shows that market penetration for ad-based video-on-demand (AVOD) grew from 20% in Q2 21 to 23% by Q2 22. Kantar’s Media Reactions 2022 study shows consumers are more accepting of advertising, and as rising costs are making ad-funded content more palatable. The timing is right to introduce ad-funded tiers to limit price-sensitive churn. However, ad-models risk creating two types of viewers: those with less disposable income who become over-targeted by ads, and those with more disposable income, who are more attractive to advertisers, but are harder to reach.

Contextualize or fail – Marketers must prepare for a post-cookie landscape by experimenting with proxy-based targeting systems and contextual advertising. Targeting within closed ecosystems, in which consented first-party data is available, will still be possible, but wider cross-platform targeting has hit the barrier of consumer privacy. There will be incremental improvement in the coming years, but the hyper-targeted ecosystem the internet once promised looks increasingly unviable and initial assumptions about the granularity of targeting outside closed ecosystems may have to be reappraised.

Dynamic product placement edges closer – Nearly 75% of all US broadcast network shows have some form of product placement, targeting those viewers difficult to reach through conventional advertising forms according to Kantar’s Future Viewing Experience 2022 report. Dynamic product placement – enabling a product, billboard or screen featured in content to be substituted or overlaid with a different brand or advert – is also growing. Like addressable advertising, different viewers could – with the right data – be shown tailored ads. However, technological possibilities will need to be balanced against what’s acceptable to audiences. A negative impact may be inadvertently achieved if a placement is clearly anachronistic, jarring or out of place. Thus, tailored content should be closely monitored.

Media companies need to respond to advertisers’ (and consumers’) Net Zero ambitions – Reducing the carbon impact of media and advertising to net zero is the business challenge of our time and a greater opportunity. 2023 needs to be a year of sustainable innovation – whether that’s brands offering green products and services, media owners offering more energy-efficient services, or agencies rethinking how their planning, buying and production strategies are impacting the climate. For example, Media Figaro has launched a partnership with French start-up Vidmizer to reduce the weight of video campaigns in a bid to use less energy. With up to 80% reductions in carbon reported, it’s a good example of how technological partnerships can reduce energy expenditure. ■

Music-video network Vevo said its video-on-demand app is being added to Google TV and other Android TV OS devices.

The Vevo TV app will be available in the U.S. and other countries, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Germany, Mexico and Brazil, significantly enlarging Vevo’s global TV footprint.

“Google is a critical international distribution channel for Vevo, bringing a huge global audience to our content, as we lead the charge in returning music video programming to TV screens at scale,” Kevin McGurn, president of sales and distribution for Vevo, said.

Also: Vevo Launches 10 Music Channels on Allen Media Group's Local Now

“Music videos are not only insanely popular, but they are powerful and highly-engaging content to advertise against due to the deep emotional connections that they forge with the viewer, They can feel deeply personal, yet have mass appeal. Vevo’s app uniquely provides advertisers with the opportunity to appear alongside some of the most cherished and iconic music videos,” McGurn said. “With support for Android TV OS, brands can access even more inventory and more eyeballs, especially hard-to-reach consumers, such as cord-cutters, cord-nevers, and younger demographics, which do not watch traditional broadcast television.”

Also: Vevo Launches Somos Vevo Ads To Reach Hispanics Via CTV

Founded by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment in 2009, Vevo generates more than 25 billion views across television, desktops and mobile devices each month.

Vevo is available on YouTube, Samsung, Samsung TV Plus, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Echo Show, Pluto TV, Apple TV, Roku, Comcast (Xfinity X1 and Xfinity Flex), Vizio, Sky (NowTV and SkyQ), Foxxum, Xite, NetRange, Redbox, T-Mobile Play, Virgin Media, Xumo, Telstra, Foxtel, Fetch, Rogers, Shaw, Local Now, Google TV, Android TV and Vewd. ■ 

DMR said it reached an agreement with Microsoft’s Xbox to launch six of DMR’s over-the-top channels as VOD apps on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S consoles.

The six channels are Cinehouse, Retrocrush, AsianCrush, Cororo, KMTV and Midnight Pulp.

The Xbox launch continues distribution momentum for DMR, whose channels recently have also been added on platforms including Peacock, LG Channels, Vizio SmartCast, Redbox, and The Roku Channel.

“DMR’s new agreement with Microsoft is an exciting new benchmark for our company. Our six channels are joining a very select group of entertainment apps on the service which includes Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple TV, YouTube and Hulu,” said DMR CEO David Chu. “This marks our first launch on one of the leading global gaming platforms and Xbox has been the most requested outlet for these channels by our loyal fan base”

Each of the DMR channels are available on Xbox for free with advertising, or as an ad-free premium channel for as low as a $4.99/month per channel subscription. 

The DMR channels have picked up distribution on other platforms. 

RetroCrush launched its free linear channel in the U.S. on Peacock, LG Channels, Vizio SmartCast and Redbox. Also a RetroCrush-branded programming block is launching on Pluto TV.

Midnight Pulp launched a free linear channel on Vizio Smartcast and a VOD app on Vizio Smart TVs.

Cocoro also launched a free linear channel on Vizio SmartCast and KMTV launched its VOD app on Vizio Smart TVs.

DMR also launched Retrocrush, Midnight Pulp and AsianCrush channels in Canada on The Roku Channel.

This year DMR launched a dedicated social video division that is approaching a reach of 20 million across YouTube and Facebook alone, and continued to distribute anime and other titles from its vast library to its streaming platform partners. ■

Impact Wrestling is stepping into the ring with Samsung TV Plus, giving Samsung device users access to a new ad-supported channel and a library of video on demand content.

“This new partnership presents an invaluable opportunity for us to bring Impact Wrestling’s exclusive premium content to even more viewers across the country,” said Jaime Pollack, chief revenue officer for Impact parent’s Anthem Sports & Entertainment’s Sports Media Group. 

Also Read: Impact Wrestling Launches Streaming Channel on Xumo

“We are excited to share our deep, generation-spanning library with Samsung TV Plus’ audience—giving wrestling fans both old and new a chance to enjoy all of the larger-than-life personas, legendary matches, and gripping story-telling that IMPACT Wrestling is known for,” said Pollack.

Impact Wrestling’s library has two decades worth of content featuring icons Ric Flair, Sting, Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash and AJ Styles as well as current stars Rich Swann, The Good Brothers, Moose, Deonna Purrazzo, Sami Callihan, Eddie Edwards, Jordynne GRace, Eric Young and Chris Bey.

Impact Wrestling programming is carried on Anthem’s AXS TV in the U.S. and globally in 120 countries. 

As super hero sequels with a middling Rotten Tomatoes scores go, Wonder Woman 1984 is proving to be a compelling test subject, showcasing the movie release model of the future.

And the movie's theatrical window might not be the only thing that just got crushed. 

On Sunday, the WarnerMedia film ended a 31-day run on HBO Max. The first of many Warner Bros. theatrical titles to debut on the streaming service “day and date” with its premiere in movie houses, Wonder Woman 1984 is now exclusively available in theaters. No one seems to know what happens next. 

The film generated $1.6 million this past weekend (Jan. 22-24), playing in 2,013 theaters across North America. To date, it’s made $37.7 million domestically and $148 million worldwide. 

The first film in the current Warner Bros. franchise, 2017’s Wonder Woman, generated $822.3 million theatrically.

WarnerMedia has committed to premiering all 17 films on its 2021 theatrical slate day and date on HBO Max. And somewhat overlooked as the conglomerate has battled its creative partners over lost theatrical money has been, what happens to the film’s VOD revenue, as well as now niche home entertainment formats such as DVD and Blu-ray?

WarnerMedia has yet to announce when Wonder Woman 1984 will be available for rental and sale on transactional platforms. Just as the theatrical window was affected, home VOD revenue for the film will be undoubtedly impacted by the fact that the film was available for streaming for 31 days as part of HBO Max’s $15-a-month SVOD smorgasbord. 

Notably, the original Wonder Woman was one of the top-selling home entertainment titles in 2017, according to the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG), which uses studio data to tally DVD, Blu-ray and digital sales and rentals of movie titles. 

According to data from sources including DEG assembled by The Numbers, Wonder Woman generated $98.3 million in DVD and Blu-ray sales alone. And disc sales only accounted for around 20% of home entertainment revenue that year. 

Notably, overall home entertainment is back on the rise. DEG hasn’t released full-year 2020 numbers, but total spending came in at $25.1 billion in 2019 vs. $20.5 billion in 2017, driven by increase in electronic sell-through. 

So the question is, did Wonder Woman 1984’s 31 days on HBO Max justify not only sacrificing hundreds of millions of dollars in worldwide theatrical revenue, but also perhaps several hundred million of dollars in home entertainment coin?

Following Wonder Woman 1984’s Dec. 25 premiere, WarnerMedia announced that it was “fast-tracking” development of a third franchise film, given what it called “record” signups on HBO Max. 

What are record sign-ups?

On Wednesday, WarnerMedia parent HBO Max will announce fourth quarter earnings, and it will almost undoubtedly touch on HBO Max subscriber growth. Notably, since AT&T last reported earnings in November, HBO Max has added distribution on Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Comcast Xfinity X1 and Flex. 

Notably, equity research company MoffettNathanson crunched the numbers in early December, shortly after WarnerMedia's slate announcement, and concluded that HBO Max would need to generate an additional 8.4 million subscribers--beyond what WarnerMedia was already projecting--to make up for losses in associated release windows. 

So another question: Will analysts be able to parse out growth of HBO Max based on customers who signed up for the service specifically to watch Wonder Woman 1984?

FreeWheel, Comcast’s ad-tech company, said it will begin selling commercials during set-top-box video-on-demand programming using a solution developed by Comcast Technology Solutions, another arm of the company.

There is an increasing number of ad buyers and clients looking to buy commercials using data to target viewers and programmatic to automate the process.

Distributors are figuring out how to automate selling ads in programming that is not delivered via internet protocol, including traditional linear channels and set-top VOD.

“Programmatic advertising is becoming a more important part of our premium video buying strategies,” said Jason Kanefsky, chief investment officer, Havas Media. “Advancements that allow us to get greater scale, more consistent targeting and a unified view of the total viewing audience are needed. As viewers continue to shift their consumption across platforms, in particular younger demographics, extending reach in new ways is critical. The addition of STB VOD inventory to our programmatic arsenal will be an important step in this direction.”

Comcast said its new solution gives advertisers that access to more content as part of their programmatic buys across connected TV and digital video channels. The solution manages to overcome special issues with set-top-box VOD than had hindered the ability to bring it to advertisers at the speed required for automated bidding within FreeWheel’s unified auction structure.

“Our key goal is to ensure buyers and sellers can seamlessly transact across all content types and allow for our robust data and decisioning capabilities to work wherever viewers are watching premium video. Working with Comcast Technology Solutions to bring Set-Top Box VOD into the mix is an enormous step forward,” said Dave Clark, general manager, FreeWheel. “Allowing programmatic, marketplace access to this growing viewership segment will open new sources of growth to our supply-side clients, and just as importantly, will allow advertisers to tap into this premium, living room quality content as part of their unified video strategy.”

The new system combines the ad targeting capabilities of FreeWheel’s ad decision engine with the ad creative distribution capabilities of Comcast Technology Solutions’ Ad Store, providing realtime, broadcast quality creative conditioning and distribution to all STB VOD MVPD end points, the companies said.

“Video-on-demand content has skyrocketed in importance in terms of video viewership, as consumers flock to the engaged, big-screen viewing environment in their own living rooms. However, until today, it has not been possible to effectively monetize this content in the same programmatic fashion as other video inventory,” said Richard Nunn, VP and general manager of advertiser solutions at Comcast Technology Solutions. “By enabling unified programmatic auctions and seamless distribution of ad assets across all inventories including STB VOD, we are helping programmers and distributors open up new opportunities for advertising."

FreeWheel, Comcast’s ad-tech company, said it will begin selling commercials during set-top-box video-on-demand programming using a solution developed by Comcast Technology Solutions, another arm of the company.

There is an increasing number of ad buyers and clients looking to buy commercials using data to target viewers and programmatic to automate the process.

Distributors are figuring out how to automate selling ads in programming that is not delivered via internet protocol, including traditional linear channels and set-top VOD.

“Programmatic advertising is becoming a more important part of our premium video buying strategies,” said Jason Kanefsky, chief investment officer, Havas Media. “Advancements that allow us to get greater scale, more consistent targeting and a unified view of the total viewing audience are needed. As viewers continue to shift their consumption across platforms, in particular younger demographics, extending reach in new ways is critical. The addition of STB VOD inventory to our programmatic arsenal will be an important step in this direction.”

Comcast said its new solution gives advertisers that access to more content as part of their programmatic buys across connected TV and digital video channels. The solution manages to overcome special issues with set-top-box VOD that had hindered the ability to bring it to advertisers at the speed required for automated bidding within FreeWheel’s unified auction structure.

“Our key goal is to ensure buyers and sellers can seamlessly transact across all content types and allow for our robust data and decisioning capabilities to work wherever viewers are watching premium video. Working with Comcast Technology Solutions to bring Set-Top Box VOD into the mix is an enormous step forward,” said Dave Clark, general manager, FreeWheel. “Allowing programmatic, marketplace access to this growing viewership segment will open new sources of growth to our supply-side clients, and just as importantly, will allow advertisers to tap into this premium, living room quality content as part of their unified video strategy.”

The new system combines the ad targeting capabilities of FreeWheel’s ad decision engine with the ad creative distribution capabilities of Comcast Technology Solutions’ Ad Store, providing realtime, broadcast quality creative conditioning and distribution to all STB VOD MVPD end points, the companies said.

“Video-on-demand content has skyrocketed in importance in terms of video viewership, as consumers flock to the engaged, big-screen viewing environment in their own living rooms. However, until today, it has not been possible to effectively monetize this content in the same programmatic fashion as other video inventory,” said Richard Nunn, VP and general manager of advertiser solutions at Comcast Technology Solutions. “By enabling unified programmatic auctions and seamless distribution of ad assets across all inventories including STB VOD, we are helping programmers and distributors open up new opportunities for advertising."

As anyone of 11,433 video business surveys and studies will tell you, video usage is way up during this ongoing pandemic shelter-in-place moment.

Much of the attention has been paid to the subscription video on demand (SVOD) streaming services. But according to an April survey of 1,997 U.S. adults conducted by The Diffusion Group (TDG), pay TV VOD is way up, too.

According to TDG, 77% of adult broadband users who subscribe to a cable, satellite telco or vMVPD video service use the pay TV product’s VOD component. And of that user base, 18.5% report a “significant” uptick in their pay TV VOD usage; 41.7% report some increase in their VOD consumption.

Visit Next TV to read more stories like this one. 

"Much has been written about recent spikes in the use of on-demand streaming video services such as Netflix and Disney Plus, and for good reason," said Michael Greeson, TDG president and principal analyst. "Our findings clearly demonstrate that, being largely confined to their homes, consumers see tremendous value in having access to on-demand shows and movies. And this holds true for all such services, including those offered by pay-TV providers.”

According to TDG, pay TV subscribers younger than 45 were twice as likely to report significant VOD usage expansion—23% vs. 13%.

Among virtual MVPD users, users report significant VOD consumption increases tallied 21%—slightly higher than the aggregate. The number dropped to 13% among satellite TV users. 

As anyone of 11,433 video business surveys and studies will tell you, video usage is way up during this ongoing pandemic shelter-in-place moment. 

Much of the attention has been paid to the subscription video on demand (SVOD) streaming services. But according to an April survey of 1,997 U.S. adults conducted by The Diffusion Group (TDG), pay TV VOD is way up, too. 

According to TDG, 77% of adult broadband users who subscribe to a cable, satellite  telco or vMVPD video service use the pay TV product’s VOD component. And of that user base, 18.5% report a “significant” uptick in their pay TV VOD usage; 41.7% report some increase in their VOD consumption. 

"Much has been written about recent spikes in the use of on-demand streaming video services such as Netflix and Disney Plus, and for good reason," notes Michael Greeson, TDG president and principal analyst. "Our findings clearly demonstrate that, being largely confined to their homes, consumers see tremendous value in having access to on-demand shows and movies. And this holds true for all such services, including those offered by pay-TV providers.”

According to TDG, pay TV subscribers younger than 45 were twice as likely to report significant VOD usage expansion—23% vs. 13%.

Among virtual MVPD users, users report significant VOD consumption increases tallied 21%—slightly higher than the aggregate. The number dropped to 13% among satellite TV users. 

People staying home to stop the spread of the coronavirus ordered 29.8% more video on demand titles during March compared to a year ago, according to Comscore.

In addition to viewers spending more time in front of the TV, Comscore noted that with theaters closed, many studios made more first-run feature films available for home viewing.

Looking at set-top-box based VOD, including free on demand, subscription VOD, transactional VOD and electronic sell-through, the average household access, purchased or rented 16 VOD titles in March, up from about 12 a year ago.

Subscription VOD showed the most growth, with transaction per household increasing 53%, with free on demand rising 21%.

The biggest gain came in the week of March 29.

Among categories, fitness showed the biggest gain--up 147%--as people thought about staying in shape. Life and home was up 64% and premium channel content was up 54%. Music was down 10%.

Atlantic Broadband is launching a TiVo upgrade including a new voice remote as well as a new IP-based video-on-demand platform that will give its viewers more choice across a host of devices, the company said.

The TiVo Experience 4 and IP VOD (provided by SeaChange) launches this week in Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine, with other markets rolling out by year's end, the company said.

MCN Indie Operators of the Year 2018 | Atlantic Broadband: A Small Op That Pulled Off a Big Task

The new TiVo interface offers "intuitive navigation and enhanced functionality, hyper-personalized viewing recommendations and an easy-to-use remote, offering conversational voice control," according to the top-10 cable operator. 

Users can search for content across standard TV, DVR recordings, and on-demand and over-the-top platforms, including Netflix.

“The new experience is not only visually beautiful, but will transform the TV experience for our customers,” said Heather McCallion, VP of products and programming for Atlantic Broadband. 

Zone TV said it is introducing a software suite under the Zone·TV Studio brand that enables content owners and video distributors to create self-branded, linear TV channels that can be personalized and customized by and for each viewer in the household.

Zone·tv Studio is an artificial intelligence-powered service for content discovery, channel curation and video delivery, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based firm said. The software enables a “Spotify-like” experience based on what the individual viewer wants to see. 

Related: Zone TV Uses A.I. to Program 14 Linear-Style OTT Channels

“Traditional video distribution is in a state of disruption as hundreds of direct-to-consumer streaming services are emerging, making it difficult to maintain customer loyalty,” Zone·TV CEO Jeff Weber said in the release. “Our technology means that any video distributor or content owner can build new, precisely targeted, compelling channels which enable a more relevant content consumption experience for their customers. Zone·tv studio enables the simplicity of traditional linear channel programming combined with the intelligence power of A.I. to bring new user experiences to TV services.”

Zone TV said using the software "learns what viewers love to watch and presents similar content, automatically and in real time. This unique capability empowers viewers to create their own channels with the click of the TV remote control and 'zone·ify' their own channel." A Foodies channel one viewer watches could be more about grilling than a neighbor's desserts-focused channel, based on their viewing habits.

Comcast is expanding its subscription VOD slate with the addition of Touchfit TV by Georges St-Pierre, the former middleweight Mixed Martial Arts world champion.

The fitness-focused service, which features more than 125 instructional workouts, is being delivered to Comcast’s X1 platform in partnership with Zone TV. Comcast is selling it for $4.99 per month.

Comcast subs can locate the service by saying “Touchfit TV” into their X1 voice remote of via the networks section in the X1 VOD area.

About 61% of Comcast’s residential video subscriber base is on the X1 platform.

Comcast has also teamed with Zone TV for several other SVOD services, including FitFusion by Jillian Michaels, PlayKids, TumbleBooks TV, Lion Mountain TV, Quark and XiveTV, as well as on the delivery of two seasonal “pop-up” channels Santa Tracker and Halloween Countdown.

RELATED: Zone TV Expands SVOD Deal with Comcast

Touchfit TV adds to a growing list of Comcast’s ad-free, SVOD packages that includes FX+, AMC Premiere, Acorn TV, Disney Story Central, History Vault, Here TV, Anime Network, CuriosityStream, and Up Faith & Family, among others.

YouTube Red, the ad-free subscription VOD service launched in 2015, is getting a new name that will be matched with a new, higher price point for customers that are new to the premium-level offering.

The rebranded service, YouTube Premium, will be rolled out “soon” in existing YouTube Red markets (the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Korea), will fetch $11.99 per month, $2 more than the earlier price. Current YouTube Red subs (and those who sign up for YouTube Red the service before YouTube Premium is formally launched) will get the lower price of $9.99 per month. With respect to updated pricing, one exception is South Korea, which will offer YouTube Premium at the current price of YouTube Red.  

The new YouTube Premium includes the ad-free YouTube Music (a revamped music streaming service that will take on rival offerings such as Spotify and Apple Music), plus access to original series, including Cobra Kai, and movies (like upcoming sci-fi title Impulse) and other YouTube content without ads.  

RELATED: YouTube Greenlights Second Season of ‘Cobra Kai’  

YouTube Premium is also getting a wider reach, as it’s to be rolled out to several other markets around the globe, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.  

Google hasn’t revealed YouTube Red sub numbers, but the service was reported to have about 1.5 million paying customers as of the late summer of 2016.  

As a stand-alone, YouTube Music Premium will fetch $9.99, ad offer ad-free music, background listening, and downloads.  

Gracenote has introduced a new offering that’s tailored for a new class of virtual MVPDs and covers and integrates data for both live TV and VOD libraries.

The new TV metadata and electronic program guide offering is targeted to smart TVs and other streaming devices, including gaming consoles, that deliver live OTT TV services, and aims to make linear and VOD content more searchable and discoverable, the company said.

Gracenote, now part of Nielsen, said it’s adding that capability as a growing mix of streaming platforms extend access to vMVPD services along their own VOD catalogs and are challenged by integrating the live TV and on-demand worlds of video.

One such example includes sitcoms and dramas that offer new episodes on live TV through OTT TV services even as back episodes are made available on network TV apps and other OTT video service providers.

Gracenote said its new offering enables streaming services to show a unified search result.

“Our newest data solution, designed for cable and satellite operators who offer virtual services as well as standalone OTT providers, bridges the best of live linear programming with on-demand libraries to make content easier to find and watch across platforms,” Simon Adams, GM of video and sports at Gracenote, said in a statement. “By empowering all players in the market to deliver outstanding user experiences, Gracenote is helping them stay ahead of shifting viewing habits and position themselves for success.”

Gracenote hasn’t announced partners that will use the new platform, but is actively working to on-board customers.

Dish Network, the company behind Sling TV, recently migrated to TiVo’s metadata platform. DirecTV, which offers an OTT service called DirecTV Now, is among Gracenote’s listed customers.

Canoe, the MSO-backed supplier of dynamic VOD ad tech and services, said ad impression on its platform surpasses 6 billion in Q1 2018, up 25% from the year-ago period.

Canoe, which shared new data in concert with this week’s Pay TV Show in Denver, said those impressions spanned set-top boxes, IP and mobile platforms.

In Q1, the bulk of VOD ad impressions were mid-rolls (5.25 billion), versus pre-roll (806.75 million) and post-roll (90.71 million). The average ad opportunities per mid-role break was 3.85 in Q1, compared to 1.18 for pre-roll ads, and 1.52 for post-roll ads.

Canoe said 99% of ads in mid-roll slots were watched to completion 99% of the time, on average.

With respect to ad frequency, 57% of the time in a given episode, viewers saw the same campaign ad one time, and about 36% of the time they saw the same campaign ad twice.

Some 2,522 campaigns were run on Canoe’s platform in Q1, with 83% coming from external clients, and 17% for network tune-in ads.

Canoe’s footprint currently covers 36 million cable households and the top DMAs in partnership with Charter Communications, Comcast and Cox Communications. More than 100 national TV networks are running campaigns with Canoe, including A&E, ABC, AMC, CBS, CMT, CW, Discovery, Fox, Hallmark, Hip Hop, HGTV, Kabillion, Kid Genius, MTV, MGM, Music Choice, NBC, Sony, Starz, TNT, TVOne, and Univision, among others.

“We continue to see consumer video consumption trending toward on-demand in the living room and cable VOD has played a big role in that,” Joel Hassell, CEO of Canoe, said in a statement. “Even with connected devices capturing more market share in 2017, VOD DAI commands a 19% share of overall premium video ad views.”

Comcast said its latest Xfinity Watchathon broke another viewing record, as subscribers watched 105 million hours of TV shows and movies during the annual, week-long VOD binge-fest.

By comparison, last year’s Watchathon, the first from Comcast to include Netflix content, saw customers tune in to watch more than 77 million hours of VOD fare.

Comcast’s sixth-annual, VOD-focused Xfinity Watchathon, which took place April 16-22, is used in part to drive interest in TV series ahead of their TV season premieres. This year’s version involved more than 50 networks, as well as access to Netflix original series and subscription VOD services such as Dog TV, Acorn TV and CuriosityStream, as well as two relatively new commercial-free services – AMC Premiere and FX+.

As another new addition, the latest Watchathon offered a subset of programming, including HBO’s Game of Thrones, to Comcast’s internet-only customers using the operator’s Xfinity Stream app for mobile devices and web browsers.

RELATED: Comcast’s Next Watchathon Offers Subset of Programming to Internet-Only Subs.

Among other stats, Comcast said Xfinity Stream app achieved a record during the week from a download perspective, as it averaged about 14 downloads per minute, up about 20% from the week prior.

HBO’s Game of Thrones was the most-watched TV series for the week, followed by ABC’s Roseanne, Showtime’s Homeland and Billions, and HBO’s Westworld, Brynn Lev, VP of editorial and programming at Comcast Cable, noted in this blog post.

Of the SVOD services that were part of Watchathon this year, Acorn TV, AMC Premiere, FX+, Lifetime Movie Club, Stingray Karaoke, Comcast’s own Streampix, and UP Faith and Family were among the most-viewed, Lev added.

RELATED: Acorn TV Nets Comcast Deal

Subs in Boston binged out more than other cities, followed by Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Philadelphia. 

Amazon is set to raise the annual price on new Prime subscriptions in May from $99 to $119 per year, company CFO Brian Olsavsky said on the company’s Q1 2018 earnings call, according to multiple reports.

The increase will take effect for existing Prime members, based on their renewal period, starting June 16, Variety noted.

Word of the coming 20% price hike comes about a week after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed in a letter to investors that Prime now exceeds 100 million members worldwide. It was the first time that Amazon had disclosed that number for Prime, which includes a mix of perks, including two-day shipping on items purchased via Amazon and access to a large streaming library of licensed fare and original series.

RELATED: Amazon Prime Exceeds 100 Million Subs

The annual price increase also follows today's announcement that the NFL and Amazon had renewed a deal to stream Thursday Night Football to Prime members worldwide for two more seasons.

Amazon increased the yearly price on Prime by $20 – from $79 to $99 – about four years ago as the company tried to get a grip on escalating shipping costs.

Amazon’s latest annual price increase also follows Amazon’s decision to raise Prime’s monthly price in the U.S. by $2 – from $10.99 per month to $12.99 per month.

Amazon has not announced plans to hike the price on an $8.99 per month standalone subscription video service that was introduced about two years ago.

The company announced Q1 sales of $51 billion, up 43%, and net income of $1.6 billion ($3.27 per diluted share), up from $724 million or $1.48 per diluted share in the year-ago quarter. In a statement, Bezos attributed the surge in part to a “remarkable acceleration” of growth at Amazon Web Services. Q1 sales at AWS hit $5.44 billion, up 49% year-over-year.  

Wall Street was expecting earnings of $1.27 per share on revenues of $49.96 billion.

Amazon expects Q2 net sales of $51 billion to $54 billion, up between 34% to 42%. 

Amazon shares were up $109.04 (7.18%) to $1,627 each in after-hours trading Thursday. 

Comcast has set April 16-22 for its sixth-annual Xfinity Watchathon and, in a new twist, will offer a subset of programming to internet-only customers, including HBOs Game of Thrones, via the MSO’s Xfinity Stream app for mobile devices and web portal.

This year’s Xfinity Watchathon, a free VOD binge-fest used in part to drive interest in TV series ahead of their season premieres, will offer access to thousands of shows and movies from more than 50 networks, including HBO, Showtime, NBC, and Starz, as well Netflix original series and subscription VOD services that include Dog TV, CuriosityStream and Acorn TV.

RELATED: Acorn TV Nets Comcast Deal

Also part of the mix this year will be two relatively new commercial-free services – AMC Premiere and FX+, Comcast said.

RELATED: Comcast Launches FX+

The offer to internet-only subscribers for a portion of content that is on offer via this year’s Watchathon aims to give them a taste of the VOD fare available through Comcast’s pay TV service and as an apparent enticement to subscribe.

Content available to that internet-only group will include HBO’s Game of Thrones and Westworld; Showtime’s Billions and Homeland; Starz’s Outlander and Power; AMC’s The Terror; Fox’s 9-1-1 and X-Files; Archer (via FX+), and NBC’s AP Bio and Rise.

Comcast noted that the full Showtime catalog will be available on Comcast’s VOD platform and the Xfinity Stream app and portal for a portion of the Watchathon (April 19-22).

The Watchathon web site has also teed up some games related to the initiative, including “TV in Other Worlds,” which tests TV show knowledge by having visitor guess show titles with replaced words.

Last year’s Watchathon, the first from Comcast to include Netflix content, set a record, as customers tuned in to watch more than 77 million hours of VOD fare. Mobile viewing, via the Stream app, rose to 4.5 million hours during last year’s Watchathon.

RELATED: Comcast’s Latest ‘Watchathon Week’ Breaks Another Record

“We love bringing Xfinity Watchathon Week to our customers each year and surprising them with new and unexpected content. This year, we’re really turning up the dial by offering X1 customers a unique opportunity to sample and explore the best programming from dozens of traditional networks and studios, streaming services and emerging SVODs - all aggregated together on the biggest screen in the home,” Daniel Spinosa, vice president, video entertainment services at Comcast Cable, said in a statement. “But we also didn’t want to leave Xfinity Internet customers out of the fun so for the first time we’re inviting them to experience Watchathon Week commitment-free by downloading the Xfinity Stream app or going to the Xfinity Stream portal to get access to a selection of Watchathon Week movies and TV shows on their devices all week long.”

Acorn TV, the SVOD service focused on British and international television programs, has gained distribution on Comcast’s set-top box VOD platform and the service provider’s Xfinity Stream app for smartphones, tablets and web browsers.

Acorn TV, a service that’s also marketed as a standalone OTT service, said the agreement with Comcast marks the first time it’s available on an MVPD set-top box. 

RELATED: SVOD Shakeout: The Survival of the Fittest (subscription required)

Acorn TV, a service owned by RLJ Entertainment, is being offered on Comcast set-top boxes via the MSO’s managed VOD system and not over-the-top via the internet.

Acorn TV, which features originals such as BBC comedy Detectorists and ITV drama Girlfriends, is being offered via Comcast for $4.99 per month, the same as the SVOD service’s standalone price.

RELATED: BritBox Crosses 250K Sub Mark

Financial terms of the deal were not announced, but most SVOD deals between content providers and MVPDs operate on a subscription sharing model.

Acorn TV has also been integrated with Comcast’s X1 voice remote.

Acorn TV expands a list of other SVOD services offered via Comcast’s VOD platform, including Disney Story Central, Stingray Karaoke, Disney Family Movies, Lifetime Movie Club, History Vault, Gaiam TV Fit & Yoga, Grokker, FitFusion, Gaia, Dog TV, Here TV, CuriosityStream, UP Faith & Family, Anime Network, Kidstream, TumbleBooks TV, Stingray Classica, Eros Now, Filipino On Demand, and The Jewish Channel.

Comcast also sells commercial-free offerings in partnership with FX (FX+) and AMC Networks (AMC Premiere)

“The addition of Acorn TV and its curated collection of standout international television provides even more choice to our Xfinity TV customers, giving them another way to watch their favorite series or discover new and classic programs,” Michael Imbesi, VP of movies & PPV programming at Comcast Cable, said in a statement. 

In an important move that extends a bridge beyond its own streaming device ecosystem, Roku said The Roku Channel, its free, ad-supported VOD offering, is set to debut this summer on “select” Samsung smart TVs.

RELATED: Roku Launches its Own Free, Ad-Based Streaming Channel

Those models were not specified in today's announcement, but it's expected that they will include millions of smart TVs that run Samsung's Tizen operating system. 

The Roku Channel is a curated AVOD service that debuted last fall on Roku TVs and Roku players. The expansion on Samsung will extend the availability of The Roku Channel and possibly pave the way for further expansions to other streaming platforms that aren’t powered by the Roku OS.

Roku said The Roku Channel, which today features “hundreds” of movies and TV shows, is a top 20 channel on its own platform. Roku has previously said that it has also risen to be the number three ad-supported channel on its Roku platform, with Scott Rosenberg, GM of Roku’s Platforms business, calling it a “material contributor” to the video inventory that Roku sells during the company's recent earnings call.

Roku noted that The Roku Channel’s ad load per programming hour is about half as compared to traditional linear TV.

“By broadening our distribution of this app to other viewing platforms such as Samsung, the #1 TV maker in the U.S., we are able to engage millions more consumers with free ad-supported entertainment,” Rosenberg said, in a statement. 

CuriosityStream, the subscription VOD service founded by Discovery Channel founder John Hendricks, will be seeking distribution deals with hundreds of tier 2/3 cable opera taros after forging a deal with the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC).

Read More: Additional Coverage of the NCTC Winter Educational Conference

The agreement, focused on NCTC’s membership of 850-plus indie operators that serve nearly 9 million subs, will enable those operators to offer CuriosityStream’s offering of more than 1,500 documentaries, via their VOD service and through a streaming app that supports a wide range of mobile and TV-connected platforms.

RELATED: CuriosityStream Connects With Vizio’s Smart TVs

Plans are also underway to integrate CuriosityStream’s app on certain operator-supplied set-top box platforms later this year, they said. 

Pricing of the SVOD service through the NCTC deal wasn’t announced, but CuriosityStream’s stand-alone, retail OTT offering starts at $2.99 per month for a “Basic” standard-def tier, while Standard (which supports HD) runs $5.99, and its Premium tier, with access to the service’s 4K library, runs $11.99 per month.

CuriosityStream, a service launched in March 2015, has not announced subscriber numbers. However, the NCTC agreement builds on its strategy to work with various types of distributors. Those partners include Comcast, Layer3 TV (now part of T-Mobile), Sling TV, Amazon Channels and VRV, the Ellation-owned SVOD aggregation/bundling service.   

The CuriosityStream deal also expands on the NCTC’s focus on helping its members work with or integrate new services from the OTT world. As part of an effort to help those members have a video option for broadband-only customers, the NCTC has recently signed deals with two virtual MVPDs – fuboTV and PlayStation Vue.

The NCTC-CuriosityStream agreement was announced in concert with this week’s NCTC Winter Educational Conference in San Antonio. At a session today, panelists urged operators to tighten their ties to SVOD services that can enhance or complement their pay TV offerings.

RELATED: Operators Should Embrace SVOD to Attract Next Generation

"CuriosityStream is proud to partner with NCTC to give its members and their enormous customer base easy access to the world's greatest collection of non-fiction programming that empowers viewers to satisfy their curiosity about their favorite subjects," Clint Stinchcomb, chief distribution officer for CuriosityStream, said in a statement.

Video-on-demand programming continues to grow as an advertising medium, according to new figures from Canoe.

Ads served by Canoe in video-on-demand programming registered 6.995 billion impressions in the fourth quarter, up 37% from 5.111 billion a year ago.

Canoe ran 3,412 campaigns in the fourth quarter of 2017, up 46% from 2,341 a year ago. Campaigns for clients represented 82% of the campaigns while network tune in ads comprised 18% of the campaigns. A year ago, 79% of the campaigns were run for clients.

Related: Set-Top VOD Ads Must Evolve to Survive

For the full year, Canoe racked up 23.326 billion impressions in 2017, up 30% from 17.903 billion in 2016.

Canoe ran 7,822 campaigns in 2017, up 35% from 5,783.

On average, Canoe is putting more ads in each VOD program. During fourth-quarter breaks in the middle of programs, an average of 4.04 ads ran in the fourth quarter, up from 3.73 a year ago. During pre-roll, 1.17 ads appear, up from 1.1, with 1.41 appearing in post-roll, up from 1.02.

During the fourth quarter nearly all of the impressions came from mid-roll ads. There were 5.9 billion impressions in mid-roll, compared with 969 million in pre-roll and 102 million in post roll ads.

Related: Canoe Marks 100 Billion Spots Inserted in VOD Programming

Campaigns that employ frequency capping put that cap at two impressions, on average.

The ads are overwhelmingly run completely. In mid-roll, 99% of the ads run to completion. In pre-roll, it’s 90.2% and in post-roll its’s 93.4%.

VOD viewing and ad delivery peaks during the weekend. Canoe delivered 1.196 billion impression on Sundays and 1.185 billion on Saturdays, the two biggest days of the week during the fourth quarter.

Canoe inserts ads in programming in 36 million households service by Charter Spectrum, Comcast and Cox, up from 35 million households a year ago. Those operators own Canoe as a joint venture.

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

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

RELATED: Tube Mogul Sold to Adobe for $540M

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

RELATED: Tubi TV Raises $20M More

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

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

Tegna said it will broaden its OTT local/regional-focused ad network through a “strategic” investment in Tubi TV, the company behind a free, ad-supported streaming service that features more than 7,500 movies and TV series.

Tegna is not disclosing the amount of the investment, but said the relationship will enable it to help marketers access more local advertising opportunities in long-form OTT content. Of note, Premion, Tegna’s ad network for OTT content, will expand its existing relationship with Tubi TV, the companies said.

RELATED: Tegna Seeks OTT Ad-Vantage

Under the deal, Tubi TV will distribute Tegna’s local content across its platform, offering viewers localized news and other digital content from Tegna stations.

Launched in 2014, Tubi TV is currently supports on a range of devices and platforms, including iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, web browsers, Roku players and Roku TVs, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One and Xbox 360 consoles, the PlayStation 3 and PS4, Chromecast streaming adapters, and TiVo boxes, as well as smart TVs from Samsung and  Sony.

Tubi has raised at least $35 million so far, and counts Lionsgate, MGM and Stanford University among its backers.

RELATED: Tubi TV Raises $20M More

“Tubi TV strongly aligns with TEGNA’s focus on OTT content and innovative advertising solutions,”Dave Lougee, president and CEO of Tegna, said in a statement. “Through this transaction, we continue to fuel Premion’s growth trajectory and will enhance their ability to deliver unique and high-performing ads in a way no one else can.”

Tegna noted that it recently made an equity investment in Vizbee, a data/platform company focused on mobile-to-TV.

BAMTech Media, the technology services and video streaming operation spun out of MLBAM, confirmed that Kevin Swint has joined the company as senior vice president and general manager, Disney SVOD Service.

Swint, an exec who is late of Samsung and Apple, reports to BAMTech CEO Michael Paull.

RELATED: BAMTech Gets a Website, Logo

BAMTech didn’t expand on the details of Swint’s new role, but Variety, which first reported the hire, said Swint’s duties will include running a new OTT-delivered subscription service that will compete with Netflix.

The hiring comes as The Walt Disney Company acquires a majority stake in BAMTech, and moves ahead on a plan to launch Disney- and ESPN-branded direct to consumer products.

RELATED: Disney Set to Launch Direct to Consumer Services

Per his Linked In profile, Swint has most recently been serving as an advisor and consultant and investor in markets spanning VR, video, social media and cross-channel retail.

Prior to that, he was VP, product/content and services at Samsung Electronics and, while there, built the team that developed and launched Samsung’s Milk Video short-form streaming video service.  Before Samsung, he was director, iTunes at Apple, and was senior director/GM, head of digital products, content and services at Walmart.

Cheddar, the financial news service focused on millennial audiences, is now offered on Comcast’s X1 set-top box platform and is available to all X1 customers.

Access to Cheddar on X1 is offered on all programming packages and includes a live linear feed of Cheddar as well as on-demand clips from the news service in categories such as technology, business, culture and politics. Comcast subs can access Cheddar via the X1 news section or get to it directly by saying “Cheddar” into the X1 voice remote. Cheddar content has also been integrated with the X1 search platform.

RELATED: Comcast Launches New X1 Voice Remote

At the end of Q3, about 57% of Comcast’s residential video base was on X1. Comcast Ventures is an investor in Cheddar.

Access to Cheddar’s live stream is delivered to X1 boxes via the internet (so data for that will be applicable to Comcast’s internet data usage policy), while on-demand access appears to be available via the separately managed Xfinity On Demand service.

Notably, when the live feed of Cheddar is accessed on X1, the system opens up the integrated YouTube app to deliver the stream.

“It’s amazing and validating to turn on the TV and see Cheddar alongside Fox Business and CNBC on X1,” Jon Steinberg, CEO of Cheddar, noted in this blog post.

Cheddar isn't commenting on the financial aspects of its X1 agreement. "What I can say is that I think what we have done with the amazing X1 team is one of a kind and the future of television," Steinberg said via email to Multichannel News, in response to a question about the terms of the deal. "Live linear and VOD clips all available with the simple utterance of the word 'Cheddar.' And our content right next to CNBC and Fox Business in the finance section. We are just getting started and I anticipate we will continue to push the envelope with the Comcast team. Comcast Ventures invested in Cheddar precisely to pioneer the future of live video and media."

Cheddar also posted a short video demo of its X1 integration:

Cheddar recently gained distribution on Layer3 TV, the Denver-based MVPD that was recently acquired by T-Mobile. 

RELATED: T-Mobile Inks Deal to Acquire Layer3 TV

In addition to YouTube, Comcast has also integrated several other OTT apps with X1, including Netflix, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and a slate of casual games offered in partnership with TransGaming.

Adding a content-discovery tool to the mix, Tubi has introduced a personalization engine to its free, ad-supported VOD service.

Tubi said its new platform, which will help to surface content from its library of more than 7,500 titles, uses A.I. and deep learning technology to program and personalize its AVOD offering.

The service has also introduced an onboarding process (initially on iOS devices) that can “fast-track” a new user into its new personalized experience, which continues to evolve based on viewing behavior.

Tubi said it new content personalization engine is based on algorithms and technology that were developed in-house.

“Machine learning is essential for streaming services by providing a customized experience for each consumer.  If you are not leveraging machine learning to delight your audience, you don’t have a future,” Farhad Massoudi, Tubi’s founder and CEO, said in a statement.

Tubi has raised $35 million so far, and counts Lionsgate, MGM and Stanford University among its backers.

RELATED: Tubi TV Raises $20M More

Amazon is building a new free, ad-based OTT VOD service that would complement its subscription based Prime Video offering and apply some heat on others in the AVOD sector, AdAge reported Monday.

Update: Amazon issued a statement Tuesday denying that the company has plans to create a free, ad-supported version of Prime Video. 

AdAge reported that the service Amazon had in mind would provide free access to a library of movies and TV shows, including Amazon originals such as Transparent and The Man in the High Castle. And it would also build on the ad work it has done around its OTT distribution of live events such as Thursday Night Football with the NFL, AdAge noted.

RELATED: Vudu Intros Free, Ad-Based OTT Option

It would also open the door to another piece of the streaming business and reach an audience that doesn’t subscribe to Prime today.

Notably, it would also put some pressure on other services that focus on or have latched on ad-based, free VOD services or libraries. That group that includes, but isn’t limited to, Tubi TV, Crackle, Vudu, and Pluto TV, which recently added a VOD component to its linear-style free OTT TV service. Many of those services have also built apps for Amazon’s Fire TV platform.

RELATED: Pluto TV Adds VOD to OTT Mix

Roku, meanwhile, has teamed with several content partners for a new free ad-based Roku Channel that was launched in September.

According to AdAge, Amazon could be looking to entice content partners to jump on board by offering to share audience data and ad revenue.

Zone TV said it is behind two subscription VOD channels that were recently added to Comcast’s VOD platform for set-top boxes and Xfinity Stream app and portal – TumbleBooksTV and FitFusion by Jillian Michaels.

Both services werehiding out in the open last week on this Comcast SVOD web pageand on therecently introduced “Manage Channels” featurefor the MSO’s X1 platform, but Zone TV announced its involvement in those offerings on Monday.

RELATED: Comcast Adds CuriosityStream to SVOD Lineup

Comcast is selling FitFusion (home workouts and life coaching) for $6.99 per month, $3 per month lessthan what FitFusion is selling via its own direct-to-consumer OTT product. TumbleBooksTV, an ad-free, read-watch-learn service, goes for $4.99 per month.

Comcast is not delivering those offerings into subscriber homes on set-tops using a public internet connection (like it does for YouTube and Netflix on X1 boxes) but instead uses its separately managed video network.

RELATED: Zone TV Uses A.I. to Program 14 Linear-Style OTT Channels

Zone TV, which specializes in bringing genre-based apps and content to set-tops boxes, has also worked with Comcast on bringing two thematic offerings – Halloween Countdown and Santa Tracker --– to X1 devices.

RELATED: X1 Enters the Halloween Zone

CuriosityStream, the subscription VOD service from Discovery Communications founder John Hendricks focused on documentaries and other fact-based programming, is now available on Comcast’s set-top box VOD platform and via the MSO's Xfinity Stream app/portal for an additional $5.99 per month.

RELATED: Curious Behavior

The deal marks CuriosityStream’s first distribution deal with an MVPD. The service launched in March 2015 as a stand-alone OTT-delivered offering, and has since expanded distribution to Amazon Channels and VRV, an offering from Ellation that aggregates and bundles SVOD services.

RELATED: VRV to Add CuriosityStream to SVOD Mix, Launch Offline Viewing

CuriosityStream confirmed that it initially is offering its content via VOD platform in HD, but added that “anything is possible in 2018” with respect to the portion of its library that’s available in 4K resolution.

CuriosityStream also confirmed that its SVOD service is not being delivered via OTT to the subscriber’s home under its distribution agreement with Comcast. That means that CuriosityStream content delivered into the home via Comcast’s managed VOD platform is not subject to the cable operator’s internet usage policies.

RELATED: Comcast Deploys 1-Terabyte Data Plan

CuriosityStream has not released subscriber numbers, but the company noted that those figures are rising amid its new, recent deals with VRV and Comcast.

Under its direct-to-consumer OTT subscription plans, CuriosityStream’s Premium tier, which includes its HD and 4K, sells for $11.99 per month, while Standard (HD) sells for $5.99 per month, and its Basic (standard-def) tier fetches $2.99 per month.

Comcast pay TV subs can locate the CuriosityStream service by saying “CuriosityStream” into the X1 voice remote or via the Xfinity Stream app/portal. Comcast is offering access to CuriosityStream on its legacy and newer X1 set-top boxes. 

CuriosityStream said its service will feature more than 1,700 films and series in 2018. Current offerings include Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places, David Attenborough’s Light On Earth, Deep Time History and Prescription: Nutrition.

“Joining Xfinity On Demand’s strong lineup marks an exciting day for CuriosityStream.  We’ve designed our service to make it as easy as possible for subscribers to find the content they most like, on the interests they are the most passionate,” Clint Stinchcomb, chief distribution officer for CuriosityStream, said in statement.  “That’s what this collaboration is all about.  The innovative X1 platform harnesses technology to seamlessly deliver what viewers want, when they want it, changing the way people experience TV.”

Other relatively new services added to Comcast’s SVOD slate include FitFusion ($6.99 per month) and TumbleBooksTV ($4.99 per month).

On the OTT side of the house, Comcast has also integrated Netflix, YouTube and Pandora on its X1 set-top box platform.

This is being called the golden age of TV programming for scripted shows, in particular.

More shows than ever are being produced, viewers are binge watching them hours at a time through video on demand and streaming services like Hulu and Netflix. And media companies are making piles of cash licensing shows to streaming services, or using them to build their own subscription businesses.

Nonfiction programming has always been a bit of a stepchild in the programming world. People watch, sure. But even the best reality doesn’t get the same acclaim. Nor is it seeing the same kind of demand in this era of peak TV.

All of which leads to the question: What is reality programming’s value in an increasingly on-demand world?

While some nonfiction programming appears on Netflix and Hulu, the opportunities have been more limited.

“With respect to the subscription video-on-demand space, there has been no interest at this particular time in any of the reality types of programming,” one studio executive said.

Unlike networks, which need to fill a programming grid, buyers in an on-demand world are looking for shows that will give their services cachet and recruit and retain subscribers. “Reality is popular on networks, but it’s still viewed as voyeuristic. It’s not necessarily high-end programming,” the studio executive said.

Finding Viewers on SVOD
But as subscription services proliferate and mature, their attitude toward nonfiction could be changing. Viewers are watching more reality shows on demand. Streaming services are showing more interest in creating their own unscripted programming and adding existing shows to their offerings.

According to comScore, the top 10 rated reality programs for the 2016-17 broadcast season garnered more than 66 million VOD transactions, up 26% from the prior broadcast season’s reality programs. The gain came as overall VOD transactions dipped 3% from the prior year.

“I talk to people who produce shows for Discovery, Scripps Networks and A+E [Networks], and they all say they’re getting more interest from SVOD,” MoffettNathanson Research analyst Michael Nathanson said. “Given the price of scripted programming is going up, they’re looking at unscripted, which is less expensive, so they can raise their margins.”

Hulu currently pitches subscribers what it calls the largest offering of unscripted programming available on a streaming platform, with thousands of episodes from Scripps Networks, A+E and NBCUniversal.

“As SVOD programmers, we are always looking for content that will drive subscriber growth and keep viewers engaged,” Hulu vice president of content consumption Lisa Holme said. “We see unscripted series as an excellent driver of engagement and consumption, which correlate highly with retention. In the case of Hulu, we uniquely have a very robust advertising business, and so driving lots of hours of consumption is a priority for us, and unscripted can be a cost-effective way to balance the overall portfolio of content.”

Holme said Hulu subscribers watch a lot of unscripted programming. It accounts for a double-digit share of overall consumption on the service. “Outside of catching up on the latest episode of current series — The Voice, The Bachelor, etc. — we see a lot of viewing of character-based reality and competition-based reality, as well as, more recently, … food, home, travel-related series,” she said.

Prior seasons of broadcast series such as CBS’s Survivor and Amazing Race are popular, too. “People are often surprised that prior seasons of those series, as well as series like [Real] Housewives and [Keeping Up With the] Kardashians are consumed as much as they are on Hulu,” Holme said.

Netflix did not return calls seeking comment on nonfiction programming. Netflix’s reality offerings include Skin Wars, Tornado Hunters, America’s Funniest Home Videos and Undercover Boss.

Audiences as Loyal as Scripted Fans
TV networks say unscripted shows attract loyal audiences just like scripted programs.

“People want to be entertained, whether by scripted or unscripted,” Nancy Daniels, president and general manager of Discovery Communications’ s TLC, said. “They seek out what connects with them. We’ve seen big success with our shows even in this landscape where there are so many choices.”

While it’s harder to get viewers to watch reruns, Daniels said people watch old episodes of series like Little People, Big World to see what the characters looked like when they were younger. “The twins, Jeremy and Zack, have gotten married. They’re having children of their own. But you can go back to when they were 10 years old, starting out,” she said.

While TLC shows still get the bulk of their viewership on the linear channel, the shows that do best on the network also do best on demand or on the TLC Go app. TLC this year created an original spinoff of its 90 Day Fiancé franchise for the app called 90 Day Fiancé: What Now. “It’s been a huge driver for us on Go,” Daniels said.

Off-channel viewing is becoming an important factor in deciding which TLC series get renewed, Daniels said. “We’re not just looking at linear ratings anymore; we’re looking at overall audience engagement,” she said. “That’s certainly been an evolution for us over the last couple of years.”

App viewing is one way Discovery Communications is monetizing its mainly nonfiction programming.

“When it comes to Discovery unscripted, ours has tremendous value,” Discovery Communications chief commercial officer Paul Guyardo said.

Guyardo said that about 40% of what’s being watched on Discovery’s Go apps is library content, as opposed to current series. “Forty percent is a lot bigger than we thought,” he said.

For series on Investigation Discovery, people are streaming episodes they’ve already seen, “to pick up on clues that they didn’t catch the first time,” Guyardo said.

Discovery Communciations is not selling its programming to Netflix. It does have some shows on Hulu. The company is focusing on getting its core networks included on skinny bundles being offered by virtual distributors being rolled out by Hulu, DirecTV, YouTube and others.

Guyardo insists there’s demand for Discovery’s unscripted programing. “It’s our choice not to sell it in pieces, but rather to feature it all on our own digital platform or in skinny bundles, so we’re getting all the shows’ branding and equity.”

He added that Discovery’s programming is a good deal. “If you look at it relative to what distributors are paying for sports or paying for scripted, I would say we are an exceptionally good value.”

Producers said the subscription services are coming to them looking for original unscripted shows.

“Nonfiction may not be as sexy, but it’s very, very cost-effective,” said John Ford, a former Discovery executive and now general manager of NPACT, a trade association representing non-fiction programmers with about 100 member companies. “So you look at broadcast and cable any time of year, you take out sports programming, and many of the top 10, top 15, top 20 programs are nonscripted.

“You can create a pretty good nonscripted show for three or four hundred thousand dollars an hour,” Ford said. “On an hourly basis, you’re spending $3 million to create a scripted show. So you get 10 times the programming for your dollars in nonscripted.”

Ford pointed out there are already documentaries about food and wine on Netflix. Netflix has commissioned the producer of the acclaimed series Planet Earth to make an eight-part series, Our Planet, due to appear in 2019.

Netflix also has some older off-network nonfiction shows as well. “It’s interesting to look, just to troll through Netflix and see all the nonfiction shows that are there,” Ford said. “You’ll find inventory that I was executive producer on back in 2005 and 2006 still lurking in the inventory somewhere.”

Ford said the production of nonfiction programming for Netflix and the other streaming services flies under the radar because the shows don’t involve big stars and budgets. “What’s going on in nonfiction doesn’t necessarily claim the headlines, but I can tell you our members are actively pitching and producing for all of the OTT services,” Ford said.

Digital Is Key to The Workshop
Tom Farrell, CEO and executive producer for The Workshop, said his company is banking on selling shows to on-demand services. Last year, Amazon Prime green-lighted a series about tennis star Novak Djokovic produced by The Workshop, with Farrell as one of the executive producers.

“Everything that we develop has an eye on the digital world now,” Farrell said. “So while we’re still finding homes in the linear space, you would be foolish not to be looking at the digital component of our business.”

Production standards for on-demand shows might be higher than those for networks. “The viewer is so much more demanding because they’re going to it consciously, rather than stumbling upon it setting there on the couch riffing through the channels,” Farrell said. “You make a conscious decision, so I think your expectations are higher.”

The number of ad impressions in video-on-demand programming from cable operators working with Canoe jumped again in the third quarter.

Ads served in VOD programming generated 5.668 billion impressions in the third quarter, up 48% from 3.812 billion a year ago, the company said. Canoe serves 36 million households that subscribe to Charter, Comcast and Cox.

Canoe ran a total of 3,208 campaigns in the quarter, up 51% from 2,123 a year ago.

Related: Canoe Marks 100 Billion Spots Inserted in VOD Programming

VOD ads are becoming increasingly popular as viewing increases and as more networks enable dyanmic ad insertion technology, which allows advertisers to better target their commercials. Last year's totals were impacted by the election, which soaked up viewer attention.

About 24% of the Q3 campaigns were network tune-in campaigns. The others were for clients in a wide range of categories. The breakdown was similar last year.

So far this year, Canoe’s ads have generated 17.9 billion impressions, up from 12.8 billion at this point a year ago.

Related: Set-Top VOD Ads Must Evolve to Survive

Canoe said that 99% of the time consumers watch mid-roll ads to completion. In pre-roll the completion rate is 99.18% and it is 91.35% in post-roll breaks.

The bulk of Canoe’s ad impressions are created by mid-roll ads, which generated 4.684 billion impressions, compared with 896.7 million pre-roll impressions and 87.2 million post-roll impressions. 

Read more at broadcasatingcable.com.

Qello, a streaming platform that also owns and operates the Qello Concerts SVOD service, has merged with 8sian Media, a company that specializes in video publishing technologies and video content syndication services.

The combined company will retain the Qello name and support an A.I.-powered content exchange that uses machine learning and big data to tag, monetize and distribute content, they said.

Their combined product suite also includes advertising systems and a platform that supports multiple VOD models, including those based on advertising and subscriptions, as well as live streaming capabilities.

Gary Winnick, whose Winnick & Co. was the majority shareholder in Qello, will serve as chairman of the combined company. Winnick is also a founder of Global Crossing, which was acquired by Level 3 Communications in 2011.

Rex Wong, a “serial entrepreneur” who was a founding investor in Applied Semantics, a company that developed AdSense, will serve as CEO of the Los Angeles-based company.

Looking to expand its presence with some tier 1 providers and bulk up its video technology portfolio, Vecima Networks announced Monday that it has inked a deal to acquire Concurrent Computer Corp.’s content delivery and storage business for $29 million in cash.

Concurrent, a VOD server and software pioneer based in Atlanta, counts Charter Communications and Altice USA among its tier 1 MSO customers. Earlier this year, Concurrent took aim at tier 2/3 operators with a new platform aimed at helping that group upgrade and advance their existing video platforms cost effectively, covering services such as VOD, live TV and cloud DVR.

RELATED: Concurrent Pitches Video ‘Springboard’ to Smaller Cable Ops

Concurrent’s delivery and storage business employs about 100 people and generated revenue of $27.6 million for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017. Vecima said it expects to continue operating the business under the Concurrent brand.

Concurrent and Vecima expect to close the deal before the end of 2017.

In May, Concurrent sold its Real-Time business segment to Battery Ventures for $35 million in cash.

Concurrent is expected to have a debt-free balance sheet with about $67 million in pro forma working capital and “substantial retained tax assets” at the time of the deal’s closing with Vecima, Derek Elder, Concurrent’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

Vecima said it expects that its business will generate more than $5.5 million in annualized adjusted EBITDA after closing, capturing synergies that include the removal of Concurrent’s public company costs.

Concurrent is expected to file a preliminary proxy statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission within 30 days. It said that a group of stockholders representing about 17% of the issued and outstanding shares of Concurrent common stock have agreed to vote in favor of the proposed deal.

Canada-based Vecima has specialized in products such as video decoders, gear targeted to the commercial and hospitality industry, as well as DOCSIS 3.1, including nodes tailored for cable’s emerging distributed access architectures.

“Vecima believes that the rapid growth in IPTV delivery across both MVPD private CDNs and OTT providers will continue to accelerate,” Sumit Kumar, Vecima’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “Concurrent is a recognized leader in storing, protecting, transforming and delivering media assets.  Adding their solutions to our industry leading broadband internet access platforms, will allow us to deliver an end to end, massively scalable video and data solution to the market.”

Mediamorph, a provider of cloud-based rights management systems for programmers and video distributors, said it has won a string of deals for a new VOD orchestration system that can help partners drive more dollars out of the content assets they create or have under license.

Those wins include Liberty Global, Frontier Communications and Altibox.

Mediamorph, which just turned 10 and also works with major studios and select OTT players, said its orchestration system is helping operators bridge the gap between their legacy and next-gen platforms.

RELATED: Mediamorph Lands Hulu Deal 

VOD has become “table stakes” for service providers, but managing that content across new platforms has made everything more complicated as they try to track all of the rights, restrictions and pricing models and availability windows that are being woven into the fabric of the on-demand model, Rob Gardos, Mediamorph’s CEO, said.

RELATED: Mediamorph Lands $21M ‘C’ Round

“It’s not slowing down,” he said. “It’s creating a massive amount of complexity.”

It has become a significant challenge, Gardos added, as operators strive to support legacy systems as they roll out new ones while also maintaining firm control of the rights that govern the content they are distributing.

Mediamorph is answering that call with an orchestration system that serves as the glue that can keep both sides together while also adding in automation that removes time-consuming manual processes.

RELATED: Mediamorph Lands Frontier Deal

“As the largest international cable company, it is important to ensure we are maximizing the value of our content across our entire customer base,” Bob Greene, Liberty Global’s managing director of online entertainment and Mediamorph board member, said in a statement. “Mediamorph’s best-of-breed solutions are an essential component in making that happen, and their new orchestration technologies are quickly having an impact.”

Roku is expanding its scope with the launch of a new free, ad-based streaming channel that features “hundreds” of movie titles coming way of content partners that include Fandor, FilmRise, and Popcornflix, among others.

The new curated offering, called The Roku Channel, will be offered across Roku’s lineup of streaming players and integrated Roku TVs in the coming weeks, and won’t require users to log in to access its new streaming channel.

That new channel complements an array of other individual free, advertising based VOD apps and services offered on Roku’s platform, such as Tubi TV, Crackle and Popcornflix. It’s also not the first curated channel from Roku, as the new offering follows the fall of 2015 debut of a 4K-focused content showcase (called 4K Ultra HD Spotlight) that came about as Roku introduced its first 4K-capable streaming device, the Roku 4.

Roku’s new channel is launching as the company accelerates its activity around free content.

RELATED: Roku Offers Guarantees to TV Advertisers

“Our users really have a strong desire for it,” Rob Holmes, Roku’s vice president of programming, said regarding free, ad-supported content. “There’s a lot of talk about SVOD…but we see free as a critical driver for the next wave of growth.”

Getting more ad revenue from its platform is expected to play a more significant role in Roku’s business in the years ahead. In an S-1 filed late last week, the company said the majority of hours streamed on its platform is of subscription VOD content, but “in order to materially increase the monetization of our platform through the sale of advertising-supported video, we will need our users to stream significantly more ad-supported content.”

RELATED: Roku IPO Seeks to Raise Up to $100M

Holmes said The Roku Channel is also aiming to “set a benchmark for the ad experience on the platform,” noting that this will include a special focus on reduced ad frequency and an ad-load that will be about half of what’s on traditional TV today, on average.  

Holmes, a former Comcast advanced ad exec who joined Roku earlier this year, said Roku is also believes that the new channel will give users an easy path into free content on the platform and help them to discover other free, ad-based apps that are offered on Roku.

"It’s a great opportunity for existing partners to make their most popular content front and center for Roku users,” Holmes said, adding that Roku will take on ad sales for the new channel.

Other announced publishing partners for The Roku Channel include American Classics, Nosey, OVGuide, Vidmark, and YuYu, with others to come. Out of the chute, the offering will feature titles from studios such as Lionsgate, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner Brothers, and films that include Ali, The Karate Kid, and Legally Blonde. The channel will also expand into other types of content, including TV series.

Roku supports a lineup of more than 5,000 streaming channels. Per its channel store, top free channels on Roku’s platform include YouTube, Pandora, CBS News, NBC News, PBS Kids, AOL On News, ABC New, Tubi TV, Pluto TV, Crackle, PBS, Newsy, WeatherNation and Fox News.

More about The Roku Channel and the strategy behind it will be features in the Platform section of the September 11 edition of Broadcasting & Cable.

Discovery Communications has unveiled the first installment of its multipronged direct-to-consumer strategy, partnering with motorsports publisher TEN: The Enthusiast Network, home of Motor Trend magazine, with auto-focused Velocity in a deal that will bring exclusive on-demand content to subscribers.

Discovery first talked about the strategy last November, shortly after the launch of its Discovery Go app. Along with that authenticated online version of its linear content (which is also tied to an existing multichannel video programming distributor subscription), Discovery also hatched the direct-to-consumer plan. Velocity is the first network to try the model.

Discovery is essentially forming a new venture with TEN — TEN: A Discovery Communications Company — led by Discovery chief content officer Paul Guyardo. Velocity executive vice president and general manager Bob Scanlon will become president of Velocity and TEN video content after the deal closes later this year.

“The overall strategy is to raise the awareness of some of the content that TEN is currently creating on different platforms,” Scanlon said in an interview. “On the Velocity side, the intent is to leverage our talent — the face of Velocity — [and their] popularity, that trust and expertise to create what I call content from the cutting-room floor.” Scanlon added that content would be more process-oriented, offering deeper dives into aspects of certain shows on-demand for a price. For example, on Velocity’s popular Bitchin’ Rides, an episode where the crew installs an engine into a vehicle could be shown in greater detail on-demand.

Scanlon added that the move is about tapping the rapport and trust the talent has built with the audience, “to convince them this content is legit, it’s OK and it’s stuff that you’re not going to get on Velocity. It’s really in the weeds for true enthusiasts.”

Scanlon said it is essential that the content provides something to viewers they can’t get anywhere else. But the segment seems ripe for the kind of detailed content Velocity wants to provide.

Packaging and pricing for the offerings haven’t been decided yet, but Scanlon said he has other ideas for the service as well, including taking a page from the traditional TV playbook.

“I’ve got some other ideas about creating the idea of appointment viewing behind the paywall, a show that would really require viewers to tune in at a certain day and time in order to see something time-sensitive,” Scanlon said. “That increases the value.”

Comcast last week signed a deal creating a premium commercial-free on-demand service with FX Networks.

The deal comes at a time when, according to Matt Strauss, executive vice president and general manager, video and entertainment services at Comcast Cable, there’s probably more high-quality original programming available than in the history of television.

Comcast will see more than 4 billion hours of on-demand usage this year and Strauss said the cable operator will continue to invest to provide instant gratification and to blur the lines between what’s live, what’s on-demand, what’s on your DVR and what’s over-the-top. Strauss talked to Multichannel News contributor Jon Lafayette about what Comcast is thinking as it launches premium services. Here’s an edited excerpt of their conversation.

MCN:Based on the AMC Premiere and the FX+ announcements, have you found a segment of your customers who don’t like watching commercials?
Matt Strauss: We think of ourselves as the aggregator of aggregators. We want to have all of the choices and the best choices available in one place. In many ways, that is why we put Netflix on X1 and we’re putting YouTube on X1 later this year.

At the same time, DVRs are now at 50% penetration of the market and in many ways, it gives you control, it gives you the ability to fast-forward through ads or, if you have cloud DVR, we give our customers the ability to stream their DVR recordings or download their DVR recordings, so in many ways this is just another choice.

There is a segment of viewers who would be willing to pay an incremental fee for a more premium experience. They do that today with premium channels. They do that today with [subscription video-on-demand] services.

Commercial-free is one piece of it. If somebody really wanted that premium experience — had the ability to, in one place, catch up from the beginning and have the most comprehensive catalogue of FX programming — it really didn’t exist. And now, with our technology and through our partnership with FX, we have the ability to offer FX subscribers the option to a more premium experience.

MCN:Did you do consumer research on the demand for commercial-free options?
MS: We have done research on this. There’s absolutely a segment of the population that would be willing to pay an incremental fee for a commercial-free experience. We’ve been offering electronic sell-through now for years and in a relatively short amount of time we’ve actually become one of the largest digital retailers in the country. So we’ve even seen it first-hand where people are willing to pay $3 an episode. So there’s both research and there been some actual transactional data that has led us to believe that there is a segment — it’s not everybody — who is willing to pay extra.

MCN:How big is that segment?
MS: It’s hard to say only because it depends on the network and the passion index of the network.

But there’s something even bigger at work here, which is it’s providing the networks a sandbox to experiment with different models and to potentially provide also a mechanism for them to reclaim rights or to aggregate more rights or to experiment with more original programming, and to do it in a way that we think is going to really benefit our customers.

MCN:What have you learned since adding Netflix to X1?
MS: Since we’ve added Netflix, I think we’ve seen all boats rise. We’ve seen an increase in total on-demand consumption. We’ve seen an increase in total viewership on our platform and as a result we’ve also seen many networks see an increase in their viewership because we have even more eyeballs using on-demand.

So I think as we continue to offer more and more choices — but also do it in a way that it is contextually integrated — I think that the key on the X1 platform, whether it’s the voice remote, whether it’s our recommendations and the personalization, it’s how do we snap this all together in one place.

It also gives us the ability to contextually offer somebody a subscription, so if you’re watching American Horror Story, you’re going to be able to go to X1, it’s live, you’ll be able to now watch it on-demand for free with ads and there will be another choice that says would you like to subscribe to FX+ and watch it ad-free or watch all the prior episodes and the prior seasons?

You’re seeing those elements all come together in a way that’s redefining what you should expect to get when you subscribe to pay TV and certainly kind of surprising; it’s delighting our customers when they have a platform like X1.

MCN:Did your ad sales folks object to the commercial-free services?
MS: I can’t comment on that. I think though that it ultimately has to start with the customer and the viewer giving them the choices.

And if you look at our technology, technology has continued to evolve and that means that we have to challenge the status quo, even if that means in some cases disrupting ourselves. … We’ve always been very bullish on giving customers more choice and creating the technology to add more value to pay TV and we’re not going to stop that.

Following a similar deal Comcast inked with AMC Networks, the cable operator and FX Networks announced Monday that they have teamed to create a new commercial-free on-demand service, called FX+, that will sell for $5.99 per month.

Update: As a point of distinction, FX+ is not being billed as an SVOD service, since it doesn't stand alone from the linear network and viewers must be an authenticated subscriber of FX with Comcast to upgrade to it. 

The new service will launch on September 5, and offer ad-free versions of current seasons of every FX and FXX original series and every season of several current and catalog library titles of FX originals. Further out, FX+ will offer select series in 4K and offer “temporary downloads of current season episodes.”

Comcast and FX estimate that the new service will offer more than 1,100 episodes, noting that the offering includes complete in-season stacking rights to those originals.

Titles and series tied to the new service include American Horror Story, Damages, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The League, Legion, Louie, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, The Shield, Sons of Anarchy and Terriers.

Shows that are part of FX+ will be rolled out in phases and the complete FX+ roster is expected to be available in 2018, they said. 

Subscribers will be able to access the FX+ on Comcast’s Xfinity On Demand service (for set-top boxes), its Xfinity Stream app and website, as well as the FX Now app.

The service was announced Monday by John Landgraf, CEO of FX Networks and FX Productions, and Matt Strauss, Comcast Cable’s EVP and GM of video and entertainment services.

The introduction of FX+ comes a few weeks after AMC Networks and Comcast announced AMC Premiere, a premium, commercial-free version of AMC Network that costs $4.99 a month.

RELATED: AMC, Comcast Launching Ad-Free Version of NetworkThose new services are also emerging amid the ongoing popularity of general entertainment SVOD services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime alongside dozens of genre-focused premium VOD offerings. 

“This is an exciting day for FX Networks, because it represents the next step in building a consumer experience as good as our original programming brand,” said Landgraf, in a statement. “We have been diligent about recapturing the in-season stacking rights for all current original programming and recapturing the rights to all seasons of a large portion of our legacy of great original series.”

“FX has built a brand known for high-quality, award-winning original content and we are pleased to partner with John Landgraf and the team at FX to offer premium experiences like FX+ to Xfinity TV customers, and explore what it means to be a network in the future,” added Strauss. “Our innovative platforms and technology enable us to collaborate with our partners to experiment with new ways to super-serve our customers, provide them with more choice and access to new content and experiences, and continue to add value to the Xfinity TV subscription.”

Some 64% of U.S. households have a subscription VOD service from Netflix, Amazon and/or Hulu, up from 47% in 2014, and 51% take more than one of those services, up from 35% in 2014, Leichtman Research Group found in a new study.

Per LRG’s Emerging Video Services XI, an annual study based on a survey of 1,207 consumers 18 years or older in the continental U.S., SVOD usage also continues to climb, with 29% of adults streaming an SVOD service on a daily basis, compared to 16% in 2015. Among a younger subset of consumers 18 to 34, that figure climbs to 51%, up from 33% in 2015.

And pay TV homes tend to complement that service with SVOD options. LRG said 62% of pay-TV subscribers have an SVOD service, versus 72% of homes with a TV that do not get a pay-TV service.

Among other findings, LRG said 83% of SVOD homes get Netflix, and that 75% of those with Netflix also have a pay TV service, down from 85% in 2012.

Starz is aggressively bulking up its OTT and on-demand content for families and multicultural viewers with the addition of kids-themed and Spanish-language programming.

The Starz app — which allows the premium network’s subscribers to watch Starz content on mobile or TV-connected devices through an authentication process or purchase Starz for $8.99 per month — has more than doubled its programming offerings to 5,500 original series and acquired titles since launching in spring 2016, Jeff Hirsch, Starz’s chief operating officer, said.

As part of its content push, the network has added more than 1,500 kids-targeted television series and movies, including Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-lot, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, Inspector Gadget and Yu-Gi-Oh, Hirsch said.

The kids content complements the network’s adult-targeted shows like Power to provide programming that appeals to everyone in the family.

“Providing a product for the head of household to watch, like Power, but also having great kids programming around it, reinforces the value proposition that we’re trying to give to that consumer,” he said.

In addition, Starz is offering nearly 300 Spanish-language movies and telenovela episodes, including such shows as El Cartel de los Sapos and La Promesa, as part of the network’s continued efforts to reach out to underserved audiences. The network has already announced a number of Hispanic-targeted original projects in development, including drama series Teresa and Pour Vida.

“We’ve made a very conscious decision to focus on underserved audiences in terms of our original programming, with The Girlfriend Experience and Outlander for females and Power, Survivor’s Remorse and to a certain extent American Gods for the African-American audience,” Hirsch said. “Adding telenovelas and movies in preparation for some of our great originals is the proper right step in terms of that programming strategy.”

With “significantly” more than 1 million subscribers signed up for its Starz OTT service, Hirsch said the company is focusing on offering content that will bring more value to consumers.

Starz generated record signups over the past two weeks, coinciding with the launch of the fourth season of Power, Hirsch added, although he would not reveal specifics.

“We think we’ve created a really simple and easy-to-use product with great consumer features at a price that provides great value for the Starz consumer, and the marketplace is reacting to that in a positive way,” Hirsch said.

Starz also hopes to increase its available content by another 40% by year-end to 7,700 titles, with additional acquisition launches including The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss and Jim Henson’s The Storyteller.

Hirsch also addressed Comcast’s ongoing decision not to support the TV Everywhere aspect of the Starz app, saying that the network continues to talk to the operator regarding a solution.

“Comcast are great partners and they see the value of our programming,” Hirsch said. “We continue to have a good partnership and we’ll continue to try to figure out how to work together, not just on the authenticated position but other parts of the business.”

Alaska’s GCI will add an IP-based video-on-demand platform to its pay TV mix after striking a deal to deploy Evolution Digital’s managed eVUE-TV IPTV platform in “select service regions," including all markets serviced by GCI where VOD is available.

It's expected that GCI's eVUE-TV deployment will begin in the September/November 2017. 

That agreement follows one announced last November in which GCI agreed to deploy the eBOX, a hybrid IP/QAM device from Evolution that weaves in linear TV, OTT apps, pay-per-view service and VOD via a TiVo-powered interface. Evolution Digital noted that the latest deal with GCI currently encompasses eVUE-TV IP VOD, but added that eVUE-TV also supports linear IPTV services and that it hopes to announce additional affiliates soon.

RELATED: GCI Rolls Out Evolution Digital’s ‘eBOX’

The latest agreement comes as GCI is in the process of being acquired by John Malone’s Liberty Interactive for $1.1 billion.

RELATED: Liberty Interactive to Buy Alaskan Cable Operator GCI in $1.1B Deal

Evolution Digital said GCI is the fifteenth operator to sign a deal for eVUE-TV, a group that includes several Nation Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) such as Docomo Pacific, Antietam Communications, Frankfort Plant Board, Orbitel Communications, Easton Utilities, MTC Cable and Wyandotte Cable TV.  Others include WideOpenWest, Blue Stream, Vast Broadband, Click!, Westman Communications, Fidelity and Hiawatha/HTC.

RELATED: Evolution Digital Nets Video Deals With Seven NCTC Members

eVUE-TV, introduced by Evolution in February 2016, utilizes Conax digital rights management security/content protection system for connected devices and factors in technology that Evolution acquired in 2015 from i-Velozity, a startup that had developed a low-cost IP-VoD platform.

“We are excited to announce that GCI customers will have access to the best Video on Demand content through an advanced IP video platform with a pricing model that makes sense to the operator,” Marc Cohen, executive vice president at Evolution Digital, said in a statement. “Transitioning to an IP video platform sets the stage for GCI’s continued growth by capturing new revenue and expanding to new markets.”

RELATED: GCI Expands Its TiVo Reach

“We look forward to working with Evolution Digital, leveraging their expertise and ability to provide a low-cost solution that will deliver GCI’s next generation IP Video on Demand service,” added Eric Powelson, senior product manager of video at GCI. “Aggregating the most popular content available in the market today, including live Pay-Per-View, via a seamless and easy-to-use interface, eVUE-TV will represent the first step in our transition to IP video. Additionally, the solution plays a key role in our efforts to reduce costs by integrating Evolution Digital’s eBOX.” 

GCI ended Q1 2017 with 106,100 basic video subscribers.

NEW YORK — Though there’s some frustration about set-top box video-on-demand advertising being undervalued, the category must continue to evolve, or risk getting overrun by other, more agile platforms.

Cable VOD advertising needs to get better and faster, “or it will fall out of the mix,” Scott Rosenberg, senior vice president and general manager of advertising at Roku, warned at VideoNuze’s 2017 Online Video Advertising Summit here.

Related: Set-Top VOD Ad Views Surging

Set-top VOD can suffer from delays in reporting and from other shortcomings that aren’t present in the OTT advertising realm, he said.

Set-top-box VOD tends to focus on C3 and C7 ratings, but from days eight and beyond, “it’s feeling fragmented,” Maureen Bosetti, chief partnerships officer at media planning and buying company Initiative, said. “There’s an opportunity to get the measurement right.”

It’s also important to get the right creative for dynamically inserted ads, Pooja Midha, senior vice president of digital ad sales and operations at Disney/ABC Television Group, added. “It’s a different pitch process,” she said, noting that such inventory tends to get lumped in with traditional TV.

Although set-top VOD faces challenges ahead, it’s still a significant growth business. Canoe, the MSO-backed advanced ad joint venture, reported in April that VOD ad impressions reached 5 billion in the first quarter, a 21% jump. Canoe, now on track for more than 20 billion ad impressions for 2017, delivered a record 17.9 billion impressions in all of 2016.

However, in the digital advertising realm, there is an increasing pivot toward TV-connected devices. Last week, FreeWheel, the online ad-tech firm owned by Comcast, said Roku players and other TV-connected OTT devices toppled PCs/desktops to jump into the lead with respect to online ad view share in the first quarter of 2017.

Related: OTT Devices Gobbling Up Ad View Share: FreeWheel

“There’s incredible growth to be had there” when set-top VOD and OTT are combined, James Rooke, general manager, publisher platform at FreeWheel, said here as he presented those results.

“We’re very bullish on OTT,” Bosetti said. “The growth there is tremendous … but we need to plan for it appropriately.”

MOBILE MUST BE ‘AGNOSTIC’
A separate panel here focused on the evolution of advertising in another big growth area — mobile.

Mobile video advertising faces a significant challenge because it’s supporting a wide variety of short-form as well as premium, long-form TV content.

Mobile video must be approached as “agnostically as possible,” but the way the market is evolving also means one can’t put a 30- or 60-second spot in front of every piece of content heading to a smartphone, Mike Law, executive vice president and managing director of video investment at Dentsu Aegis Network U.S., pointed out. “I don’t know if we’ve completely solved for that.”

But what type of content is being viewed also matters. Shorter ads and smaller ad loads should be tied to shorter videos viewed on mobile devices, but not so with a show such as ABC’s Scandal, if it’s being viewed on a smartphone.

“That shouldn’t limit the [ad] supply,” Law said. “They’re still a viewer.”

For something like Scandal, those core metrics will be the same across multiple platforms, agreed Justin Fadgen, vice president of business development at Beachfront Media.

Spotify, the music streaming service that has expanded into video, is experimenting with ad models that use smaller loads in order to provide a better overall experience, Brian Danzis, head of global video monetization at Spotify, said.

Using TV-like ad loads on a mobile device can be “kind of annoying” to the viewer, he added.

Spotify has also created an ad matrix that delivers a certain ad format, depending on the device the consumer is using. “Fragmentation is a result of convergence,” Danzis said.

Pluto TV is complementing its linear-style OTT offering with a free, ad-based VOD offering that will feature movies and TV shows from partners such as Lionsgate, MGM and Warner Bros.

RELATED: Pluto Lands Content Deals With Lionsgate, MGM, Warner Bros.

Pluto TV’s new VOD offering, which will put it in closer competition with ad-supported on-demand services from Crackle, Tubi TV and Vudu, initially includes catalog titles such as MGM’s Silence of the Lambs and The Usual Suspects, and Paramount Pictures’ Vanilla Sky, as well as TV shows such as Alf (Lionsgate) and The Ben Stiller Show (Warner Bros).

RELATED: Vudu Taps Ooyala for New Ad-VOD Service

Other titles that are part of Pluto TV’s VOD slate include Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Birdcage, Charlotte’s Web, Thelma & Louise, Mad Max, The Hours, Defiance, The Kite Runner, Dances With Wolves, Paulie, Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away, and Lars and the Real Girl.

Pluto TV, whose core service features 100-plus curated OTT channels, said it now has more than 6 million monthly active users, up from the 5 million in reported having in Q4 2016.

Pluto TV’s new VOD offering and recent content deals come on the heels of the hiring of former NBCU exec Robert Magdlen to the post of chief programing officer.

RELATED: Pluto TV Will Expand its Programming Orbit (subscription required)  

“We are always striving to deliver the best curated entertainment offerings to our viewers,” Tom Ryan, CEO of Pluto TV, said in a statement.  “Over 6 million viewers enjoy our lean-back offering of more than 100 live, interest-based channels. We’re excited to give them even more ways to enjoy the content they love, and now they can pick specific movies and TV shows to watch on demand. Both options are curated and completely free.”

Pluto TV currently supports a wide range of platforms, including iOS and Android mobile devices, web browsers, Amazon Fire TV boxes and sticks, Roku players and Roku TVs, Apple TV boxes, Android TV-based devise, Google’s Chromecast streaming adapter, smart TVs from Vizio, Hisense and Sony, as well as PlayStation and Xbox consoles.

ActiveVideo, the cloud video joint venture of Arris and Charter Communications, said it has notched a deal to help Japan’s J:COM roll out a new “web-like” VOD interface for the operator’s already deployed set-top boxes.

They said the new user experience will feature snappier response times and integrate personalized searches, without requiring J:COM to change out its set-top boxes.

J:COM is enabling it using ActiveVideo’s virtualized CloudTV GuideCast technology, which renders the HTML5 user interface in the cloud and delivers it to boxes as an MPEG video stream that can be supported by QAM-only or IP-capable boxes that are outfitted with the CloudTV Nano client module.

RELATED: ActiveVideo Gives VTR’s VOD Platform a Boost

The J:COM deployment is a significant one for ActiveVideo, which was acquired in 2015 by an Arris-Charter joint venture and also works with other MVPDs such as Altice USA, Liberty Global and Deutsche Telekom. Arris holds a 65% of the J.V. and serves as the sales channel for ActiveVideo's CloudTV platform outside of sales to Charter.

RELATED: Arris, Charter Close $135M ActiveVideo Acquisition

J:COM serves about 5.28 million homes in the Sapporo, Sendai, Kanto, Kansai, and Kyushu-Yamaguchi regions. It's been a known customer of ActiveVideo's, but today's announcement marks the deployment phase of their relationship.

“The user interface is the customer’s point of entry to our on-demand library,” said Masaaki Agaya, GM, service planning division at J:COM, in a statement. “The power of the cloud has enabled us to offer our subscribers a next-generation UX that overnight is opening the door to engaging new viewing experiences on the same familiar set-top boxes.”

“J:COM’s success is further proof of how STB virtualization allows operators to rapidly transform user experiences for every subscriber by enabling delivery of faster, larger and more intuitive user experiences,” added Jeff Miller, president and CEO of ActiveVideo.

DogTV, the Discovery-backed network for canines, said it has launched a VOD offering on Comcast’s pay TV platform.

DogTV said the SVOD offering fetches $4.99 per month via Comcast. That’s a bit of a price break from DogTV’s OTT subscription service, which currently goes for $9.99 per month, $24.99 for a three-month subscription, or $84.99 for a year.

RELATED: Gaia Joins Comcast’s SVOD Lineup

DogTV said the subscription includes original content that, it says, is “scientifically developed and tested” for stay-at-home dogs, and features categories such as relaxation and stimulation for those pups. Programs include Water Dogs, Noise Phobia and Dogs in Cars.

"The secret life of pets is not so secret—dogs need entertainment and enrichment, just like humans. The new DOGTV offering with Comcast has content with auditory and visual stimuli designed just for dogs, and we also have programming for their pet parents as well," Gilad Neumann, CEO and co-founder of DogTV, said in a statement.

"DOGTV's unique collection of programming for the four-legged members of families is a great addition to our Xfinity On Demand catalog and a great example of how Xfinity is working to increase consumer choice and selection," added Daniel Spinosa, GM of movies, pay-per-view and commerce at  Comcast.

DogTV also distributes its content via other MVPDs, including DirecTV and RCN, and on a range of OTT platforms, including Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV devices, Roku players and mobile apps for iOS and Android.

DogTV adds to a growing mix of subscription VOD offerings from Comcast.  Other examples include Gaia, History Vault, Anime Network, and Eros Now, Bollywood-focused service.

Laptop and desktop PCs remain the biggest platforms for online ad views, but TV-connected over-the-top devices, such as Roku players and Apple TV boxes, appear to be closing in fast.

OTT devices netted a 27% share of ad views on a per-device basis in Q4 of 2016 in the U.S., up from 22% a year earlier and 8% from Q4 2014, according to the latest Video Monetization Report from FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned ad-tech company.

That surge is encroaching on desktops and laptops, which held a 34% share in Q4 2016, down from 40% in the year-ago period, FreeWheel found in a report derived in part from 54 billion video views during the period and 200 billion views throughout 2016.

SET-TOP VOD ADS GROW
Another big growth area is the set-top box: Set-top VOD ad views rose 4%, to 14% in Q4 2016.

“Our data supports the strategy of putting video content on the big screen, whether it’s through developing a linear TV network or launching an OTT app,” FreeWheel noted in the report, adding that set-top VOD and OTT devices are “the largest disruptors in the market,” rising from just 9% of combined share in fourth-quarter 2014 to 41% in Q4 2016.

Advertising on authenticated TV Everywhere platforms is also on the uptick. Helped in part by live TV “tentpole” events, the share of ad views on TVE platforms for long-form and live content among U.S. programmers reached 71% in Q4 2016, 6 points better than the year-ago quarter.

Those numbers suggest consumers have overcome the “main hurdles” of authentication, Free- Wheel said.

LIVE STREAMING ON THE RISE
That also bears out in the use of streaming for live content, whose growth year-on-year growth of 36% outpaced that of longform and shortform on-demand content. Longform programming (of 20 minutes-plus) held the highest ad views by content duration for U.S. and European programmers.

FreeWheel’s report also found that total video views grew 26% year-over-year, while ad views jumped 24% over that same period.

Gaia said it has launched its subscription VOD service via Comcast, selling access for $9.99 per month across multiple platforms, including the set-top box and Comcast’s recently updated, relaunched Xfinity Stream app and portal.

RELATED: Comcast to Launch ‘Xfinity Stream’ App on Feb. 28

Gaia, a service that offers a library of thousands of films, documentaries and original programs focused on personal development, yoga and mind-body wellness, also sells its service as a direct-to-consumer OTT-SVOD product and through other online outlets such as Amazon.

"We want to give our customers access to all manner of programming and Gaia’s unique collection of transformational and holistic living content is a great addition to our growing lifestyle and fitness offering on Xfinity on Demand,” Comcast Cable VP Daniel Spinosa, said in a statement. “This partnership is representative of our commitment to delivering the best collection of content to our customers whenever and wherever they want to watch it."

Comcast also carries Gaia’s fitness and yoga service, Gaiam TV Fit & Yoga.

Comcast also sells other subscription services on its Xfinity On Demand platform, including History Vault ($4.99 per month); Anime Network ($6.99 per month); and Eros Now, a Bollywood-focused service ($12.99 per month), among others. The MSO has also been pushing ahead with integrations of OTT services with its X1 platform, such as Netflix, with YouTube and Sling TV on deck.

RELATED: Comcast Hawks ‘History Vault’ SVOD Service

Midco, a cable operator that serves more than 385,000 residential and business subs in parts of Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, is upgrading its VOD platform with Adrenalin, SeaChange International’s multiscreen backoffice platform.

Midco has been delivering VOD services on SeaChange’s legacy backoffice product, Axiom. The MSO plans to shift to Adrenalin by the first half of 2017, as it looks to centralize its on-demand operations for set-top boxes, and pave the way to deliver VOD to smartphones, tablets and other IP-based devices.

SeaChange said Midco is also set to deploy the vendor’s AssetFlow content management software, which automates the ingest, tracking and metadata handling for on-demand content, including movies and TV shows.

“We’re pleased to continue our longstanding collaboration with SeaChange to continue Midco’s popular ON Demand services and have the ability to expand our foundation for advanced capabilities in the future,” Bill Chatwell, Midco’s video systems manager, said in a statement.

In December, SeaChange said more than 20 customers had been “quoted for upgrades” to Adrenalin.