Demand for commercials in cable video-on-demand programming jumped last year, according to new data released by Canoe.
Canoe, a joint venture of some of the largest cable operators, says it served up more than 11 billion viewed impressions in free VOD programming during 2015, up 75% from 6.3 billion ads in 2014. In 2013, Canoe served 1 billion VOD ad impressions.
In the fourth quarter alone, Canoe delivered more than 4 billion ad impressions.
VOD advertising is becoming increasingly important to programmers. More content is being made available via cable VOD.
During the first three days after a show airs, most VOD shows include the same ads as originally broadcast. Those views are incorporated into the C3 ratings used to sell advertising. After that, with more cable systems employing dynamic ad insertion technology, new ads can be sold and run during shows. They’re attractive to advertisers because they can be targeted by geography, demographics and other criteria.
During 2015, 4,202 campaigns employed VOD, up from 1,924.
Canoe says ad loads are the highest during mid-roll breaks, which averaged 4.5 spots per break. More than 10 billion of the ad impressions aired during mid-roll breaks. That compares to 1.4 billion during pre-rolls and 3.7 million during post roll pods. Pre-roll pods averaged about two ads each, while post roll averaged one spot.
VOD ad impressions were concentrated on the weekends, with Saturday and Sunday accounting for nearly 2 billion a piece. Wednesday had the fewest impressions, at 1.5 billion.
Canoe’s VOD footprint is up to 35 million households served by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox and Bright House, up from 32 million.
(Photo via Ervins Strauhmanis's Flickr. Image taken on Sept. 19, 2014 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 3x4 aspect ratio.)
