Advertisers Look Beyond the 30-Second TV Spot
Advertisers are becoming increasingly “disenchanted” with TV ads, according to a recent survey of 104 U.S. advertisers. The survey, performed by Forrester along with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), found 62 percent of advertisers believe that TV advertising is less effective than it used to be, which is causing them to shift their budgets away from the traditional 30-second spot.
Effectiveness is only one reason advertisers are dissatisfied with TV ads; measurement was another issue that the survey identified. Almost all respondents said the industry needs audience metrics beyond reach and frequency. Along those lines, 82 percent said they wished they had TV ratings for individual ads. Advertisers also showed displeasure with the ability to target those ads. 78 percent are interested in being able to serve ads to certain types of consumers, but less than 60 percent said they would pay a premium to do so.
Netflix Won’t Stream 1080p in 2010, But What About Roku?
Netfix plans to start streaming some of its VOD content in 1080p later this year, doesn’t plan to support 1080p streaming in 2010, according to a CNET report, which was updated after the company reportedly said its own road map had incorrectly identified 1080p streaming as a goal for this year. Timing, catalog size and other details of the plan aren’t public yet, and a company spokesperson told us that he couldn’t comment on any specifics. Two weeks ago, though, the company told us that it is currently streaming about 1000 titles in 720p. That’s a small percentage of the total amount of content available for streaming.
The eventual migration to 1080p isn’t too surprising. YouTube launched support for 1080p streaming at our NewTeeVee Live conference last fall, and Microsoft rolled out 1080p streaming for its Xbox Live service late last year as well. In fact, the Xbox could be one of the first devices to bring Netflix in 1080p to the TV set in the living room. Microsoft’s game console has been supporting Netflix streaming for more than a year now.
However, the move puts pressure on Roku, whose set-top boxes used to be one of the only ways to access Netflix streaming without the help of a PC. None of the Roku boxes currently available for sale support 1080p. Adding the capability to play back full-scale HD content could significantly raise the price point of the company’s devices, which currently sell for $80 to $130, depending on the configuration of the device. Chip sets capable of playing back 1080p could push the price of a Roku box closer to $200, but Roku recently announced that it plans to actually lower the price of its hardware to make it more attractive to consumers. We have reached out for Roku to comment, but haven’t heard back yet.
Related content from GigaOm Pro: Not Your Grandfather’s Streaming Video Business (subscription required)
The Videomakers Struggles to Satirize Reality TV
- Editor rating:
- Premiere: August 20, 2009
- Length: 7 minutes
- Crew
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- Writer / Director: Walter J. Gottlieb
Shot in Silver Spring, Maryland, the show focuses on a team of morally-dubious producers who strive to create and package programming that even Fox Reality Channel (which aired shows like Battle of the Bods) would find questionable.
To be fair, the joke is that the shows being created by aptly-named Lowball Productions are knowingly awful, but that doesn’t work without a deeper message behind the satire. For one thing, the number of women in bikinis is clearly meant to mock the way in which reality TV exploits women in bikinis, but there’s a fine line between mocking exploitation and actually being exploitative — a line that Videomakers regularly crosses simply by basking in as much female nudity as possible, without stopping to challenge some of these tropes.
The series, currently on its sixth episode, has the potential to be much better than it is — the production values are relatively solid, the actors gel together nicely despite their characters at times feeling undeveloped, and there is the occasional decent gag, such as one of the company’s in-development projects: Pets of the Third Reich. Read more of this story
A Free e-Book for Aspiring YouTube Stars
Kevin Nalty, better known in the online video world as Nalts, published the second edition of his free e-book “How to Get Popular on YouTube Without Any Talent” a few days ago. Nalty, whose videos have attracted more than 120 million views on YouTube, published a first version of the book in 2008, and the new edition pays tribute to both the changing nature of YouTube as well as the lessons he has learned since.
One of the biggest changes since the first edition came out is related to Nalty’s own career. He used to work as a marketer for Merck, but left the pharmaceutical company last summer after his online pranks started to impact his day job. In his book, Nalts reports that he can’t live off of YouTube’s partner program alone, but that his videos have helped him to land sponsorship deals with companies like Microsoft, Starbucks and Mentos.
Holidays Don’t Slow Online Video Viewing in December
People that watch online video — and there are more and more of them every month — didn’t let the holidays get in the way of their viewing over the course of December. According to recent research from comScore, US online video viewing continued to reach record levels that month, with consumers watching more online video than ever before.
More than a billion videos were viewed online every day in December, according to comScore, with a total of 33.2 billion viewed over the course of the month. The number of online video viewers continued to rise, with 178 million tuning into video programming, representing about 86 percent of all Internet users. And the amount of time that they’re watching those videos continues to increase, to an average viewing time of 4.1 minutes, as opposed to 3.2 minutes in the previous year.
Adult Industry Uses Vobile To Fight Online Piracy
The Free Speech Coalition, a trade association representing members of the adult film industry, will be introducing its new anti-piracy program this week in an effort to weed out the number of sites that re-distribute porn content without paying its producers.
The porn industry trade association’s new Anti-Piracy Action Program (APAP) initiative will track content with spidering and fingerprinting software and send DMCA takedown notices to infringing websites. The program will also offer FSC members legal services and will aid in negotiations with third parties to include trailers on their websites for users to purchase full copies of the videos they’re watching, expanding the opportunity for monetization.
The program is going live after a year of testing, and will be powered by fingerprinting and tracking technology from Vobile, the same technology being used to keep infringing content from appearing on Justin.tv. Vobile has been popular in Hollywood, striking partnerships with six studios and three TV networks, all of which feed their content into its comparison database. But a deal with the Free Speech Coalition will add adult videos to the mix, which it will track across numerous third-party sites that re-distribute porn clips without compensating rights holders.
Vid-Biz: Voddler, TiVo, 5Min
VOD Site Voddler Gets Another $3.5 Million in Funding; Swedish film streaming site has picked up a further 26 million Swedish kronor ($3.5 million) in funding from Eqvitec Partners, bringing the total amount raised to SEK150 million ($20.2 million). (paidContent)
TiVo: New HD Box Coming?; Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Tony Wible points out that TiVo’s $250 HD DVR is out of stock on both TiVo.com and BestBuy.com, which could reflect strong holiday sales or hint that a new product launch is on the way. (Tech Trader Daily)
5Min Is a Top 10 comScore Video Site; 5Min, a small startup with offices in New York and Israel, has landed the No. 10 spot for most viewed video property, according to numbers released by comScore. (Beet.TV)
Howcast Celebrates One Million Mobile Application Downloads; since its launch in February 2008, Howcast has become an industry leader in instructional video content. (press release)
DailyMotion Seeks to Double Its U.S. Market Share This Year; Paris-based video sharing site has been making progress in the U.S., including a 70 percent jump in U.S. traffic during 2009. (Beet.TV)
Sky Deutschland Launches Sky+ VOD; German pay-TV operator to introduce a push-VOD service later this year to viewers that have a satellite receiver with built-in hard disk, which will be used to store new movies. (Broadband TV News)
Super Bowl XLIV Stats: Game Day Rocks Twitter, Ad Sites
UPDATED with new data from Trendrr, TiVo and GoDaddy. Who would have thought that passing the ball to the wrong guy can not only cost your team the Super Bowl, but also break Twitter? Yesterday’s surprise victory of the New Orleans Saints over the Indianapolis Colts caused a nine minute Twitter outage, according to Pingdom.com, as countless viewers tweeted like crazy when the Saints sealed the deal with a stunning interception by cornerback Tracy Porter.
The Saints weren’t the only winners on game day. Traffic to the web sites of Super Bowl advertisers surged, according to data from Akamai. The CDN reported that sites from advertisers that are also Akamai customers saw close to three times as much traffic right after the game than during the week leading up to the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl 2010 Highlights For the Web Video World
Some of the lessons learned from the commercials during Super Bowl 2010: Beer solves lots of problems, women hold men back from their dreams and this year, pants are optional. But there were also some highlights for the web video world.
Flo TV pushed their mobile TV viewing device to hen-pecked men dragged out who miss football games because they’ve been dragged out to go shopping, but they also got behind will.i.am’s My Generation remix.
Google had a relatively clever ad in the second half pushing their search ability but, um, did anyone need to be told that Google is a good search destination? Was this the manifestation of some crazy Bing paranoia? Read more of this story
Where to Watch Super Bowl 2010 Commercials Online
When you consider that much of the TV audience spends the other 364 days of the year trying to minimize its exposure to advertising on TV, the hoopla over Super Bowl commercials is a bit strange. However, this year there’s the promise of summer movie previews, new marketing slogans and at least one controversial ad about abortion, and anyone who wants to catch up with the advertising zeitgeist will have plenty of opportunity.
Spike already has up a large showcase of ads dating back to 2002, as well as banned commercials from years prior. Also, according to a press release they’ll post this year’s ads almost immediately after they air on CBS.
CBSSports.com, as part of their overall video strategy, will also have the ads “immediately following” the game. Read more of this story
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