Roku Claims Viewership Success With Quibi-Acquired ‘Originals’ 06/21/2021 (mediapost.com)
A record number of accounts streamed The Roku Channel in the two weeks following the launch of Roku Originals, according to Roku, which did not release specific numbers. The free channel launched its first “originals” — 30 of the 75 original programs it acquired in January from the now-defunct short-form video streamer Quibi for $100 million — on May 20.
Note: Ex-Quibi shows are also getting numerous and positive reviews now that they are on Roku.
Why Did Mobile Usage Grow During Last Year’s Lockdown? 06/17/2021 (mediapost.com)
Mobile usage keeps ticking up, now representing 32% of our total daily media time — this in the wake of all video streaming and other media gains in 2020. Should we be surprised? Last year, time with mobile grew 14%, to average 4 hours/16 minutes of daily use versus 2019. That growth rate was almost double that of 2019 over 2018. EMarketer projects that by the end of 2023, the number will grow to 4 hours/35 minutes — comprising a 35% share of all daily media time.
Roku’s content budget will top $1B next year: report | FierceVideo
Roku plans to spend more than $1 billion on content in 2022. That’s still well behind the $17 billion that streaming giant Netflix intends to spend this year but it demonstrates how serious Roku is in building the audience for the Roku Channel, its free, ad-supported streaming service.
India’s SonyLIV Sets Global Expansion Plans With 40 Strong Slate – Variety
In the last four weeks, the service has been given a soft launch across 28 global territories including the European Union, U.K., the Middle East and North Africa, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. In the U.S. SonyLIV was launched on Sling TV.
Streaming Services Per User Fall – The Hollywood Reporter
“In the past, many have posited an ultimate limit to the number of services a consumer will be able to manage,” Omdia highlighted. “With U.S. growth stumbling, many will be asking if seven is the new ceiling for video streaming video services (pay and free).”
AVOD consumption down 10% in less than six months in US – Digital TV Europe
“After the 2020 explosion of VOD growth, we’re seeing a cooling of the market, partially driven by viewing habits normalising, and industry consolidation, but also from a wealth of new SVOD and studio services”
US adults will consume almost as much media in 2021, but TV viewing will backslide – Insider Intelligence Trends, Forecasts & Statistics (emarketer.com)
Very informative infographic about recent media consumption evolution in the US
Global Streaming Content Spending Leapt 16% to $220B+ In 2020, Disney Led At $28.6B 06/29/2021 (mediapost.com)
The combined $76.3 billion content spend of the 3 top four U.S.-headquartered entities nearly equals the entire worldwide spending outside of North America — at $77.3 billion, the report points out.
How Much Money YouTube Creators Earn: Real Examples (businessinsider.com)
When it comes to a viral video, how much money a YouTube creator makes can vary wildly. We spoke with half a dozen creators who broke down how much they’d made on videos with 1 million views, and their answers ranged from about $3,400 to $40,000, depending on the type of content and viewer demographics.
Spanish surprise for Netflix, HBO and YouTube (broadbandtvnews.com)
Foreign audiovisual services such as Netflix, HBO and YouTube face the prospect of having to allocate 1.5% of their income in Spain to help fund the public broadcaster RTVE.
Russia preparing “sensational” new OTT legislation (broadbandtvnews.com)
Foreign OTT services operating in Russia are soon likely to find themselves in a very different regulatory environment than at present.
WEB SERIES TO WATCH
Two documentaries produced the same year in Brazil. Both are about women empowerment, but with two different angles and style. They have English subtitles and quite powerful.
Nova Redencao
: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9T90yDNdxIzFuM6FTsZ9NHxZKUeK0vIO
Atunko Ilu Oba de Min
The channel is a mess with episodes everywhere.
Start with this one and explore the channel if you like it.
London Short Series Festival is officially canceled.
The 7th edition of the Web Series world cup has a circuit of 22 confirmed festivals so far.
The two first stages (DC Webfest and Die Seriale) are complete.
DC Webfest selection & winners : https://dcwebfest.org/official-selections
Die Seriale selection : https://die-seriale.de/official-selection-2021/
GLOBAL NEWS
Report: Social Video Generates 70% As Much Reach As Linear TV, Fills In Demo ‘Gaps’ 06/04/2021 (mediapost.com)
For most traditional linear TV companies, social video generates about 70% as much reach as linear TV — and for Disney, the reach is nearly the same. The 18-to-34 age segment generates more than half of social video consumption, versus just 10% of linear TV consumption. Those 55 and older now make up more than 60% of linear TV’s audience, but just 13% of social video’s audience.
ShortsTV Teams With SeriesFest To Present ‘Best of SeriesFest’ | Broadcasting+Cable (nexttv.com)
ShortsTV, a worldwide channel dedicated to short films, said it made a deal with SeriesFest to present “Best of SeriesFest,” which will curate five award-winning pilots.
1 Question Netflix Has to Answer | The Motley Fool
investors are wondering, “How will Netflix continue to add subscribers?”
Convergence Says OTT Revenue Rose 35% in 2020, Linear TV Revenue Fell 6% | Multichannel News (nexttv.com)
Revenue from over-the-top streaming TV providers like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max rose 35% to $29.6 billion in 2020, and could double to nearly $60 billion by 2023. At the same time, linear revenue from cable, telco TV and satellite TV dipped 6% to $94.7 billion
Netflix Launches E-commerce Platform, Netflix.shop | Next TV
It makes sense, considering Disney Consumer Products generated around $16.5 billion in revenue in 2020 selling things like Baby Yoda dolls–a down year for the division, with outlets like theme parks shuttered.
Is Android TV Growing Much Faster Than Roku and Amazon Fire TV? | Next TV
According to data revealed by the Google Play Store, the YouTube app for Android TV has now been downloaded more than 100 million times. That’s double the 50 million Google reported in early June 2020.
Buoyed by Pandemic Boom, Russian VODs Stake Claims to Crowded Market – Variety
According to TMT Consulting, the Russian VOD market grew by 66% in 2020 to reach a value of 27.8 billion rubles ($384 million), with revenue from subscriptions rising by 87%. This comes as a growing number of media holdings, telecoms, and financial giants enter the streaming fray.
Instagram Unravels The Mysteries Of How Its Algorithms Work 06/09/2021 (mediapost.com)
A blog post explains how content in a variety of Instagram platforms is ranked. In Explore, for example, the most important signals are information about the post, history of interacting with the person who posted, activity, and information about the person who posted. In Reels, it’s all about the person’s activity, history of interacting with the person who posts, and information about the reel.
US adults will consume almost as much media in 2021, but TV viewing will backslide – Insider Intelligence Trends, Forecasts & Statistics (emarketer.com)
Last year, the average US adult spent more time per day with most media formats and devices, including TV. Although adults will spend nearly as much time with media this year, their TV viewing time will drop below pre-pandemic levels.
WEB SERIES TO WATCH
After the two first stages of the 2021 WSWC, the Australian web series “Love, guns and Level ups” is leading the ranking. Here is the link to the episodes playlist
The shooting of the feature film “Le Visiteur du Futur” was completed a few days ago. Reminder: Le Visiteur du Futur is surely the most famous web series in France. It started in 2009 on Daylimotion. There was a second season in 2010 and the success was huge. In 2012, the French videogame and animation studio Ankama, associated with French broadcaster FranceTV financed two more seasons. In 2021, it is now a movie. More: http://www.levisiteurdufutur.com/
The Instagram series “Projet Pieuvre” has just released its 1000th episode. The creator Arthur Vautier announced that the series will now also be on Facebook, but with specific new content (the Instagram series is pretty graphic and addresses gay topics such as AIDS or Chemsex).
The fund for Shorts creators is the latest entry in a social media bidding war for online personalities spurred by the success of Bytedance Ltd.’s TikTok. Snap Inc. launched a new fund last fall for top performers of its video product. Facebook Inc. has tried to lure stars — and copied features — from TikTok, and introduced more ads on its shorter videos.
A new platform called Whip Media Exchange has launched in a beta version that allows buyers and sellers to make better, data-driven decisions on licensing streaming rights to films and shows
The rise in ad-supported VOD and free ad-supported streaming television, or FAST, is projected to grow the market segment’s revenue 144% to a combined $66 billion across 138 countries through 2026, according to new data from Digital TV Research. The U.S. became the largest AVOD market in the world in 2019 — driven in part by ViacomCBS’s Pluto TV, Fox Entertainment’s Tubi, The Roku Channel, Redbox Live TV, Rakuten TV and Amazon-owned IMDb TV, among others. The U.S. will generate $21 billion in revenue, followed by China with $5 billion.
Ad-supported streaming services, aka AVODs or FASTs, are the darlings of the media world now, with good reason. Their strengths — along with some weaknesses on the advertising front — are documented in a new report from Verizon Media and Publicis, “Capitalizing on the CTV Opportunity.” The report is based on a nationally representative survey of 3,000-plus U.S. TV viewers, fielded between Feb. 1-11.
From “Protocol” newletter : Google’s R&D unit, Area 120, has been quietly testing digital merchandise sales for YouTube content creators. The test is not integrated into YouTube’s website or apps, but instead is being facilitated on a separate platform called Quaya. Content offered via Qaya includes PDFs, videos, MP3s and personalized reports, with prices ranging anywhere from $3 to $149. The platform is telling users that it is taking a cut for “technology & transaction fees,” but is not detailing how much that is. Quaya currently hosts simple catalog pages for each creator, and offers buyers an option to access their past purchases. Content discovery is planned, but not yet implemented.
The report notes that the rate of cord cutting appears to be evening out. Cable, satellite and telco TV providers dropped 1.6 million subscribers in first quarter of this year, down very slightly from 1.7 million during the same period in 2020.
Quibi was a dumpster fire. But some Quibi shows were (ducks head)… actually good. Now a first batch of erstwhile Quibi shows — renamed as Roku Originals — are free to stream on The Roku Channel, a free, ad-supported video service operated by streaming device maker Roku. The channel is available on Roku’s own gadgets, but can also be watched on the web and on apps for Apple iPhones and iPads, Android devices, Amazon Fire TV and some Samsung connected TVs.
Consumers are starting to feel the financial pinch from spending on streaming and cable subscriptions, with two in five saying they’ve had to limit spending elsewhere to afford their TV subscriptions and four in five conceding they’ll need to cut back to pay unaddressed bills or household utilities costs. Only half of those studied said the will keep all their TV services post-COVID, while one in three already have plans to cut cable or streaming services and two in five plan to cut more than one type of service.
Rotten Tomatoes, which has long graded and recommended things to watch with its Tomatometer, is launching its own linear streaming channel.
WEB SERIES TO WATCH THIS MONTH
Canadian “Convos” is now one of the longest running web series. Season 9 is now complete. It’s pretty funny but you may need to be familiar with the series.
If you haven’t watch an African web series yet : “Cheat on Me” from Ghana started this month on Youtube. Note the commercials on screen inside the episode, they apparently fund the production. The channel has 140.000 subscribers. Watch episode 1 here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4SUfAD6FKQ
Roku said the dispute is not about money but starts with a demand that Roku manipulate search results to favor YouTube TV. Google also wants access to data otherwise not available.
TV networks were plagued with late starts to the season for many prime-time shows, due to TV production delays. Nielsen data for this measure looked at the September 21, 2020-April 25, 2021 period versus the similar time period the year before.
With Discovery+ and Paramount+ — the last of the major new premium streamers (for the moment, at least) — in the game as of fourth-quarter 2020, total U.S. subscriptions in Q1 rose 24% on a year-over-year basis, and 6% versus Q4, according to Antenna.
If its current growth trajectory continues, YouTube will book between $29 billion and $30 billion in revenue this year. Netflix is expected to report $29.7 billion in revenue for 2021, according to an average of estimates from analysts polled by Refinitiv.
“With the additional capital we now have the ability to invest more aggressively,” Chopra said. “I would expect that streaming content expense and total company expense should be somewhat higher, but very importantly over time.”
Surveying over 1,000 US consumers, the report from IAS demonstrates that YouTube ranks as consumers’ top choice on CTV devices, while indicating new opportunities for digital advertisers to activate brand safety and suitability tools in 2021.
Many European broadcasters, while offering OTT components as a complement to their core businesses, have been slow to adapt when compared to the explosive growth of the US Netflix and lack the resources to rapidly scale like a Disney.
In a 30-minute virtual pitch, the streaming provider noted the median age of its viewers is 39 (compared with 60-plus for the broadcast networks), and they are less tethered to the traditional cord. About 57% of Roku users have no pay-TV subscription, but many of them are willing to pay for SVOD services like Netflix and Disney+.
Nielsen’s data has been criticized by networks and distributors represented by the VAB. The VAB contends that Nielsen is caused under-reporting TV usage because of faulty reporting from homes in the Nielsen sample that Nielsen was unable to verify because Nielsen had to stop doing in-home maintenance while following COVID-19 protocols.
The overall streaming pie expanded biggly in 2020, and so did Netflix’s subscriber ranks, which grew by around 40 million users. But the biggest subscription streaming platform in the world actually saw its global market share decrease from 29% to 20%, an overall decline of 31%, with a flurry of new competitors, including HBO Max and Peacock, entering the SVOD market.
“The growth of Pluto TV’s ad business is reflective of how advertisers are funneling more money toward streaming video,” wrote eMarketer’s Ross Benes, who cited Advertiser Perceptions research that suggests 42% of U.S. agency and marketing professionals plan to increase ad spending within streaming services over the next 12 months.
Online video subs revenue grew 142% primarily due to the global pandemic, with revenue rising from $265 million in 2019 to $639 million at the end of 2020. Disney+ Hotstar and Netflix accounted for 78% of the total online video subscription market revenue.
The survey found that 45% said yes when asked do you view ads in exchange for free video or editorial content. Another 40% said it depends on the content.
“The launch of PrendeTV signals a new transformation era for Univision as we expand our already dominant position in U.S. hispanic broadcasting into the AVOD streaming market and build on our leadership as the largest Spanish-language content and media company in the U.S.,” said Pierluigi Gazzolo, president and chief transformation officer at Univision
“Last week I said girls rule, this week they dominate,” said Brian Fuhrer, Nielsen’s senior vice president of product strategy in his weekly video announcement. He noted that the recently-released Ginny & Georgia, the acquired content of Good Girls and the Rosamund Pike starrer I Care a Lot accounted for about 37 percent of total viewing in the top 10.
The latest Pew Research report tells us that 34% of U.S. households lack fixed broadband at home (that’s more than 100 million Americans), and many tens of millions of homes lack “smart” TVs. Plus, when it comes to watching live sports and news, TV’s “tent-pole” programming, broadcast and cable deliver high-definition viewing with no lag or latency.
The finding, part of Nielsen’s periodic “Total Audience Report” amalgamating most of the electronic media sources it measures in the U.S., shows the number of minutes of media used by the average American adult declined 16% to 600 in the third quarter of 2020, when the pandemic was surging, compared with 714 minutes daily during the same quarter in 2019.
Ashish Pherwani, partner and media and entertainment leader, EY India, said: “The M&E sector witnessed a shift in demand patterns as consumers actively sought alternatives and had the time to try new things. Consumption patterns shifted and increased across online news, gaming, and entertainment
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