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Time-Shifted TV Watching Rises, Net Use Dips

12/4/2013

by Wayne Friedman, Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Viewers watching time-shifted traditional TV continue to rise, but users of video on a computer -- as well as general computer usage -- declined in the third quarter of this year.

Users of time-shifted traditional TV have increased -- now up 11% to 167.1 million in the third quarter. This group now represents 59% of all traditional TV users, which rose slightly to 283.6 million.

Nielsen says there was a 9% decline in the number of users watching video on the Internet -- to 147.7 million on a monthly basis in the third quarter of 2013 versus the third quarter of a year ago. This comes from the latest Nielsen cross-platform media report.

The company also said the number of general users of the Internet via computer also dipped a bit -- 5% -- to 200.0 million versus the third quarter of 2012.

Mobile phone users have been going in the other direction. Analysts have said mobile and tablet usage growth will come at the expense of time spent with traditional computers.

For example, Nielsen says in the third quarter, there was a 40% rise in watching video on a mobile phone between August and October to 53.1 million users. Overall, mobile phone users rose slightly -- 1%, to 239.8 million.

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TV Everywhere Clicks, Authenticated Video Views Soar 217%

12/4/2013

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by Gavin O'Malley, Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Since the inception of TV Everywhere, critics could confidently claim that the authentication of subscribers on non-TV devices was failing to materialize. Over the past year, however, authenticated video viewing grew 217% -- and now comprises 14% of all ad views on long-form content.

Clearly, the data from FreeWheel is “an indication that TV Everywhere is becoming a reality,” said Brian Dutt, manager of advisory services at FreeWheel.

“Over time, we expect that this will drive increased monetization of half-hour and hour-long TV programs (as well as live streams) across all screens,” Dutt said on Tuesday.

The data set used for its report was comprised of over 15 billion video ad views, according to the online video technology firm.

Late this year, the industry also achieved a 1:1 ratio between ad views and video views -- which, according to Dutt, indicates that monetization is finally catching up with viewing behavior. The trend is being driven by 56% year-over-year growth in long-form content with the continued movement of long-form titles into IP environments.

Digital pure-play publishers are utilizing pre-rolls on a larger percentage of short-form content -- up to 45% from 35% last year, according to FreeWheel.

According to Dutt, programmers are finally figuring out how to bring TV experiences to viewers across all devices and monetize at the same time. As such, the content mix is continuing to evolve with long-form growing most quickly (56%), led by scripted drama and sports.

The rise of mobile is also driving a massive shift in cross-channel viewing. Indeed, ad views were up 230% on mobile -- and 365% on tablets -- while the share of total ad views coming from mobile, tablet and OTT devices has tripled over the past year.

Also of note, the 30-second ad spot continues to gain traction across digital channels and now represents almost 50% of short-form ad views and 65% of long-form ad views.

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Out-of-Home Ad Revenues Up Again

12/4/2013

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by Erik Sass, Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Out-of-home advertising revenues rose again in the third quarter, according to the latest figures from the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, marking 14 straight quarters of year-over-year growth since the rebound began in the second quarter of 2010.

Total out-of-home ad revenues grew 3.5% from around $1.55 billion in the third quarter of 2012 to $1.6 billion in the third quarter of 2013, while total revenues for the first three quarters of the year approached $5.3 billion -- up 4.4% from just under $5.1 billion during the same period of 2012.

In terms of categories, growth was led by miscellaneous services, restaurant, retail, insurance and real estate advertisers, while specific brands upping their budgets included AT&T, Sony Pictures, MillerCoors, Rockstar Games, Walt Disney Pictures, Microsoft, Universal Pictures, Sprint, Nissan, Geico and Blue Cross & Blue Shield.

The outdoor ad industry is also benefiting from continuing growth in digital out-of-home ad networks, which allow billboard owners to display multiple ads and charge by daypart, as well as enabling advertisers to adjust creative in mid-campaign.

Out-of-home advertising (both static and digital) is also benefiting from the rise of mobile technology, as ubiquitous smartphones allow consumers to engage with outdoor ad displays, deepening engagement with marketing messages and providing a back channel for advertisers to measure the impact of outdoor ad placements.

The last few months have seen a spate of partnerships between outdoor advertisers and mobile marketers for mobile data sharing and ad targeting.

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Comcast, Nielsen Team For On Demand Commercial Ratings

12/3/2013

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by Wayne Friedman, Monday, December 2, 2013

Fresher TV commercials, as well as measuring those ads, are coming to time-shifted viewing -- perhaps first to Comcast’s video-on-demand service.

The U.S. cable operator has been testing the insertion of the most recent entire TV advertising lineups -- from the most current episodes of network TV shows -- into older available episodes that run on Comcast's OnDemand VOD service, as well as being able to account for those messages.

As part of this, Comcast has a deal with Nielsen, with a new viewer measurement service called On Demand Commercial Ratings (ODCR) for its Xfinity TV platform.

Comcast, which owns NBC Universal, tested ODCR over the summer in Philadelphia and Boston in NBC and ABC programs. A Comcast company blog post outlined the technical tests.

A number of industry efforts have tried to push so-called “dynamic ad insertion," which would allow new commercials to be inserted three days after their initial live airing. This allows cable operators to potentially charge more for commercials, as well as grab new revenue from commercials that inserted after three days. Comcast has been doing dynamic ad insertion for some time.

Right now, national TV advertisers predominantly base and guarantee their media buys on the live average commercial ratings plus three days of program time-shifting. Currently, any time-shifted TV programming also retains the original commercials from its live broadcast.

Video-on-demand services/channels from the cable operators do not allow for fast-forwarding of commercials, unlike Internet-based video platforms, such as Hulu and Hulu Plus.

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AMC, Hallmark Top Cable Viewer Rises

12/3/2013

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by Wayne Friedman, Friday, November 29, 2013

Although November is a tougher time period for big cable networks to compete, AMC, Hallmark Channel, NFL Network, Lifetime and Bravo made strong viewer improvements.

In prime time, AMC rose 11% to an average 1.79 million viewers -- mostly as a result of its big original shows including “The Walking Dead.”

Hallmark Channel, in ramping up for its annual strong holiday season, tacked on a big 38% in prime-time viewers to 1.78 million viewers. In addition, Hallmark Movie Channel grew a substantial 70% to 322,000 average prime-time viewers. NFL Network, still broadening out its pay TV universe of subscribers -- as well as posting higher-rated Thursday night games -- rose 53% to an average 996,000.

Other notable gainers among the bigger networks: Nick at Nite rose 13% to 1.16 million viewers; Lifetime inched 6% higher to 1.16 million; and Bravo added 9% to reach 954,000 viewers.

ESPN, in the thick of its big NFL season with “Monday Night Football,” maintained the best prime-time results, pulling in 3.16 million viewers -- up 3% from a year ago.

November is a competitive TV month -- with broadcast networks' high-profile programming going head to head with cable networks. Many veteran cable networks have suffered losses.

Second place to ESPN was Disney Channel, at 2.09 million viewers -- off 14% from a year ago. Next was Fox News at 2.03 million, down 21% versus poor comparisons to last year’s heavy political season.

USA Network slipped under the 2 million mark -- at 1.96 million viewers, down 27%. TBS was at 1.76 million, slipping 2%; History was at 1.65 million, down 13%; FX was flat at 1.6 million; TNT at 1.5 million, down 7%; and Discovery landed at 1.41 million, giving back 7%. A&E totaled 1.37 million, down 10%.

HGTV, at 1.14 million, lost 8%; ABC Family at 1.11 million, was off 8%. Syfy was at 1.1 million, declining 5%; TLC was at 1.0 million, down 12%; and Food Network came in at 986,000, dropping 3%.

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Mobile Commerce Explodes On Thanksgiving And Black Friday

12/3/2013

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Perhaps there was a lot of surreptitious smartphone Web surfing going on beneath the Thanksgiving table this year. But all signs point to T-Day being a blockbuster for mobile commerce. According to Branding Brands -- which powers m-commerce for over 200 leading brands, including American Eagle, Costco and Ralph Lauren -- visits to 46 smartphone-optimized sites for major retailers saw a 69% increase in visits over Thanksgiving 2012. But even more revealing is the explosion in actual sales coming from those devices -- up 258%.

Branding Brands was measuring smartphone-optimized sites specifically, so the data suggests the rising comfort levels consumers have with both browsing and ordering over their smaller devices. Page views from smartphones across the 49 sites compared year-over-year show 102.62% growth, and the average order size was up 15.71%. Overall across 152 sites for retailers, Branding Brands found that 32.56% of e-commerce traffic came from smartphones.

The trend continued on Black Friday, when Branding Brands also saw a year-over-year increase of 75.65% in visits and a 186.54% increase in sales from smartphones.

Adobe, whose marketing and analytics suite monitored over 400 million visits to over 2000 U.S. retailer sites across Thanksgiving and Black Friday, says that 24% of online sales late last week occurred on smartphones or tablets -- up 118% from the same period last year.

Breaking down Adobe's data across platforms, they found that over the two days 15.6% of sales were coming from tablets and 8.6% from smartphones. The iPad remains the clear driver of device base sales -- responsible for $417 million compared to $126 million from iPhones, $106 million from Android phones and $42 million from Android tablets.

The traditional retail brands ruled the holiday shopping zeitgeist. Retailers with both online and physical presence (“bricks and clicks” brands) outsold online-only retailers during this period by nearly three to one.

by Steve Smith

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Time-Shifted TV Watching Rises, Net Use Dips

TV Everywhere Clicks, Authenticated Video Views Soar 217%

Out-of-Home Ad Revenues Up Again

Comcast, Nielsen Team For On Demand Commercial Ratings

AMC, Hallmark Top Cable Viewer Rises

Mobile Commerce Explodes On Thanksgiving And Black Friday

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