Few key things that happened around the Ad Tech & Media Tech world this week.
Streaming TV explodes
Streaming now accounts for nearly 20% of television consumption for most Americans, almost doubling since 2018, a new report from Nielsen shows. Why it matters: The data shows how quickly consumers are flocking to streaming as a replacement or complement to traditional TV. Details: Per the report, Netflix accounts for a whopping 31% of streaming time — the largest share of any service — followed by YouTube (21%), Hulu (12%) and Amazon Prime (8%). To no surprise, younger consumers aged 18-34 are most likely to subscribe to several streaming services, and spend the most amount of their TV time streaming. But the vast majority (87%) of older adults 65 years and older subscribe to at least one streamer as well, per the study, demonstrating a societal shift in how television is consumed. Be smart: Nearly half of U.S. viewers subscribe to three or more streaming services, and that number could increase as streaming becomes even more popular. While one study has suggested that the average American is willing to pay around $42 monthly for streaming services, Nielsen found most consumers (93%) are willing to increase the amount of streaming services they pay for, or at the very least, keep the ones they currently have. The big picture: Last year saw one of the sharpest increases in cord-cutting ever, with almost 1.5 million video subscribers from the four biggest pay-TV providers cutting the cord, according to senior media analyst Michael Nathanson…More
WarnerMedia Doubles Down on Streaming
Nearly two-thirds of new commissions are for online, not cable, a new report from Ampere Analysis finds. Even at AT&T’s WarnerMedia, home to HBO and Game of Thrones, cable is no longer king. As WarnerMedia prepares to launch its streaming service HBO Max in May, the company has shifted resources from its cable networks to invest in online originals. A new study published Wednesday by Ampere Analytics found that while new streaming shows accounted for just 7 percent of WarnerMedia’s original commissions in the fourth quarter of 2018, by the fourth quarter of 2019, streaming commissions represented 73 percent of WarnerMedia’s new TV projects. In the fourth quarter, just over a quarter of WarnerMedia’s commissioning activity came from its cable networks, down from more than 90 percent in the same period of 2018. “This is the clearest sign yet that the home of the juggernaut Game of Thrones will in the future play second fiddle to HBO Max,” said Fred Black, an analyst at Ampere Analysis. “Warner’s pivot toward an increasingly HBO Max-first approach to commissioning is not only apparent in the number of new projects in development, but also in the types of content being commissioned.” Black noted that Warner’s new slate leans heavily into science fiction and fantasy titles, genres seen to play particularly well online…More
Free streaming service Tubi claims 25M monthly users as of December
Free streaming service Tubi is growing. The company announced today it reached 25 million monthly active users as of December, up from the 20 million it reported in mid-2019. In addition, it claims users watched 163 million hours in December, up 160% year-over-year. The company says markets outside the U.S. saw significant growth in 2019, as well, with Canada and Australia seeing a 357% increase in total view time. Tubi says it determined the user numbers and view time by the number of unique devices that interacted with a Tubi-branded app — it’s not counting embedded players or clips, it says. Still, Tubi appears to be claiming a significant portion of consumers’ TV viewing time, if its numbers are to be believed. It’s also worth noting that December numbers tend to be strong because of the holiday season, which allows many people to have time off from work. And that means more time to watch TV. That said, Tubi’s numbers point toward increased consumer adoption of free, ad-supported streaming to complement their Netflix viewing — especially as popular library titles depart streamers. It’s also carving out a place for itself in a market where consumers are now being overrun with choice from streaming providers, which often comes at a cost…More
NATAS Launches Its Own Streaming App
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has found a new, permanent telecast home for the Daytime Emmys: Its own site. NATAS is launching a streaming service that will serve as the place to watch the Daytime Emmys and its other awards shows. The new over-the-top platform is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2020, several months before the Daytime Emmys take place. The service, which doesn’t yet have a name (but will likely include “Emmy” in its title), will be unveiled in time for the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards in April, and the Sports Emmys in May, both of which are administered by NATAS. But the real utility of the new streamer will come on June 12, 13 and 14, when the 47th Daytime Emmy Awards are held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, Calif. The Daytime Emmys used to be a broadcast mainstay, rotating between ABC, NBC and CBS in its heyday. But NBC dropped out after 2004, and ABC after 2008. The CW aired it in 2009, and then CBS aired it in 2010 and 2011. After that, HLN picked it up for two years, and Pop TV ran it in 2015 — the last time it was on linear TV. Since then, the Daytime Emmys has run on a mix of YouTube, Facebook, Periscope and something called KNEKT. Now, with the new over-the-top app, NATAS president and CEO Adam Sharp said viewers would have a clear idea where to watch the Daytime Emmys and its other awards shows. “We were making it available on PCs and mobile in a clunky way,” Sharp said. “But with the Emmys OTT app available on any platform, if you want to watch on your phone you can watch on your phone. You want to watch on your TV, you can watch on your TV. And really be accessible to the audience. Wherever they are consuming the shows, we’re on it.”…More
Premier League will move to an OTT service eventually
Premier League CEO Richard Masters has confirmed that eventually, the league will move to a Netflix-like streaming service. At the moment it is being directly broadcasted via a variety of services from Sky Sports, Star Sports to even Amazon Prime but the new method could benefit both fans and clubs. After the success that Amazon Prime had during the December period of the league, reports indicated that the Premier League was looking at creating their own ‘Over The Top’ service. It would cut out traditional broadcasters completely and instead stream direct to consumers, saving the fans a lot of money but at the same time earning more money for the clubs and the league itself. But despite the reports of such a service since fading away, Premier League CEO Richard Masters has confirmed that the league will eventually shift to such a service. Masters also added that trials of a new OTT service could start as early as 2022 in select markets outside England with many touting Singapore as a potential destination. “During the last rights bidding process for the 2019-22 seasons we spent quite a lot of time and invested a lot of resources in building our expertise and capacity in ‘direct-to-consumer’. We considered whether strategically it would be the right time to test a few markets then and decided not to. We were ready last time and we will be ready next time should the opportunity arise. Eventually, the Premier League will move to a mix of direct-to-consumer and [traditional] media rights sales,” said Masters reported the Daily Mail. Starting something as monumental as a Netflix-like streaming service will be a large risk with the League’s current way of selling rights allowing the broadcasters to take on all the hard work. It will cause a lot more problems for the League but Masters went on to admit that while there is a risk associated with the venture, the Premier League is more than ready to take on the challenge…More
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