In this Week in Review: YouTube Gaming goes live, Twitter announce new audience platform and EC to review copyright rules. For your weekly summary of industry news and other VAN interviews and videos, sign up to the weekly Video Round-Up.
Join Twitch, Bloomberg, Starcom and Business Insider at New Video Frontiers, Sep 10th
It’s not long to go now before New Video Frontiers NYC, which will bring together the key agencies, brands, publishers and broadcasters for a day of learning and networking.
- Is OTT a friend or a foe to the TV industry?
- Is native mobile video really the future of video advertising?
- What will agencies, the TV industry and the walled gardens look like in 2020?
- How can the video advertising world rebuild trust when it comes to fraud and viewability?
- Will programmatic TV adverting help lead the TV industry’s fightback?
- Bob ‘The Ad Contrarian’ Hoffman on how ‘Marketers are from Mars, Consumers are from New Jersey’.
YouTube Gaming Goes Live
YouTube gaming has been launched after hours of testing by gaming fans. The site blends gaming videos and live streams, automatically pulling in all gaming-related videos and live streams from YouTube.
Twitter Announcess Audience Platform
Twitter has announced that the TPN (Twitter Publisher Network) will now be known as the TAP (Twitter Audience Platform). ‘Promoted Videos’ on the Twitter Audience Platform will now play automatically on a device with all video being 100 percent in-view.
Flipboard Introduces Silent ‘Cinema Loop’
Magazine app Flipboard has created Cinema Loop, a silent video that plays automatically when a user opens the app.
BuzzFeed and GroupM Strike Deal to Scale Native Ads
BuzzFeed will create the content for WPP clients using its dedicated creative group BuzzFeed Motion Picture.
Compilation Videos Ahead of ‘Creator Videos’ on Facebook
More videos are watched through aggregation on Facebook than by producing original content, a report by Tubular Labs has found. The ‘Compilation Creators’ chart shows a huge number more views than the ‘Creators’ chart.
EC Reviews Copyright Rules
The European Commission is consulting on the EU Satellite and Cable Directive to see if the copyright rules need extending for satellite broadcasting and cable re-transmission.
Internet STBs in 21 Percent of U.S Homes
Internet Set Top Boxes (STBs) are now present in 21 percent of homes in the U.S that have broadband, the ‘In-Home CE and Home Networking Ecosystem 2015’ TDG report has found. The boxes’, such as Apple TV and Roku, presence in homes is up from 13 per cent in early 2014.
Children Take £270 Worth of Gadgets into School
A child’s schoolbag can contain £270 worth of gadgets, more than twice the value last year, a study by uSwitch has found. The report has also found that over half of parents will shop for kid’s technology for the Autumn term and spend on average £134 on gadgets.
FAST Calls for Equality in Copyright Offences
The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST), UK trade body, has called for parity in online and offline copyright offences in the eyes of the law.
Live View and Long-Form Best For Ads
Long-form and live viewing drove the biggest increase in video ad views, FreeWheel media’s ‘Video Monetization Report 2015’ Q2 results have shown. The report also shows that 38 percent of monetisation this quarter came from outside desktop and laptop environments such as smartphones and OTT devices.
Streaming Takes Over Traditional Summer Activities
Binge-streaming has surpassed reading, sunbathing and cinema trips as a summer activity, a report from Miner & Co. Studio has found. People have said they are more excited to watch a show they have downloaded than read a book.
Silver Lining for U.S Pay-TV
Whilst overall subscriptions for pay-TV have declined, the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) is up, says the latest report from Strategy Analytics.
20 Percent of People Still Only Use DVDs
Not all viewing of media at home is digital, Nielsen’s Home Entertainment Consumer Trends report has found. Over half of U.S customers have bought or rented TVs or films digitally over the past six months, but only 12 percent have shifted completely to digital.
UK Broadcast TV Viewing Still Falling
The amount of people who watch UK broadcast TV remains high but has been falling since 2012, the ‘2015 Communications Market Report’ by Ofcom has said.
Mobile and Online Transactions to Reach $125bn
The number of annual purchases made via mobiles, tablets, desktops and other connected devices should reach $125bn annually by 2018, new data from Juniper Research has suggested.
GMVR Shows Structural Shift in Tech Spending
An industry-wide change in buying strategies by media-technology end users has been highlighted in IABM’s Global Market Valuation and Strategy Report (GMVR). According to the report, the market total for broadcast and media technology products and services slowed considerably between 2012 and 2014.
Twitter Shares Continue to Fall
Despite interim CEO Jack Dorsey buying more shares to show faith in his brand, Twitter shares continue to fall.
Google Embeds Tweets in Searches
In May Google announced that they would embed tweets in their search function for mobile, and it has proved so successful they are now rolling it out into desktops. Searching hashtags will also bring up a list of trending tweets.
European Investors Give Capital to Online Video Networks
An influx of European investors, such as ProSiebenSat.1, BSkyB and RTL Group have invested capital in various online video networks as they seek to reach wider audiences, the Financial Times has reported.
Cambridgeshire Receives Ultrafast Broadband
BT users in Huntingdon have become the first people to trial BT Openreach’s Ultrafast Broadband, say BT. The broadband delivers speeds of up to 330 megabits per second.
Top Five Latin Countries Have 24.8m Connected
At the end of 2014, the top five Latin Countries, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, had 24.8million connected TVs, but only 60,900 4K TV sets installed, a report from Dataxis has found.
smartclip Opens Technology Hub in Berlin and Partners with MediaMath
smartclip has opened offices in Berlin and will drive the further development of digital addressable TV from Germany’s capital effective immediately. The company has also announced a partnership with MediaMath which integrates smartclip’s SmartX Platform into MediaMath’s TerminalOne Marketing Operating System™.
Hulu Partners with LiveRail and ODM
Video-streaming site Hulu has announced it will partner with Oracle Data Management Platform and Facebook-owned video-ad platform LiveRail to offer programmatic advertising options.
Swisscom Reports Steady First Half
Swiss Telecommunications giant Swisscom has reported a steady H1 for 2015.
Alcatel-Lucent to Improve Telefónica’s IP Network
French global telecommunications company, Alcatel-Lucent, has announced that it will be improving the IP network for Telefónica in order to efficiently aid the growing consumption of data and video the provider is experiencing.
Cross MediaWorks Acquires BlackArrow
Pay-TV specialists BlackArrow, whose clients include Time Warner Cable and Comcast, have been bought by media firm Cross MediaWorks.
Reliance Communications Reports Ongoing Market Share Decline
Indian telecommunications company, Reliance Communications, has released its Q1 results for June 2015, which show the subscribers are staying stable but the market share is dropping.
EE Focus on Personalisation of TV
Mobile network company EE has announced a whole host of personalisation and social sharing features for its EE TV users. The updates have focused on users having a truly personalised experience through their phone or tablet.
PwC: Media M&A Doubles in Q2
Q2 2015 deal value reached $76 billion, compared to $39 billion in Q1 2015, according to PwC’s US Entertainment, Media & Communications (EMC) Deal Insights. It reports that this was driven by transformative deals in the Cable, Internet & Information and Communications subsectors.
StickyADS.tv launches StickyDirect
StickyADS.tv has launched promotional tool for publishers, StickyDirect which utilises programmatic direct to enable publishers to promote their offerings and media packages to buyers.
TimeWarner Expands to China
Warner Bros. will be heading to China to make local language films after TimeWarner confirmed it was expanding its operations to the Asian country.
Dutch Cable Broadband Show Downward Slide in Q2
For the first time since cable broadband was introduced to the Netherlands, the number of mass market connections has fallen a Q2 report by Telecompaper has reported.
This Week’s Hires:
Erin McPherson to Leave Maker
Chief Content Officer Erin Mcpherson is to leave Maker Studios, it has been confirmed by a studio rep. SVP Jeremy Welt has also been dismissed from his position.
Jesse Lin Promoted to Vice Chairman
CEO of McCan Worldgroup-China Jesse Lin has been promoted to Vice Chairman of the ad company’s Asia Pacific Region.
Time Inc Appoints Michael Erlinger as SVP of Video
Michael Erlinger has been appointed in the new role at Time Inc as SVP Business and Legal Affairs for Television and Video, Time Inc has announced. Erlinger worked previously for advertising media company, GroupM.
Scientist Jeff Ryan Joins Realeyes
Jeff Ryan, a former senior data science leader at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has joined Realeyes as Chief Data Scientist.
Ad of the Week: Splendid Chocolate, When You Grow Up You’ll Get It, BBR Saatchi & Saatchi Tel Aviv
Some things are an acquired taste, as proven by this ad from Splendid Chocolate. Showing children trying dark chocolate for the first time, the reactions are priceless.
