In this week’s Week in Review: Adobe reveals Audience Manager, T-Mobile ups the ante on video streaming and ad blocking rises, but not as steeply as expected on mobile. To receive weekly summary of industry news and other VAN interviews and videos, sign up to the weekly Video Round-Up.
T-Mobile Introduces Video Streaming With No Data Impact
Mobile operating company, T-Mobile, has announced it will allow its U.S. users to stream Netflix, Hulu, ESPN, HBO Go and more than a dozen other video services without any affect to their data allowances. T-Mobile will allow data-free streaming from 24 different video platforms, many of them premium cable channels, not including YouTube. The wireless provider will also explore the possibility of allowing users to stream pornography through the same program, called Binge On. However, the move might cause concern over net neutrality issues.
Adobe Launches New Data Marketplace
Adobe have launched Audience Marketplace, a new data exchange in Adobe Audience Manager, the company’s data management platform (DMP). The exchange will be a private data marketplace that connects advertisers and content publishers to buy and sell second and third-party data without setting up individual partnership agreements.
Rise in UK Ad-Blocking Says IAB
An additional 1.3 million people have adopted ad-blocking technology since June 2015, but whilst the prevalence of the technology is showing no signs of slowing, the uptake on mobile hasn’t been as bad as feared, a report from the IAB has shown. 18 per cent of the UK say they use ad-blocking technology, with 35 per cent of 18-24 year-olds saying they blocked ads, compared to 15 per cent of over 55s.
YouTube Adds VR App to Android
Video site YouTube has added Virtual Reality (VR) to its Android app, which allows users to experience immersive, 360-degree content. Android users will be able to watch VR content using their phone and a Google Cardboard headset or device holder.
Alibaba Buys Youku Tudou
Chinese e-commerce company, Alibaba, has announced that it has bought China’s version of YouTube, Youku Tudou. The company also made deals with the Netherlands in the same meeting.
Instagram Most Effective Social Marketing Tool
Instagram has been crowned the most effective social marketing tool, overtaking Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The site delivers more sales and consumer actions than other other social platform, according to a study which documented the 15 biggest biggest influencers on consumer behaviour.
BBC Adds Paid Video Service
The British broadcasting service, the BBC, has announced it has launched a paid online video service, in an attempt to rival iTunes and Amazon Prime. BBC Store launched on November 5th 2015.
Industry Still Facing Media Quality Hurdles
The quality of media content remains steady, according to Integral Ad Science’s Q3 2015 Media Quality Report. Metrics including display viewability are static and only there have been only slight movements in others, such as a minor decrease in video viewability.
eSports Expected to See Audiences of Over 310 Million
eSports services, such as Twitch, are expected to grow to over 310 million subscribers by 2020, which a report from Juniper Research predicts will bring in almost $1 billion in revenues from subscriptions alone.
21st Century Fox Reports Fall in Revenue
The mass media company 21st Century Fox has reported a revenue fall of six per cent in its Q3 report. The company blamed low ticket sales on the drop in revenue to $6.1 billion.
Liberty Global Subscriber Growth Turnaround
Telecommunications and TV company, Liberty Global, has put its subscriber growth “back on track” after releasing its Q3 and YTD figures. The report shows that subscriber additions accelerated sequentially to 320,000 in Q3, increasing the total organic RGU3 additions to 526,000 for the YTD period.
Gaming Devices Still Most Used OTT
Games consoles remain the top CE device used to access video content online, followed by smart TVs, streaming media players, connected DVRs and Blu-ray players, says research from Parks Associates.
TV Most Efficient For Advertising
Television is the most effective form of communicating adverts in terms of driving long-term response in terms of per-pound spend than the next best forms of communication, a study from GroupM and commissioned by Thinkbox has revealed.
99 Per Cent of Viewers Multitask Whilst Watching TV
Out of 806 people, 99 per cent said that whilst watching TV they also engaged in other activities, usually eating or texting, research from TiVo has found. When multitasking, only 6 per cent of respondents reported their activities were TV related.
Germany Seeing Highest eCPMs in Europe
StickyADS.tv’s November infographic reveals the rate at which eCPM costs vary per country.
Colombian Pay-TV to Reach 5.3 Million Households
By 2018, the pay-TV market will have reached 5.3m households in Colombia, a Dataxis study has predicted. This figure will represent a 3.4 per cent increase by the end of 2015.
Comcast Continue with Usage Cap
Despite customer backlash, Comcast are pushing ahead with continued usage caps on broadband usage across the U.S. Comcast are allowing customers to pay higher prices to avoid the 300 GB monthly usage cap.
Cord-Cutting Dropping
The percentage of adult broadband users who were moderately or highly likely to cancel their pay TV service in the next six months dropped 20 per cent since last year, a survey from TDG Research has found.
CPAX Adds Four New Publishers
Canadian publisher coalition, CPAX, has announced it has added four new publishers, Metroland Media, Winnipeg Free Press, St. Joseph Media and Blue Ant Media. CPAX delivers direct programmatic access to more than 20 million Canadians through hundreds of online brands.
16 Million Pay-TV Subscribers in Africa
Total pay-TV subscriptions across Africa amounted to 15.9 million as of Q2 2015, new research from Dataxis has found. This represents an increase of 18 per cent from the same period last year.
DISH Profit Shows Growth But Subscribers Falter
U.S pay-TV broadcaster, the DISH Network, has released its Q3 report, which shows an increase in revenue to $3.73 billion, up from the same period last year. Net pay-TV subscribers declined approximately 23,000 in the third quarter.
Swrve Announces Funding and Acquisition
After one billion installs of the Swrve SDK, mobile marketing and engagement technology, Swrve, has announced $30 m in funding and the acquisition of Adaptiv.io.
Installed Connected-TV Devices to Rise by 82 Per Cent
By 2018, 231 million installed devices are expected to be connected to the Internet and able to deliver apps to TVs, which is a growth of 82 per cent from 2014, according to the Connected Home Entertainment Forecast report from The NPD Group.
TiVo Tops 4 Million International Subscribers
After the news that TiVo and Viacom have launched a strategic partnership, TiVo has announced that its international subscribers have topped 4 million.
U.S Pay-TV Subscriber Decline Slows
The ten leading pay-TV services in the U.S have managed to maintain more of their subscribers over Q3 2015, according to informitv’s Multiscreen Index. Analysts had predicted the level of combined losses to be higher than the reality.
Canadian Cord-Cutting Continues to Accelerate
Evidence of cord-cutting in the Canadian pay-TV market has emerged, new research from Boon Dog Professional Services has found. Canada’s publicly traded television service providers combined lost almost seven times more TV subscribers in the nine-month period ended August 31/September 30, 2015 compared to the same period in 2014.
Only Three Per Cent of UK Households Cancel Pay-TV Service
Just three per cent of UK broadband households cancelled a subscription to an OTT video service in the past 12 months, according to the latest research from Parks Associates. At the moment, 33 per cent of UK broadband households currently pay for an OTT subscription.
Pay-TV Market Slows in Western Europe
The Pay-TV Market is showing signs of slowing, the latest ITMedia Consulting’s Annual Report has found. TV advertising has increased more than any other segment, by 2.8 per cent, showing that it is experiencing clear signs of recovery.
Telecos are Now Established Pay-TV Market Players
Nearly one-fifth of the world’s pay-TV subscriptions are provided by Telecoms operators and by the end of 2014, operations owned or controlled by telcos accounted for 140 million retail pay-TV customer connections globally, new research from Ovum has discovered.
Five to Seven Per Cent of Connected Devices Adopted in UK
The overall adoption rate of Connected Home in the UK is between 5 per cent and 7 per cent of households as of October 2015, according to research from CP Consulting.
This Week’s New Hires:
Grey London Announces New Creative Leadership Team
Grey London have new creative appointments. Vicki Maguire and Dom Goldman have been promoted to executive creative directors (ECD) while Perry Nightingale, founder of Dare Labs, joins them as executive creative technologist.
Iris London Appoints Matthew Kershaw as Managing Director
Iris has announced it has appointed Matthew Kershaw as its managing director in London. He joins them from BBH.
Eric Snelleman Joins Zoomin.TV
Eric Snelleman will join Zoomin.TV as Global Head of Agencies and MD Asia. He joins them from GroupM.
This Week on VAN:
Snapchat Video is Scaling: Now Up to 6 Billion Views Per Day, read more on VAN
The Power of Audience: Driving Audience through Social & Mobile, read more on VAN
RTL Group Leads a $15M Round in VideoAmp, a Video DSP, read more on VAN
New Video Frontiers Video Round-Up, read more on VAN
Ad of the Week: Cadbury’s, Milk Tray Man Bootcamp
Cadbury’s resurrect the ever popular Milk Tray man with an all star cast.
