Hulu’s video traffic has grown at a staggering clip over the past year—driven in part by an older (35-plus) Web audience. Meanwhile, over the same period of time, former Web video powerhouse Fox Interactive Media has seen its streaming traffic plummet. And all the while YouTube has maintained its dominance of the category—accounting for 58 percent of all video streamed on the Web in the U.S.
Those are just a few of the findings in the latest VideoCensus report issued by Nielsen Online. For example, in April, Hulu streamed over 373 million videos, a whopping increase of 490 percent versus the same month last year. According to Nielsen’s analysis, a big chunk of that growth can be attributed to adults 35 to 49, who make up 30 percent of the site’s audience. In the past six months Nielsen found that demo’s time spent per viewer increased by 154 percent to 416 minutes per month on Hulu. That minutes-per-month figure is 10 percent larger than any other age group found on the site—indicating that the 35-plus crowd is drawn to Hulu’s collection of longer-form content—much of which is sourced from TV.
However, to keep things in perspective, even as Hulu soars, YouTube is hardly shrinking in its wake. The Google-owned video site saw its total volume of streams climb by 36 percent in April to nearly 5.5 billion videos compared to the same period last year. That’s almost 15 times as many videos as Hulu streamed last month. The 35 to 49 crowd also spent three times as much time on YouTube as they did on Hulu (nearly 3 billion minutes versus less than 1 billion).
Meanwhile, Fox Interactive Media (FIM), which includes social networking giant MySpace, is quickly losing its stature among the top Web video players. FIM properties generated 201 million streams in April, representing a slide of 39 percent year over year (and just 54 percent of Hulu’s video volume). That places FIM behind Yahoo, which delivered 203 million streams, a decline of 8 percent versus last year for the portal.
Gaining ground on FIM is MTV Network’s Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network, which theoretically targets a much more niche audience. According to Nielsen, Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network streamed 176 million videos in April, an increase of 16 percent versus the same month in 2008.
[the article was originally published at http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/local-broadcast/e3id8b91cde574aee6561378e0eb5ff80bb]
Showing posts with label youtube. Show all posts
Showing posts with label youtube. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Hulu's tug of war with TV
Online video site Hulu trumpeted its ascension to the media big time a few months back with a dash of sardonic humor. In its debut TV commercial, in which Alec Baldwin mocks the audience's addiction to the very shows he creates as a fictional network executive, the site calls itself "an evil plot to destroy the world."
The joke is uneasily close to the truth for some in the television business.
Once dismissed as "Clown Co." by Silicon Valley critics who scoffed at the notion that old media giants could ever harness the Internet, the website with a name that sounds like a Hawaiian dance has quickly upset the status quo. Hulu's traction with users has entrenched entertainment companies worried that the video site's runaway success could undercut the financial underpinnings of the industry.
Those companies are fighting back, and the result could mean no more free passes for many signature cable programs that appear on Hulu.
NBC Universal and News Corp. publicly launched Hulu a little more than a year ago as a gamble on television's digital future. The website allows viewers to watch thousands of episodes of TV shows for free, from current hits like "Family Guy" and "The Office" to old favorites like "WKRP in Cincinnati" and "I Dream of Jeannie." Hulu's simple design, expansive catalog and no cover charge have elevated it to one of the most popular websites for watching video.
With 42 million viewers in March -- an audience nearly twice the size of TV's most popular show, Fox's "American Idol" -- Hulu whizzed past Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN, and is now nipping at the heels of Google's YouTube.
"Hulu has certainly exceeded all of our expectations," said Jean-Briac Perrette, NBC Universal's president of digital distribution. "We've come a long way from Clown Co."
Late last month, Walt Disney Co. overcame its initial skepticism and signed on as an equity owner of Hulu, which has nearly 150 content partners. That gives the video site even more star power with the addition of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," and cable hits such as ABC Family's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" and Disney Channel's "Wizards of Waverly Place."
"Our feeling is that -- and some of this is instinct, by the way -- media consumption online is growing and will continue to grow," Disney Chief Executive Robert A. Iger said in a call last week with analysts who grilled him about Hulu. "It is really important for us to establish ourselves there."
But in making a bid for the next generation of Internet- attuned viewers, Hulu's owners have strained their lucrative relationships with cable and satellite operators. Companies like Time Warner Cable Inc. and DirecTV Group Inc. pay cable networks billions of dollars each year to carry programming. Believing that they should have exclusivity because their payments support the enormous cost of producing TV shows, such companies have been pushing back against the Hulu freebies.
Investors also are wary that the media companies' embrace of the Internet-content-should-be-free philosophy threatens one of Hollywood's biggest profit centers: cable programming.
"If you give away your premium content for free, you are basically hastening your own demise, signing your own death warrant," said Laura Martin, a media analyst with Soleil-Media Metrics. "There is a choice that companies have to make."
Hulu illustrates the quandary that media executives face as they weigh the potential of the Internet against their dependable, old-line businesses. If the television industry does not find a way to preserve its two pillars of revenue -- advertising and subscription fees -- the consequences could be dire. Analysts point to the rapid deterioration of newspapers, which traded paying print subscribers for the expectation of big bucks from online advertising that have not materialized.
The conflict has forced Hulu to make concessions that have hurt users who have come to expect a rich menu on the video site. In recent months, entire seasons of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" were abruptly taken off the site, along with episodes of other cable TV shows such as "In Plain Sight" and "Psych."
Hulu even blocked access to a technology that lets its users watch content on their TVs. The move provoked outrage among fans of the software, called Boxee, drawing 385 angry comments on the company's website.
"Big Media had better come out of their hole and embrace the power of Internet streaming or they'll be in big trouble down the road," wrote one poster who identified himself as Lew Ciokiewicz.
Hulu's pullback in the case of "Always Sunny," one of the site's early favorites, underscores the tug of war within established media companies over the wisdom of placing TV shows on the Internet for free.
The quirky sitcom about a group of slackers has become a signature of the FX cable channel. (FX is a division of Fox, whose parent company, News Corp., is one of Hulu's founding partners.)
Even as FX acknowledged Hulu brought it new viewers, the cable network nonetheless demanded that the video site drop three seasons from its free online offerings over fears it would undercut the show's ratings and hamper lucrative DVD sales.
"We are not going to take steps that ignore the needs of our partners," explained Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar.
[read more at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-hulu11-2009may11,0,5771665.story]
The joke is uneasily close to the truth for some in the television business.
Once dismissed as "Clown Co." by Silicon Valley critics who scoffed at the notion that old media giants could ever harness the Internet, the website with a name that sounds like a Hawaiian dance has quickly upset the status quo. Hulu's traction with users has entrenched entertainment companies worried that the video site's runaway success could undercut the financial underpinnings of the industry.
Those companies are fighting back, and the result could mean no more free passes for many signature cable programs that appear on Hulu.
NBC Universal and News Corp. publicly launched Hulu a little more than a year ago as a gamble on television's digital future. The website allows viewers to watch thousands of episodes of TV shows for free, from current hits like "Family Guy" and "The Office" to old favorites like "WKRP in Cincinnati" and "I Dream of Jeannie." Hulu's simple design, expansive catalog and no cover charge have elevated it to one of the most popular websites for watching video.
With 42 million viewers in March -- an audience nearly twice the size of TV's most popular show, Fox's "American Idol" -- Hulu whizzed past Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN, and is now nipping at the heels of Google's YouTube.
"Hulu has certainly exceeded all of our expectations," said Jean-Briac Perrette, NBC Universal's president of digital distribution. "We've come a long way from Clown Co."
Late last month, Walt Disney Co. overcame its initial skepticism and signed on as an equity owner of Hulu, which has nearly 150 content partners. That gives the video site even more star power with the addition of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," and cable hits such as ABC Family's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" and Disney Channel's "Wizards of Waverly Place."
"Our feeling is that -- and some of this is instinct, by the way -- media consumption online is growing and will continue to grow," Disney Chief Executive Robert A. Iger said in a call last week with analysts who grilled him about Hulu. "It is really important for us to establish ourselves there."
But in making a bid for the next generation of Internet- attuned viewers, Hulu's owners have strained their lucrative relationships with cable and satellite operators. Companies like Time Warner Cable Inc. and DirecTV Group Inc. pay cable networks billions of dollars each year to carry programming. Believing that they should have exclusivity because their payments support the enormous cost of producing TV shows, such companies have been pushing back against the Hulu freebies.
Investors also are wary that the media companies' embrace of the Internet-content-should-be-free philosophy threatens one of Hollywood's biggest profit centers: cable programming.
"If you give away your premium content for free, you are basically hastening your own demise, signing your own death warrant," said Laura Martin, a media analyst with Soleil-Media Metrics. "There is a choice that companies have to make."
Hulu illustrates the quandary that media executives face as they weigh the potential of the Internet against their dependable, old-line businesses. If the television industry does not find a way to preserve its two pillars of revenue -- advertising and subscription fees -- the consequences could be dire. Analysts point to the rapid deterioration of newspapers, which traded paying print subscribers for the expectation of big bucks from online advertising that have not materialized.
The conflict has forced Hulu to make concessions that have hurt users who have come to expect a rich menu on the video site. In recent months, entire seasons of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" were abruptly taken off the site, along with episodes of other cable TV shows such as "In Plain Sight" and "Psych."
Hulu even blocked access to a technology that lets its users watch content on their TVs. The move provoked outrage among fans of the software, called Boxee, drawing 385 angry comments on the company's website.
"Big Media had better come out of their hole and embrace the power of Internet streaming or they'll be in big trouble down the road," wrote one poster who identified himself as Lew Ciokiewicz.
Hulu's pullback in the case of "Always Sunny," one of the site's early favorites, underscores the tug of war within established media companies over the wisdom of placing TV shows on the Internet for free.
The quirky sitcom about a group of slackers has become a signature of the FX cable channel. (FX is a division of Fox, whose parent company, News Corp., is one of Hulu's founding partners.)
Even as FX acknowledged Hulu brought it new viewers, the cable network nonetheless demanded that the video site drop three seasons from its free online offerings over fears it would undercut the show's ratings and hamper lucrative DVD sales.
"We are not going to take steps that ignore the needs of our partners," explained Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar.
[read more at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-hulu11-2009may11,0,5771665.story]
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Search Goes On - New Google ad chief points to untapped potential
NEW YORK Companies often go back to basics in lean times. That's a message Google's new ad leader, Dennis Woodside, plans to convey to marketers.
Woodside, 40, said that despite the fast growth of search advertising over the past seven years, much more can be done to tap into its potential, particularly as the pressure to prove ad effectiveness grows.
"There are still huge opportunities in search," he said in an interview at Google's office here. "There are clients still not understanding the scale of the opportunity."
Google is pushing an expanded definition of search, hoping to make money from YouTube by inserting advertiser videos into the search results page. By some measures, YouTube is second only to Google in search volume. So far, advertiser uptake has been modest, Woodside said. It will continue to try new formats on the site to find what works. "Over time, some of these things will break through," he said.
Although Google made ambitious forays into selling print, radio and TV advertising, it abandoned efforts with newspapers and radio, marking an embarrassing retreat. Woodside said Google remained committed to TV advertising, seeing it as an adjunct to its video efforts and an opportunity for Internet-like targeting and measurement.
"We're trying to create a feedback loop as you have with the Web," he said. Newspaper and radio programs failed because Google couldn't implement such systems.
Woodside, who was vp of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Benelux for Google, was named vp of Americas operations after Tim Armstrong left in March to helm AOL.
[the article was originally published at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3i06056b3e43453484d1438c745e92c513]
Woodside, 40, said that despite the fast growth of search advertising over the past seven years, much more can be done to tap into its potential, particularly as the pressure to prove ad effectiveness grows.
"There are still huge opportunities in search," he said in an interview at Google's office here. "There are clients still not understanding the scale of the opportunity."
Google is pushing an expanded definition of search, hoping to make money from YouTube by inserting advertiser videos into the search results page. By some measures, YouTube is second only to Google in search volume. So far, advertiser uptake has been modest, Woodside said. It will continue to try new formats on the site to find what works. "Over time, some of these things will break through," he said.
Although Google made ambitious forays into selling print, radio and TV advertising, it abandoned efforts with newspapers and radio, marking an embarrassing retreat. Woodside said Google remained committed to TV advertising, seeing it as an adjunct to its video efforts and an opportunity for Internet-like targeting and measurement.
"We're trying to create a feedback loop as you have with the Web," he said. Newspaper and radio programs failed because Google couldn't implement such systems.
Woodside, who was vp of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Benelux for Google, was named vp of Americas operations after Tim Armstrong left in March to helm AOL.
[the article was originally published at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3i06056b3e43453484d1438c745e92c513]
ABC to Add Its Shows to Videos on Hulu
Three of the four big broadcast networks now own stakes in Hulu, the popular video Web site.
ABC Enterprises, a unit of the Walt Disney Company, announced Thursday that it would join NBC Universal, which is owned by General Electric and Vivendi, and the News Corporation, owner of Fox, as a partner in the joint venture.
Hulu, which in the last 18 months has become the third most popular video site on the Web, behind YouTube and Fox Interactive Media, displays free, high-quality versions of television shows and movies, supported by advertising. It said it would add ABC shows like “Lost,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live” to its online library by late summer, pending regulatory approval.
Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, said that while most of the network’s shows will continue to be available on ABC.com, that site attracts mostly core fans. By distributing them on Hulu, Disney hopes to reach Hulu’s much-larger audience of 42 million visitors a month.
According to people briefed on the terms of the deal, ABC will give Hulu an exclusive license to distribute its shows on Hulu.com and across the Web on Hulu’s partner sites, like MySpace and AOL .com. ABC will also give Hulu around $25 million in marketing credit, which Hulu can use to advertise itself during ABC’s broadcast shows.
In exchange, Disney will take a 28 percent stake in Hulu.com, a little less than the stakes of the joint venture’s founders, NBC Universal and the News Corporation. As part of the deal, NBC and the News Corporation also renewed their commitments to provide their shows exclusively to Hulu for an additional two years.
The deal is a blow to YouTube, owned by Google and by far the largest video site on the Web. It also courted Disney but struck a deal to display only short clips from shows on ABC and ESPN. People familiar with the negotiations said talks between Disney and YouTube broke down over how a deal would be structured, with Disney insisting on owning a stake in any joint venture.
Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal and a member of the Hulu board, said the experience on Hulu.com was superior to that on YouTube, for viewers and advertisers.
“Advertisers have made it clear that they want a safe environment unpolluted by videos of cats on skateboards,” Mr. Zucker said. “Couple that with the fact that Hulu has generated a user experience that is second to none. That has made Hulu the pre-eminent video site.”
ABC’s deal with Hulu also isolates CBS, which will be the only major broadcast network without a seat at the Hulu table. In a statement, CBS said it wanted to maintain control over the distribution of its shows online.
CBS has been offered a chance to join the joint venture several times, say people who have followed the continuing discussions, but has always declined. CBS distributes its shows on 300 video sites, including Joost, MSN and AOL. It also withholds some shows from the Web for several days after they are broadcast to ensure that the Web does not cannibalize the more profitable TV-watching audience.
That is a widespread concern among all the television networks and cable and satellite companies, and it is the reason Disney will not make cable shows like “Hannah Montana” available on Hulu. But Peter A. Chernin, president of News Corporation, said the answer was not to withhold material from sites like Hulu.
“The alternative of never making anything available on the Web is just silliness,” he said. “Then the pirates will just make it available for you. ”
Mr. Chernin said cable companies and Hulu were devising ways to identify the subscribers of cable and satellite services when they visit the site, so they can provide access to cable shows.
[the article was originally published at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/business/media/01hulu.html?_r=1&ref=media]
ABC Enterprises, a unit of the Walt Disney Company, announced Thursday that it would join NBC Universal, which is owned by General Electric and Vivendi, and the News Corporation, owner of Fox, as a partner in the joint venture.
Hulu, which in the last 18 months has become the third most popular video site on the Web, behind YouTube and Fox Interactive Media, displays free, high-quality versions of television shows and movies, supported by advertising. It said it would add ABC shows like “Lost,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live” to its online library by late summer, pending regulatory approval.
Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, said that while most of the network’s shows will continue to be available on ABC.com, that site attracts mostly core fans. By distributing them on Hulu, Disney hopes to reach Hulu’s much-larger audience of 42 million visitors a month.
According to people briefed on the terms of the deal, ABC will give Hulu an exclusive license to distribute its shows on Hulu.com and across the Web on Hulu’s partner sites, like MySpace and AOL .com. ABC will also give Hulu around $25 million in marketing credit, which Hulu can use to advertise itself during ABC’s broadcast shows.
In exchange, Disney will take a 28 percent stake in Hulu.com, a little less than the stakes of the joint venture’s founders, NBC Universal and the News Corporation. As part of the deal, NBC and the News Corporation also renewed their commitments to provide their shows exclusively to Hulu for an additional two years.
The deal is a blow to YouTube, owned by Google and by far the largest video site on the Web. It also courted Disney but struck a deal to display only short clips from shows on ABC and ESPN. People familiar with the negotiations said talks between Disney and YouTube broke down over how a deal would be structured, with Disney insisting on owning a stake in any joint venture.
Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal and a member of the Hulu board, said the experience on Hulu.com was superior to that on YouTube, for viewers and advertisers.
“Advertisers have made it clear that they want a safe environment unpolluted by videos of cats on skateboards,” Mr. Zucker said. “Couple that with the fact that Hulu has generated a user experience that is second to none. That has made Hulu the pre-eminent video site.”
ABC’s deal with Hulu also isolates CBS, which will be the only major broadcast network without a seat at the Hulu table. In a statement, CBS said it wanted to maintain control over the distribution of its shows online.
CBS has been offered a chance to join the joint venture several times, say people who have followed the continuing discussions, but has always declined. CBS distributes its shows on 300 video sites, including Joost, MSN and AOL. It also withholds some shows from the Web for several days after they are broadcast to ensure that the Web does not cannibalize the more profitable TV-watching audience.
That is a widespread concern among all the television networks and cable and satellite companies, and it is the reason Disney will not make cable shows like “Hannah Montana” available on Hulu. But Peter A. Chernin, president of News Corporation, said the answer was not to withhold material from sites like Hulu.
“The alternative of never making anything available on the Web is just silliness,” he said. “Then the pirates will just make it available for you. ”
Mr. Chernin said cable companies and Hulu were devising ways to identify the subscribers of cable and satellite services when they visit the site, so they can provide access to cable shows.
[the article was originally published at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/business/media/01hulu.html?_r=1&ref=media]
Google Tries Viral Campaign to Goose Interest in Chrome
Why would Google take on Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla in the web-browser war and not try to win it? That question has been asked since Google ambled into the Safari-Explorer-Firefox derby last fall with its own entry called Chrome, but took a remarkably low-key approach to marketing it.
Well, Google is about to turn up the heat, a little. The search giant is releasing 11 short films on YouTube today that extol Chrome's various virtues, in hopes it can turn them into the kind of viral hits YouTube is famous for. (It doesn't hurt that Google owns YouTube.)
The videos take pains not to mention or to directly attack the competition; rather, their goal is to get people to start thinking about what they want out of an appliance most thinks works just fine.
'Featured videos'
Initially, the videos will get promotion as "featured videos" on YouTube's home page, but Google may combine that with a media buy across the content network that would see the videos placed as display ads across the web. Tagline: a new way to get online.
"There's a teeny group of people who obsess and care browsers, but most people don't really think about it," said Google Creative Director Robert Wong. "But imagine if a browser was a car and people didn't know what they were driving or that they had a choice?"
The videos are Google's latest effort to market Chrome, which has been limited largely to keyword and display ads on Google's ad network, a download button on YouTube and for a few days after its launch a link on Google's search page. But after a flurry of early-adopters, market share for Chrome has settled at 1.23% compared to Explorer's 66.8%, Firefox's 22% and Safari's 8.2% according to Net Applications.
Adoption has been abysmal largely because Google hasn't promoted the software or signed any expensive deals to have PCs shipped with Chrome pre-installed (which reports say it has considered). Google also hasn't yet released a Mac version, eliminating a small but potentially enthusiastic group of early adopters.
Marketing on the cheap
Google is still trying to market Chrome on the cheap: Budgets for the videos were $10,000, according to a person who bid on the project. In using YouTube to market Chrome, Google is using the video service in much the same way mass marketers tend to, as an opportunity for free, earned publicity rather than a medium on which to purchase advertising.
The videos were produced by a diverse array of designers, illustrators and mostly small creative shops such as Motion Theory, Go Robot and Hunter Gatherer. Christoph Niemann, a frequent illustrator for The New Yorker and the New York Times, created an animated short called "You and Your Browser," which depicts the difference between a "Bad Browser!" and the various attributes (speed, power, sophistication) of a "Good Browser."
The campaign is similar to Chrome Experiments, a site launched in March where Google commissioned web designers to create web pages and applications that take advantage of the speed of the browser.
Google got into the browser business as a defensive move: All of its products and services from search to e-mail to YouTube are experienced through a browser, software that Google does not control. By launching an open-source browser, Google can push development in the space, even if it never wins in market share. A video of Google engineers explaining the strategy has been viewed nearly 1 million times on YouTube.
[the article was originally published at http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=136340]
Well, Google is about to turn up the heat, a little. The search giant is releasing 11 short films on YouTube today that extol Chrome's various virtues, in hopes it can turn them into the kind of viral hits YouTube is famous for. (It doesn't hurt that Google owns YouTube.)
The videos take pains not to mention or to directly attack the competition; rather, their goal is to get people to start thinking about what they want out of an appliance most thinks works just fine.
'Featured videos'
Initially, the videos will get promotion as "featured videos" on YouTube's home page, but Google may combine that with a media buy across the content network that would see the videos placed as display ads across the web. Tagline: a new way to get online.
"There's a teeny group of people who obsess and care browsers, but most people don't really think about it," said Google Creative Director Robert Wong. "But imagine if a browser was a car and people didn't know what they were driving or that they had a choice?"
The videos are Google's latest effort to market Chrome, which has been limited largely to keyword and display ads on Google's ad network, a download button on YouTube and for a few days after its launch a link on Google's search page. But after a flurry of early-adopters, market share for Chrome has settled at 1.23% compared to Explorer's 66.8%, Firefox's 22% and Safari's 8.2% according to Net Applications.
Adoption has been abysmal largely because Google hasn't promoted the software or signed any expensive deals to have PCs shipped with Chrome pre-installed (which reports say it has considered). Google also hasn't yet released a Mac version, eliminating a small but potentially enthusiastic group of early adopters.
Marketing on the cheap
Google is still trying to market Chrome on the cheap: Budgets for the videos were $10,000, according to a person who bid on the project. In using YouTube to market Chrome, Google is using the video service in much the same way mass marketers tend to, as an opportunity for free, earned publicity rather than a medium on which to purchase advertising.
The videos were produced by a diverse array of designers, illustrators and mostly small creative shops such as Motion Theory, Go Robot and Hunter Gatherer. Christoph Niemann, a frequent illustrator for The New Yorker and the New York Times, created an animated short called "You and Your Browser," which depicts the difference between a "Bad Browser!" and the various attributes (speed, power, sophistication) of a "Good Browser."
The campaign is similar to Chrome Experiments, a site launched in March where Google commissioned web designers to create web pages and applications that take advantage of the speed of the browser.
Google got into the browser business as a defensive move: All of its products and services from search to e-mail to YouTube are experienced through a browser, software that Google does not control. By launching an open-source browser, Google can push development in the space, even if it never wins in market share. A video of Google engineers explaining the strategy has been viewed nearly 1 million times on YouTube.
[the article was originally published at http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=136340]
Friday, April 17, 2009
Bandwidth does not grow on trees ?
Everyone knows that print newspapers are our generation's horse-and-buggy; in the most wired cities, they've been pummeled by competition from the Web. But it might surprise you to learn that one of the largest and most-celebrated new-media ventures is burning through cash at a rate that makes newspapers look like wise investments. It's called YouTube: According a recent report by analysts at the financial-services company Credit Suisse, Google will lose $470 million on the video-sharing site this year alone. To put it another way, the Boston Globe, which is on track to lose $85 million in 2009, is five times more profitable—or, rather, less unprofitable—than YouTube. All so you can watch this helium-voiced oddball whenever you want.
YouTube's troubles are surprisingly similar to those faced by newspapers. Just like your local daily, the company is struggling to sell enough in advertising to cover the enormous costs of storing and distributing its content. Newspapers have to pay to publish and deliver dead trees; YouTube has to pay for a gargantuan Internet connection to send videos to your computer and the millions of others who are demanding the most recent Dramatic Chipmunk mash-up. Google doesn't break out YouTube's profits and losses on its earnings statements, and of course it's possible that Credit Suisse's estimates are off. But if the analysts are at all close, YouTube, which Google bought in 2006, is in big trouble. As Benjamin Wayne, the CEO of the rival video-streaming company Fliqz, pointed out in a recent article for Silicon Alley Insider, not even Google can long sustain a company that's losing close to half a billion dollars a year.
But YouTube's problems point to a larger difficulty for many Web startups: "User-generated content" is proving to be a financial albatross. Two years ago, Time magazine named "you" its Person of the Year for doing your small part in fueling the Web 2.0 revolution. The magazine argued that by collecting and distributing the creations of millions of individuals, the Web is upending the way we learn about what's going on in the world around us. There's no doubt this is true; you experienced the presidential inauguration through millions of pictures captured by ordinary people, and a lot of what you learn these days comes from articles put together by the anonymous hordes who power Wikipedia. Yet even though they've changed the way we live, sites that collect and share content produced by all of us haven't done the one thing many tech evangelists said they'd do—make a ton of money. Or, in many cases, any money.
Click Here!
There's a simple reason for this: Advertisers don't like paying very much to support homemade photos and videos. As a result, the economics of user-generated sites are even more crushing than those of the newspaper business. At least newspapers see a proportional relationship between circulation and revenues—when the paper publishes great stories, it attracts more readers, and, in time, more advertisers. At YouTube, the relationship can be backward: The videos that get the most clicks—and are thus most expensive for YouTube to carry—trend toward the sort of lewd or random flavor that doesn't sit well with advertisers. Look at some of the site's hits over the last few days: a clip of a guest fainting on Glenn Beck's show filched from Fox News; a video of a Brazilian soccer coach punching a referee, also recorded from TV; a cell phone capture showing Britney Spears misidentify the city she's performing in; and a shot of a "boob grab" among spectators at the Masters golf tournament. Would you pay to stick your product's logo under any of them?
Probably not—YouTube sells ads on fewer than 10 percent of its videos. Credit Suisse estimates that 375 million people around the world will play about 75 billion YouTube videos this year. To serve up all these streams, the company has to pay for a broadband connection capable of hurtling data at the equivalent of 30 million megabits-per-second—about 6 million times as fast as your home Internet connection. All this bandwidth costs Google $360 million a year, the analysts estimate. Then there's the cost of the videos themselves: Even though many of the site's most popular content is uploaded for free from users, Credit Suisse says YouTube spends about $250 million a year to acquire licenses to broadcast professionally produced videos. Add in all other expenses, and the cost of running YouTube for one year exceeds $700 million. But the company makes only a fraction of that back in advertising—about $240 million in revenues for 2009, according to the report.
[read more : http://www.slate.com/id/2216162]
YouTube's troubles are surprisingly similar to those faced by newspapers. Just like your local daily, the company is struggling to sell enough in advertising to cover the enormous costs of storing and distributing its content. Newspapers have to pay to publish and deliver dead trees; YouTube has to pay for a gargantuan Internet connection to send videos to your computer and the millions of others who are demanding the most recent Dramatic Chipmunk mash-up. Google doesn't break out YouTube's profits and losses on its earnings statements, and of course it's possible that Credit Suisse's estimates are off. But if the analysts are at all close, YouTube, which Google bought in 2006, is in big trouble. As Benjamin Wayne, the CEO of the rival video-streaming company Fliqz, pointed out in a recent article for Silicon Alley Insider, not even Google can long sustain a company that's losing close to half a billion dollars a year.
But YouTube's problems point to a larger difficulty for many Web startups: "User-generated content" is proving to be a financial albatross. Two years ago, Time magazine named "you" its Person of the Year for doing your small part in fueling the Web 2.0 revolution. The magazine argued that by collecting and distributing the creations of millions of individuals, the Web is upending the way we learn about what's going on in the world around us. There's no doubt this is true; you experienced the presidential inauguration through millions of pictures captured by ordinary people, and a lot of what you learn these days comes from articles put together by the anonymous hordes who power Wikipedia. Yet even though they've changed the way we live, sites that collect and share content produced by all of us haven't done the one thing many tech evangelists said they'd do—make a ton of money. Or, in many cases, any money.
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There's a simple reason for this: Advertisers don't like paying very much to support homemade photos and videos. As a result, the economics of user-generated sites are even more crushing than those of the newspaper business. At least newspapers see a proportional relationship between circulation and revenues—when the paper publishes great stories, it attracts more readers, and, in time, more advertisers. At YouTube, the relationship can be backward: The videos that get the most clicks—and are thus most expensive for YouTube to carry—trend toward the sort of lewd or random flavor that doesn't sit well with advertisers. Look at some of the site's hits over the last few days: a clip of a guest fainting on Glenn Beck's show filched from Fox News; a video of a Brazilian soccer coach punching a referee, also recorded from TV; a cell phone capture showing Britney Spears misidentify the city she's performing in; and a shot of a "boob grab" among spectators at the Masters golf tournament. Would you pay to stick your product's logo under any of them?
Probably not—YouTube sells ads on fewer than 10 percent of its videos. Credit Suisse estimates that 375 million people around the world will play about 75 billion YouTube videos this year. To serve up all these streams, the company has to pay for a broadband connection capable of hurtling data at the equivalent of 30 million megabits-per-second—about 6 million times as fast as your home Internet connection. All this bandwidth costs Google $360 million a year, the analysts estimate. Then there's the cost of the videos themselves: Even though many of the site's most popular content is uploaded for free from users, Credit Suisse says YouTube spends about $250 million a year to acquire licenses to broadcast professionally produced videos. Add in all other expenses, and the cost of running YouTube for one year exceeds $700 million. But the company makes only a fraction of that back in advertising—about $240 million in revenues for 2009, according to the report.
[read more : http://www.slate.com/id/2216162]
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Nielsen: Online Video Audience Bounces Back In March
After a fall-off in February, online video viewership last month bounced back in March, according to Nielsen Online's latest VideoCensus report. Total video streams increased almost 9% to 9.7 billion in March, while time per viewer rose 12.6% to 191 minutes. Unique viewers inched up 2% to 130 million.
YouTube accounted for nearly 5.5 billion streams, followed by Hulu, with 348.5 million and Yahoo, with 231.8 million. Fox Interactive Media surged ahead of Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network into fourth place, with 207.5 million streams -- up from 194.3 million in February.
Hulu -- now a solid if distant No. 2 to YouTube in online video -- continued its steady rise, increasing streams about 10% in March and adding about 600,000 unique viewers for a total of 9.5 million.
The March figures are a contrast to February, when total streams fell 15%, unique viewers declined 6%, and time per viewer dipped more than 5% to 169 minutes.
A seasonal surge in the online video audience tied to the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament likely helped boost overall viewership figures in March. CBS said unique visitors to its March Madness on Demand video service increased 60% over last year to 7.5 million, and total video and audio was up 75% to 8.6 million hours.
CBSSports.com alone generated 38.2 million streams last month and 3.3 unique video viewers -- up more than 1,200% and nearly 300%, respectively, from February. CBS also distributed its free March Madness offering across 200 sites including YouTube, Facebook and Yahoo.
Total video streams in March were up almost 40% from a year ago.
[credit : http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=104007]
YouTube accounted for nearly 5.5 billion streams, followed by Hulu, with 348.5 million and Yahoo, with 231.8 million. Fox Interactive Media surged ahead of Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network into fourth place, with 207.5 million streams -- up from 194.3 million in February.
Hulu -- now a solid if distant No. 2 to YouTube in online video -- continued its steady rise, increasing streams about 10% in March and adding about 600,000 unique viewers for a total of 9.5 million.
The March figures are a contrast to February, when total streams fell 15%, unique viewers declined 6%, and time per viewer dipped more than 5% to 169 minutes.
A seasonal surge in the online video audience tied to the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament likely helped boost overall viewership figures in March. CBS said unique visitors to its March Madness on Demand video service increased 60% over last year to 7.5 million, and total video and audio was up 75% to 8.6 million hours.
CBSSports.com alone generated 38.2 million streams last month and 3.3 unique video viewers -- up more than 1,200% and nearly 300%, respectively, from February. CBS also distributed its free March Madness offering across 200 sites including YouTube, Facebook and Yahoo.
Total video streams in March were up almost 40% from a year ago.
[credit : http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=104007]
Monday, April 13, 2009
Universal Music, YouTube forge partnership
U2 lead singer Bono, well known for his ONE campaign against poverty, has turned his focus to a charity case closer to home: the ailing music industry.
The rocker is credited with bringing together Universal Music Group, the world's biggest music company, and YouTube, Google Inc.'s online video site, for talks that on Thursday resulted in a partnership to launch a music video service featuring professionally produced content from the label's big-name acts.
YouTube will create a dedicated channel on its site, to be called Vevo, where users can watch music videos from Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Weezer and other Universal artists. Later this year, Universal and YouTube will debut a separate online music video site, Vevo.com, where viewers can watch music videos from Universal's library. YouTube will provide the underlying technology, Universal will furnish the content, and the partners will split the advertising revenue.
"We have been searching for a way to work with the rights holders, which really does drive more -- let's be blunt -- more revenue," said Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt.
Music videos have posed a vexing dilemma for YouTube. These short-form videos are among the most watched clips on the site, with a hot new track from an artist like Soulja Boy attracting millions of views. But the advertising revenue has not been enough to make YouTube's partnerships with the labels profitable, even though it monetizes hundreds of millions of views a day. Indeed, Warner Music Group said it pulled its music videos off YouTube in December in a licensing dispute over the value of its content.
Universal Music Chairman and CEO Doug Morris proposed an approach modeled on the success of the Hulu video site, a joint venture of News Corp. and NBC Universal that, after a little more than a year, is attracting 34 million monthly viewers with the lure of Hollywood movies and episodes of popular TV shows.
Morris outlined a similar concept for music videos, in which YouTube and Universal would bring together all the professionally produced content into the online equivalent of MTV. The venture would redistribute the music videos online in a bid to grab an audience large enough to attract advertisers. Morris said he was speaking with other major labels about participating in Vevo.
Bono played the role of digital ambassador, prodding his label, Universal, and YouTube to explore a partnership.
Morris recounted how, over dinner in Paris, Bono suggested he meet with Google's chief executive. Schmidt, meanwhile, said he received an e-mail from Bono urging him to meet Morris. That spurred a trip to New York, where Schmidt said he was struck by the Universal executive's ideas for new advertising and sponsorship models.
"I came back here in California [thinking]: Why don't we think about a new approach?" Schmidt said. "That then kicked off Doug's vision."
Record labels are eager to explore new revenue sources to help offset free-falling CD sales. Album sales this year are down 45% from 2000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. A recent Forrester Research report projects that disc sales will continue to decline at an annual rate of about 9% over the next five years as retailers reduce the shelf space allotted to CDs and music fans shift their purchases online.
"The options for record labels, in terms of business models, have really dwindled," said Paul Verna, an entertainment industry analyst with researcher EMarketer. "When you look at the steep decline of physical [sales], look at the digital formats that seemed to show promise to make up for the losses in physical. Most of these are really falling short of expectations."
Universal Music has long espoused the commercial potential of music videos, which as recently as three or four years ago were deemed largely promotional in nature and written off as a loss. In 2008,Morrissaid, the music company generated tens of millions in revenue from its music videos.
"This is the next step in taking the video, which is more important than just an audio stream, to the next level of monetizing it," Morris said.
Analyst Verna isn't sure music videos will bring the financial windfall Morris and YouTube hope.
"Clearly, there's some monetization potential," Verna said. "I'm not sure how much it is, or how significant a focus it is for the labels. Clearly, they're trying to make it work."
[read more : http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-fi-ct-youtube10-2009apr10,0,7026280.story]
The rocker is credited with bringing together Universal Music Group, the world's biggest music company, and YouTube, Google Inc.'s online video site, for talks that on Thursday resulted in a partnership to launch a music video service featuring professionally produced content from the label's big-name acts.
YouTube will create a dedicated channel on its site, to be called Vevo, where users can watch music videos from Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Weezer and other Universal artists. Later this year, Universal and YouTube will debut a separate online music video site, Vevo.com, where viewers can watch music videos from Universal's library. YouTube will provide the underlying technology, Universal will furnish the content, and the partners will split the advertising revenue.
"We have been searching for a way to work with the rights holders, which really does drive more -- let's be blunt -- more revenue," said Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt.
Music videos have posed a vexing dilemma for YouTube. These short-form videos are among the most watched clips on the site, with a hot new track from an artist like Soulja Boy attracting millions of views. But the advertising revenue has not been enough to make YouTube's partnerships with the labels profitable, even though it monetizes hundreds of millions of views a day. Indeed, Warner Music Group said it pulled its music videos off YouTube in December in a licensing dispute over the value of its content.
Universal Music Chairman and CEO Doug Morris proposed an approach modeled on the success of the Hulu video site, a joint venture of News Corp. and NBC Universal that, after a little more than a year, is attracting 34 million monthly viewers with the lure of Hollywood movies and episodes of popular TV shows.
Morris outlined a similar concept for music videos, in which YouTube and Universal would bring together all the professionally produced content into the online equivalent of MTV. The venture would redistribute the music videos online in a bid to grab an audience large enough to attract advertisers. Morris said he was speaking with other major labels about participating in Vevo.
Bono played the role of digital ambassador, prodding his label, Universal, and YouTube to explore a partnership.
Morris recounted how, over dinner in Paris, Bono suggested he meet with Google's chief executive. Schmidt, meanwhile, said he received an e-mail from Bono urging him to meet Morris. That spurred a trip to New York, where Schmidt said he was struck by the Universal executive's ideas for new advertising and sponsorship models.
"I came back here in California [thinking]: Why don't we think about a new approach?" Schmidt said. "That then kicked off Doug's vision."
Record labels are eager to explore new revenue sources to help offset free-falling CD sales. Album sales this year are down 45% from 2000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. A recent Forrester Research report projects that disc sales will continue to decline at an annual rate of about 9% over the next five years as retailers reduce the shelf space allotted to CDs and music fans shift their purchases online.
"The options for record labels, in terms of business models, have really dwindled," said Paul Verna, an entertainment industry analyst with researcher EMarketer. "When you look at the steep decline of physical [sales], look at the digital formats that seemed to show promise to make up for the losses in physical. Most of these are really falling short of expectations."
Universal Music has long espoused the commercial potential of music videos, which as recently as three or four years ago were deemed largely promotional in nature and written off as a loss. In 2008,Morrissaid, the music company generated tens of millions in revenue from its music videos.
"This is the next step in taking the video, which is more important than just an audio stream, to the next level of monetizing it," Morris said.
Analyst Verna isn't sure music videos will bring the financial windfall Morris and YouTube hope.
"Clearly, there's some monetization potential," Verna said. "I'm not sure how much it is, or how significant a focus it is for the labels. Clearly, they're trying to make it work."
[read more : http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-fi-ct-youtube10-2009apr10,0,7026280.story]
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Adplacement on YouTube - Videos growing in popularity
YouTube has begun offering advertisers the ability to pair their in-video ads with videos the site believes are on their way to becoming viral hits.
The YouTube product team has created an algorithm, which it says can identify videos that are increasting in terms of views. It makes that determination by looking at factors such as the early acceleration of views on a given clip, along with the number of times it is "favorited" (added to favourites) and the number of ratings it receives. The Google owned platform hopes the feature will appeal to entertainment marketers and to those pushing products with broad appeal.
"We believe buzz targeting is a strong marketing opportunity for any advertiser that wants to offer compelling content alongside the most popular videos taking off on the site," the spokesperson said. "It's an opportunity for them to wrap themselves in the experience that is YouTube itself."
However, the targeting option is available only on clips created by members of YouTube's ad partner program. Among those partners are content majors like Universal Music Group, NBA, and CBS & amateur creators such as Brookers and Daxflame & artists like Ashley Tisdale.
The first advertiser to use the program was Lionsgate Films - "The Forbidden Kingdom." For roughly the past month, the distributor has advertised the Jackie Chan/Jet Li martial arts vehicle on approximately 500 of YouTube's most popular music and entertainment videos, YouTube said. Buzz targeting joins other YouTube ad targeting factors such as geography, time of day & profile targeting (only gender and age). The feature is available now to advertisers in the United States only.
YouTube and other Google sites hosted more than 4.3 billion video views in March, accounting for 38 percent of all U.S. video traffic. During that month, U.S. Internet users increased their video intake by 13 percent gain compared with the previous month, and by 64 percent compared with March 2007.
YouTube has regularly introduced new ad-related features in recent months. Six weeks ago it debuted an analytics product designed to generate a wide range of data about who viewed their videos, where they viewed them, and when. Some real good information that can be applied in planning future video programs.
The YouTube product team has created an algorithm, which it says can identify videos that are increasting in terms of views. It makes that determination by looking at factors such as the early acceleration of views on a given clip, along with the number of times it is "favorited" (added to favourites) and the number of ratings it receives. The Google owned platform hopes the feature will appeal to entertainment marketers and to those pushing products with broad appeal.
"We believe buzz targeting is a strong marketing opportunity for any advertiser that wants to offer compelling content alongside the most popular videos taking off on the site," the spokesperson said. "It's an opportunity for them to wrap themselves in the experience that is YouTube itself."
However, the targeting option is available only on clips created by members of YouTube's ad partner program. Among those partners are content majors like Universal Music Group, NBA, and CBS & amateur creators such as Brookers and Daxflame & artists like Ashley Tisdale.
The first advertiser to use the program was Lionsgate Films - "The Forbidden Kingdom." For roughly the past month, the distributor has advertised the Jackie Chan/Jet Li martial arts vehicle on approximately 500 of YouTube's most popular music and entertainment videos, YouTube said. Buzz targeting joins other YouTube ad targeting factors such as geography, time of day & profile targeting (only gender and age). The feature is available now to advertisers in the United States only.
YouTube and other Google sites hosted more than 4.3 billion video views in March, accounting for 38 percent of all U.S. video traffic. During that month, U.S. Internet users increased their video intake by 13 percent gain compared with the previous month, and by 64 percent compared with March 2007.
YouTube has regularly introduced new ad-related features in recent months. Six weeks ago it debuted an analytics product designed to generate a wide range of data about who viewed their videos, where they viewed them, and when. Some real good information that can be applied in planning future video programs.
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