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What Live Streaming Tells Us About Connected TV’s Evolution
4 Min Read Last week marked Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, which was Netflix’s first-ever live event, with an entire evening of live entertainment served before and after the show. Viewers were able to rewind, pause and jump to Rock’s current set—and latecomers had an option to play from the beginning or start watching live. Those who missed out completely could stream the set immediately following the live event, however not the pre- and post-show content—a unique proposition for a channel that was popularized for being on-demand. “It’s here and gone, just like live comedy should be,” comedian Ronny Chieng said of Rock’s special, who hosted the pre-show, featuring guests like Paul McCartney and Jerry Seinfield. This left some viewers a bit confused—after all, isn’t Netflix the company that pioneered on-demand television, so why are they reliving the days of appointment television? Is this a step back, or step forward in the right direction for Connected TV? Back to the Future The move from Netflix is a smart one given that streaming services are now a dime a dozen, overwhelming viewers with choice. What better way to get viewers talking and stir up some good old fashioned FOMO than this? Robbie Praw, Netflix’s Vice President of Stand Up and Comedy told the Wall Street Journal that watching a comedy special “live on Netflix is a real change in the construct.” This brings up two questions: Will this lead to more streaming networks picking up live events in the future, and secondly, is streaming adept to take on live programming—especially if it’s on demand? On one hand, this step might be a good opportunity to experiment with viewers who have benefited from having content at their fingertips on their terms, and gauge their interest in a return to appointment-viewing. Early results appear promising, as the live event ranked 7th in the Netflix top ten for the week of February 27th through March 5th. On the other hand, networks shouldn’t forget the lessons they have learned by building an on-demand service. They still need to produce enough endemic advertising to create an audience in advance so that it becomes appointment viewing—which wasn’t the case with Rock’s special. “It’s a free publicity move that’s going to have no impact on their business,” said Michael Pachter, Managing Director of Equity Research at Wedbush Securities, who commented to Yahoo! Finance about the live show ahead of its release. And it certainly achieved publicity in the hours and days following, both the press (and public) alike wanted to know how/if Will Smith reacted to it, and whether this marks the start of a new format beyond Netflix’s usual a la carte offering of on-demand content. Roll Out the Red Carpet for Streaming Chris Rock jokes aside, another live event is on the way—this weekend’s 95th Oscar Awards ceremony. And this year, it looks like viewers will be split into two camps: those who will be tuning in for the red carpet fashion, and then the ‘will there or won’t there be a Chris Rock and Will Smith style showdown’? And, will viewership increase this year based on last year’s drama? One thing is certain—advertisers need a way to jump onto cultural moments like these. They need advertising solutions that prioritize agility, flexibility and the ability to react to cultural moments quickly. ‘Fastvertising’, as we like to call it at MNTN, helps brands plug into those cultural moments. And the digital nature of Connected TV affords opportunities for advertisers to get their ads live quickly, with references to these cultural touchstones—as long as they can produce the ad quickly enough, that is. The ad technology exists to get the ad live, so really it comes down to the speed in which the advertiser can produce the ad (something that Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort is known for being able to pull off). Netflix’s experimentation in live events continues to showcase streaming’s evolution, and only time will tell whether the on-demand or live model will win out for advertisers. Other CTV News You Need to Know: Sign Up for the Connected TV ReportSubscribe to the report Apple, Amazon, NBC and more use to get their CTV news.
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A Net Fix for Netflix: Latest Earnings Report Confirms It’s Streaming’s World—We Just Live in It.
4 Min Read When Netflix finally pulled back the red curtain on its latest earnings report last week—the first since the streaming giant announced its entry into the ad-supported streaming space—it answered the burning question that we all had: will they or won’t they see success with this new strategy? The answer was a resounding yes (and put Wall Street estimates to shame). In the fourth quarter of 2022, they added 7.66 million paid subscribers, more than the 4.57 million forecast, and generated $7.85 billion in revenue (two percent increase year-over-year). And as of January 23rd, their stock price ended the day at $357.42, which is more than double what it was in May 2022. Not to mention management changes, as co-founder Reed Hastings stepped down and appointed Greg Peters, Chief Product and Chief Operating Officer, to join Ted Sarandos as a co-Chief Executive Officer. Can Netflix Sustain Their Upward Growth Amid Their Other 2023 Plans? Netflix recently announced that they will be eliminating password sharing, entering a multiyear agreement with Nielsen to provide cross-media audience data, and potentially exploring FAST (Free Ad Supported Streaming) this year, and the industry sentiment remains positive. “Netflix traditionally has led in the media business—a lot of the innovations have come from them. Now they’re gearing up to lead some more. I would invest in the management team for them to navigate the ad business, password sharing and generate more growth,” said MNTN President and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Douglas, in an interview with CNBC following the earnings call. When Douglas was asked about whether now was a good time for Netflix to launch their ad-supported part of the business, he remained positive that the model would succeed despite macroeconomic factors, “I don’t think they [had] a choice. in some ways it’s not [the best time] because you have a lot of supply coming into the market…but you also have demand being pulled back from large brand advertisers…that sets up for a price war, so it’s not an ideal time to launch but i think these advertisers are excited about Netflix at the right price, and so Netflix will still navigate that.” Netflix’s Win Makes a Statement About Streaming While Netflix’s earnings paints a positive picture for streaming at large, there is uncertainty on how the elimination of password sharing will impact price sensitive customers. However, the company’s co-CEOs disagree. They look to this challenge as an opportunity to build up what they do best—and that’s their content library. “Our job is over the next couple of years to win all of them back. We won’t do that out of the gate. Some of those folks are borrowing because they’re more price sensitive, they’re less engaged or whatever. But if we deliver a Wednesday every week, if we deliver a Glass Onion every week, we’ll get the vast majority of those viewers back,” said Greg Peters. Password sharing or not, one thing is clear—there’s no slowing down streaming. As long as advertisers have a winning formula of targeting the right audience on premium (and coveted) content, the sky’s the limit on what they can achieve through Connected TV. Sarandos concludes that “[Streaming is] big business because [it’s] what consumers want…[it is] growing dramatically and it’s growing on the demise of linear television. It’s easy to talk about streaming in one big, broad brush, but there is Netflix and there is everyone else trying to figure out how to do what Netflix is doing.” Other CTV News You Need to Know: Sign Up for the Connected TV ReportSubscribe to the report Apple, Amazon, NBC and more use to get their CTV news.
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Streaming Ad Spend Will Surpass Linear by 2025
2 Min Read As more and more consumers make the switch from linear to streaming, it looks like advertisers will follow suit. According to a report from TVREV, “FASTs Are the New Cable Part 2: Advertising,” we can expect ad spend on streaming to surpass that of linear by 2025—and by 2027, streaming will account for 68% of ad spend on television ($69 billion out of the total $101 billion expected TV ad spend). Consumer concerns over the uncertain state of the economy are also increasingly driving them to seek out content on free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST), and it looks like these platforms in particular will begin to see more ad dollars over the next few years. By 2025, FASTs are expected to surpass cable, broadcast or SVOD services when it comes to ad spend. By the end of the source’s forecast period in 2027, FASTs will reach a whopping $42.6 billion, or 42% of total TV ad spend, as compared to SVOD’s expected 26% of ad spend, cable’s 19%, and broadcast’s 13%. Connected TV in the News U.S. Homes Show Steady Use of Both Smart TVs and Streaming PlayersMediaPostAmid the growth of smart TVs with integrated streaming operating systems, TV homes continue to use those TV sets as well as separate set-top-box players — like Roku and Amazon units — to access and discover content. How Co-Viewing Streaming Could Boost Valentine’s Day for BrandsMNTN ResearchA changing dynamic in the modern relationship—the importance of co-viewing streaming television—could be the key to preventing broken hearts for customers and brands alike on Valentine’s Day. Why the Golden Globes May Look to Streaming as a Life Raft for Next YearThe Hollywood ReporterAn industry embrace of ad tiers and streamers looking to get into live TV could provide the embattled awards show new hope beyond dismal linear ratings. Get the Latest Connected TV News, Right to Your Inbox Why not receive our CTV advertising report, right to your inbox? Just enter your email below and you’ll never be out of the CTV / OTT advertising loop again. Sign Up for the Connected TV ReportSubscribe to the report Apple, Amazon, NBC and more use to get their CTV news.
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Integral Ad Science acquires AI-powered video classification company Context
Today, digital ad verification platform Integral Ad Science (IAS) announced its acquisition of Paris-based content classification company Context. Context uses AI to classify images and video seen across digital channels, including social media and CTV.IAS will integrate Context’s AI-driven technology with its own Context Control suite, which enables marketers to target and deliver ads in suitable, safe contexts.The acquisition helps accelerate IAS’s product roadmap toward providing contextual solutions that increase marketers’ precision and flexibility in optimizing campaigns, according to the company.With the acquisition, IAS will add several teams of data scientists, analysts and engineers located in France and Poland to their global staff.Why we care. The CTV landscape especially continues to grow, offering many more ad opportunities for marketers on streaming services and ad-supported video on demand (AVOD). Viewers are scattered across all these environments, and to avoid risky contexts for brands, there’s a greater need for automated AI tools that can steer the ship at scale. Same goes for the virtual minefield of brand risk that marketers have all experienced on social.Video content can be extremely captivating for audiences, but it is also largely unstructured. It’s much easier to generate a list of offensive keywords in written content that an advertiser should avoid. To process and tag video requires sophisticated intelligence that can recognize contexts that are damaging to brands. But this also means that there are many opportunities for positive contexts that publishers and brands don’t know about until the video has been catalogued. The real future in CTV is when these opportunities can be identified during live broadcasts like sports events that draw big audiences.Read next: 2022 Predictions: CTV and cross-channel advertisingNew on MarTech About The Author Chris Wood draws on over 15 years of reporting experience as a B2B editor and journalist. At DMN, he served as associate editor, offering original analysis on the evolving marketing tech landscape. He has interviewed leaders in tech and policy, from Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, to former Cisco CEO John Chambers, and Vivek Kundra, appointed by Barack Obama as the country’s first federal CIO. He is especially interested in how new technologies, including voice and blockchain, are disrupting the marketing world as we know it. In 2019, he moderated a panel on “innovation theater” at Fintech Inn, in Vilnius. In addition to his marketing-focused reporting in industry trades like Robotics Trends, Modern Brewery Age and AdNation News, Wood has also written for KIRKUS, and contributes fiction, criticism and poetry to several leading book blogs. He studied English at Fairfield University, and was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He lives in New York.
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2022 Predictions: CTV and cross-channel advertising
2022 will be another year of growth for streaming services, Smart TV adoption and ad-supported video on demand (AVOD). The CTV landscape will continue to mature with more advertisers, more viewers and more robust programmatic offerings and data partnerships.More streamingWhile growth for some subscription services slow down, like for Disney+, old standbys like Netflix see another surge. That’s because viewers bounce around to watch the latest hits, like Squid Game. And when streaming services land another hit, viewers are more likely to cut the cord from linear TV, and replace live TV content they used to watch on cable with OTT services like YouTube TV, fuboTV or Sling. And those are ad-supported, with ads frequently sold programmatically.When ads are bought and sold programmatically, campaigns can be planned across other digital channels, and this is why programmatic buys are gaining a bigger slice of overall ad sales. In 2022, U.S. digital display ad spending through programmatic is projected to climb to $115 billion, or over 90% of digital display ad spending.CTV and cross channel ad surge“In addition to further adoption of CTV, we will see an uptick in cross channel media investments as consumer confidence grows along with CTV,” said Jon Schulz, CMO of advertising software company Viant Technology Inc.In 2022, marketers will reach audiences who cut the cord by placing more ads through programmatic CTV. But they will also have to maintain some presence on linear, because the transition to digital TV isn’t complete. Instead, it’s a fragmented landscape that will influence how advertisers buy TV ads at this year’s Upfronts.“TV viewership continues to skyrocket, with CTV at the forefront of that growth and consumer engagement,” said Iván Markman, Yahoo’s Chief Business Officer. “In 2022, brands will refine their strategies and unlock incremental linear reach with CTV spend. But with fragmentation across linear and CTV viewing, robust frequency management across both will be critical to the effective use of ad dollars.”Activating more ads programmaticallyMarkman added, “The Upfronts have become more CTV-centric. And when it makes up a third of Upfront spend, it’s no longer experimental – it’s a mainstay. At the same time, the important task of eliminating overlap and excess household frequency will require advertisers to increase the sophistication of their CTV buys.”This nuanced approach includes buying a higher percentage of CTV buys at Upfronts, but then activating more of the ads programmatically, he said. It will also lead to less programmatic guaranteed ad buys, and more bidding in private or open marketplaces.“These changes will allow advertisers to more dynamically and granularly manage reach and frequency for their campaigns,” Markman stated. “As consumer behavior continues to shift at what seems to be an unattainable pace, marketers seek more agility and optimization.”More real-time biddingAs things stand now, the majority of CTV ads are served through VAST, the standard developed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) to show ads on a video player on laptop and desktop computers, as well as on mobile devices.In the upcoming year, Open Real Time Bidding (oRTB) will gain momentum, as advertisers will be triggering more automatic bids to get even more relevant audiences for ads.“By the end of 2022, I expect most programmatic bids to arrive at the ad server through oRTB and other advanced integrations,” said Matt McLeggon, Senior Vice President, Advanced Solutions for SSP Magnite. “This transformative development will unify decisioning across programmatic and traditional direct, unlocking increased efficiency and revenue, easing competitive separation and programmatic guaranteed execution, and accelerating the overall migration of CTV to programmatic.”Live sportsIt’s not just scripted TV hits that are attracting viewers to streaming services. More live sports will be headed to streaming as well. In 2022, for instance, Amazon Prime will be broadcasting Thursday Night Football exclusively. NBC, in turn, renewed its deal with the English Premier League, and will show many of those games on Peacock streaming.These are “watershed” deals that will impact the entire TV landscape, according to Kevin Krim, CEO of ad measurement and analytics company EDO.“Here’s what it means for advertisers: First, making increasingly complex investment decisions with confidence requires measuring across platforms consistently,” he said. “Second, since similar types of programming will be on myriad platforms, ‘linear vs. streaming’ will be a concept of the past. Investment choices will be between the immediate reach and impact of live event advertising versus the longer tail and finer targeting of ‘watch when you want’ programming.”CTV has brought a lot of disruption to traditional TV viewing behavior, especially with hit shows being watched on-demand. Now the migration of live sports to streaming will create another wave of disruption. The viewers will still be viewing this popular content, but it will be up to advertisers and their adtech partners to determine where they’re watching it.Read next: 2022 Predictions: Data strategy and privacyNew on MarTech About The Author Chris Wood draws on over 15 years of reporting experience as a B2B editor and journalist. At DMN, he served as associate editor, offering original analysis on the evolving marketing tech landscape. He has interviewed leaders in tech and policy, from Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, to former Cisco CEO John Chambers, and Vivek Kundra, appointed by Barack Obama as the country’s first federal CIO. He is especially interested in how new technologies, including voice and blockchain, are disrupting the marketing world as we know it. In 2019, he moderated a panel on “innovation theater” at Fintech Inn, in Vilnius. In addition to his marketing-focused reporting in industry trades like Robotics Trends, Modern Brewery Age and AdNation News, Wood has also written for KIRKUS, and contributes fiction, criticism and poetry to several leading book blogs. He studied English at Fairfield University, and was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He lives in New York.
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