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Tag Archives | VOD

Is SeeSaw the final piece for UK VOD market

By on January 26, 2010 in Uncategorized

seesaw

SeeSaw (Previously Project Kangaroo) have announced they have bagged their first big advertisers and ready for their Feb roll out. Obviously there are still deals in the pipeline to carry the large broadcaster’s content. I think the insight here is the prices and sell throughs that pre-roll are getting in long form, produced content (see previous post) and the appeal for something like SeeSaw ad it can generate them more money. If they can get it right, SeeSaw has the ability to extend the online footprint of many of the TV stations existing online audiences and that has to be appealing.

The 4OD and YouTube deal really showed the importance of this and suddenly looks as though it may crack the age old conundrum of “How will YouTube make its money”. Interestingly it could end up being a similar strategy as it was for their search product. Natural being the audience driver and Adwords being the money makeing model that sits on the top.

I am sure there will be a nervousness by many of the stations to dvert attention away from their core online platform, but I think it will start to make them think about how they can extend their audiences and work together. What is the channel and what is the platform? SKY knows this only too well, with SKY homes and SKY channels. SKY on SKY, ITV on SKY, Channel 4 on SKY …. you get the picture.

SeeSaw is a platform not a content provider and operates in the commercial space – that’s what’s new and that is why, whichever way, things are about to change.

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Value of content

By on January 24, 2010 in Uncategorized

ny times

The NY Times announcing that it is moving to a paid for content / subscription model is a bold move and probably about time. Will it work? I have no idea. One thing it will answer is what is the value of their content and if anything start to bottom out the answer of what is the value to written content online. I used to think the old adage of “content is king” had lost its relevancy. The majority of the biggest sites in the UK don’t have editors or even create so called content – application was king, relevancy was king, context was king … content wasn’t really up there.

I have changed my view. I recently spoke to a natioinal TV station who gave an insight into the usage of their video-on-demand service (super big), the sell through levels of the advertising (it was all sold) and the yields being achieved (I reckon they must have been getting yields 4 – 5 times that off your common gardenal natioinal newspaper site). The point being they were nailing it. The reason being it was great content. TV shows that people wanted to watch again. The thing that was raised eyebrows was the amount of archive footage that was generating plays and carrying these valaubale ads. From the ARCHIVE.

Janey L Robinson – Chief Executive of Ny Times, was using the iTunes micro payment model as proof that perhaps the market was ready to pay for content. I’ll be honest I think this is perhaps a stretch too far. The nature of the contrent is very different, but it made me think of the archive word again.

My thinking is, would the creator of content archive it and would someone then come along and pay for that content. I think that this is  the model at the moment, in markets where it works. Music, video, financial even porn. Succesful paid for models. Perhaps they are selling the freshness of the content of the stories – but will people pay for that? Especially with the explosion of free media services, national funded broadcasters and wire services.

The saying of “Good strategy is about sacrifice” stands here. The papers really need to think about the type of content people may pay for and for now I kind of like “The Archive Test”. Fingers crossed they need a break.

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