OTT

Nielsen announced today that it will take the lead on an “Impressions First Initiative” to support an industry-wide move to impressions-based buying and selling in local markets across the country. The move to impressions will occur in conjunction with the integration of broadband only homes into Nielsen’s local measurement metrics in January 2022.

The U.S. OS landscape is mostly controlled by smart TV OEMs and device makers like Roku and Amazon. But with 42% of the global OTT market up for grabs, that could change.

If they could only keep one streaming service, 41% of those surveyed by Whip Media said they’d keep Netflix and HBO Max was tops with about 90% when asked which service left them most satisfied.

Hearst Television today announced the release of its OTT and CTV channel, “Very Local,” available on popular streaming platforms. The app allows viewers to connect with local news and information relevant to their lives, as well as content from other communities around the U.S.

Antennas, or “rabbit ears” provide completely free access to local network affiliates, typically including ABC, NBC, Fox and others. Fueled largely by millennials who’ve long sidestepped cable, antenna sales in the U.S. have risen 4% over the past year.

As more TV viewers become digital streamers, there are questions about whether outlandish marketing stunts still have a place in the TV firmament.

Viewers can be unforgiving when it comes to the quality of their video viewing experience, whether it’s OTA or OTT, though the latter presents more complicated challenges for monitoring vendors. They’re responding with an array of technologies to keep viewers from clicking away. Above: The Weather Channel was an early adopter of OTT and OTT monitoring, pictured here using an Actus OTT quality assurance solution.

As part of a broader shift of video advertising from “in-home” to “out-of-home,” independent out-of-home media-services agency Talon has unveiled a new “connected video” service unifying over-the-top TV and digital out-of-home video advertising. The goal, says Talon America CEO Jim Wilson, is to deliver “measurable incremental” audience reach tied to explicit “campaign spending business results.”

The vendor’s shift to SaaS products is a reflection of broadcasters’ changing business models, as they invest in new over-the-top services to meet consumer demand for nonlinear programming while traditional broadcast revenues decline.

Digital Media Rights (DMR) has formed a new social media division that will curate content for social platforms in order to push distribution and create revenue and marketing opportunities. DMR Social starts out with a footprint of more than 17 million subscribers and followers on YouTube and Facebook across eight brands. Collectively they average more than 284 million video views and 8 million hours watched per month.

Fox TV Stations said today it’s made a deal to integrate Fox Flx, its over-the-top advertising product, into the Strata buying platform operated by Comcast’s FreeWheel unit.

Over-the-top advertising has become a surprisingly important business for companies that have been stockpiling television stations. Streaming revenue is letting broadcasters, including Cox Media Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group and the NBC and Fox O&Os, claim a foothold in the technology field and create advanced advertising products for clients enamored of digital and social media.

The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), a division of the Advertising Research Foundation, this morning said it is launching new research to “better understand how time is spent across every platform available on TVs today.” The initiative, dubbed the “Passive TV Measurement Study,” will explicitly look at how American consumers spend time with linear TV as well as OTT (over-the-top internet-connected) devices, smart TV apps and video game consoles.

The Florida 24 Network highlights reporting from Scripps’ six stations in the state and is available over-the-top in every TV market across the state.

Forty-six percent of U.S. broadband homes supported four or more subscription streaming services at the end of the first quarter, a percentage that is more than double the 22% Parks Associates reported in 1Q 2020. Parks also reported that the U.S. homes with at least one subscription OTT service reached 82% in 1Q vs. 76% a year earlier.

There is a major difference of opinion between the National Association of Broadcasters and the network affiliate broadcaster associations over whether the FCC should require streaming services to deliver emergency alerts. NAB says no, while network affiliates say yes, definitely. All they need to do is carry local TV station signals on their streaming services, which they are pushing the FCC to mandate.

A key sales destination for the biggest connected TV device makers, the big box chain is now the competition with its cheap Onn-branded streamers. Google now has one more really effective way to proliferate Android TV.

Streaming News 2021 will wrap up Wednesday with a roundtable on technology and the free ad-supported TV approach to building a business on OTT. Register here.

Gray Television is pushing the FCC to classify over-the-top video providers as MVPDs so they will have to negotiate carriage with stations. That is according to a presentation to FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington and his media adviser, Adam Cassady, by Gray counsel and former FCC commissioner Robert McDowell.

In her new role, Oh will be responsible for driving innovation and continued engagement while overseeing Gamut’s day-to-day over-the-top advertising businesses and their functions.

E.W. Scripps is moving from new-school distribution to old-school to expand the audience for its Newsy channel: On Oct. 1, the news offering that’s available today via OTT apps will go on the air in Scripps’ 41 broadcast markets, reaching some 80% of U.S. TV households. in a Zoom video interview, Scripps President-CEO Adam Symson explained what the Cincinnati company hopes to get out of OTA — and offered a few suggestions about how the industry could upgrade one of its oldest mediums.

A new report from Applicaster finds that 84% of media execs plan for continued streaming growth in 2021; advertising is king: two-thirds of respondents use advertising, often as part of a monetization mix; and 19 different combinations of revenue models are now used across platforms.

Scripps’ Octane OTT sales team and Amazon Advertising will work together to sell Amazon OTT inventory across IMDb TV, livestreaming service Twitch, top-tier network and broadcaster apps and Amazon’s News apps to local businesses.

Although Fox Television Stations was a bit late to the party starting an OTT advertising selling business compared to other station groups, it is now coming on strong since the first of the year with its FLX operation. Ad sales deals have doubled since the first of the year, says Michael Page, VP of digital sales for Fox Television Stations. Some 300 campaigns have run since January.