VOD

Online video sharing service Vimeo has launched the Vimeo On Demand Publisher Network with distribution partners including CBS, The Atlantic and Metacritic, the company announced today. Other launch partners joining the network include CBS Interactive’s TV Guide.com, TV.com and TEN: The Enthusiast Network.

CBS, Fox and the other TV broadcasters are delivering more shows on demand through pay-TV services to wean audiences off digital video recorders, which let viewers skip through commercials. Comcast, owner of NBC and the largest U.S. pay-TV service, is offering the 100 most popular shows on demand in the new TV season that’s just begun.

As Millennials and younger generations continue to come of age and become the key decision makers of America’s households, it will become all the more critical to create programming that aligns with the demands of this media-savvy, diverse audience of content curators. Broadcast TV has the transcultural programming viewers want to watch. The challenge is in reaching them via a broader range of content delivery platforms now and in the future.

After missing opportunities to make VOD a mainstream technology, TV networks are embracing it to capture tech-savvy viewers — and make them watch ads

Time Warner Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes said pay TV distributors need to step up their game when it comes to video on demand. Speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York on Tuesday, Bewkes praised the potential VOD has for the entertainment industry, but at the same time, he chastised distributors for not doing more to not only promote VOD but also for having complicated interfaces that frustrate customers.

The No. 1 cable company says that it has overcome its biggest obstacle: its inability to provide up-to-date commercials in older episodes of TV series. Since advertisers wouldn’t pay for viewers watching obsolete spots, the networks providing the shows couldn’t profit from VOD users who wanted to catch up with a series. But on Sunday Comcast said that it’s teaming with Nielsen to test a product for its Xfinity platform that it calls On Demand Commercial Ratings (ODCR)

Comcast reached a deal with CBS to offer subscribers more of the network’s shows on video-on-demand and they cut a separate pact to offer all past seasons of two shows through its multiscreen Streampix service — giving the cable giant a bit more ammunition to fight over-the-top services like Netflix.

Long hobbled by clunky technology and often featuring old movies and television shows, the cable and satellite on-demand video services have been slow to expand viewership. A new report from Nielsen finds that VOD is available in 60% of American TV households. That’s a dramatic increase from just five years ago, when such services were offered to just 37% of homes.

As the video-on-demand business has become more meaningful for independent films — which are increasingly squeezed out of movie theaters by big-budget studio pictures — some companies are starting to release pay-per-view sales figures.

The UK’s largest independent producer is set to shake up the video-on-demand market by allowing viewers to bypass services such as LoveFilm and Netflix and catch hits via its TV app. The company believes it is the first U.K. indie to go direct to consumers with a TV service, which will launch in the U.K. this week and in the U.S. within the next month.

A new report from The Diffusion Group identifies inadequate ad support and awkward program guides as the main culprits. Both factors contribute to limiting the availability and viewing of ad-supported video-on-demand content.

CBS has seen a surge in recent video-on-demand viewing, according to the network’s chief research officer David Poltrack. He said CBS got 70 million VOD views this fall  — a 19% rise — versus the same period a year before. Because VOD is primarily a TV experience, and consumers accept advertising on VOD, Poltrack believes “VOD remains a advertising medium of great potential.”

Nielsen is floating a new approach to VOD tracking that could jumpstart the business. Nielsen is talking with clients about an “On Demand C3” metric, which it presented at its recent national client meeting. The product might ultimately carry a sleeker “ODC3” brand.

Higher home television revenue is being driven by new TV-related services and equipment, including DVR units, HDTVs, VOD and other services. J.D. Power & Associates says some of this evidence comes from high average monthly bills of triple-play consumers — phone, television, and Internet — which has risen to $149.52 in 2011 from $140.90 a month in 2010.

Feeling that there is significant runway in establishing free VOD as an advertising platform, tech provider BlackArrow and the 4As trade group are teaming up. Tabbed the Advanced Advertising Media Project (AAMP), the initiative has launched with a study of perceptions among industry leaders about multiple aspects of VOD.

Disney is set to begin testing a premium video-on-demand service that would make movies available to viewers at home shortly after they appear in theaters. Bob Chapek, Disney’s president of distribution, said the company would target the in-home offering to families with young children.

With digital technology rapidly disrupting the home entertainment business, Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes is preparing aggressive moves in video-on-demand and against Netflix.

The non-linear offering gives viewers access to some of the most popular TeleFutura programming.

Connected TVs are about to jumpstart the nascent IPTV and VOD sectors, perhaps even with radical new online services. But some of the UK industry’s key figures, at Tuesday’s Westminster Media Forum, lined up to give a conservative prediction — that the biggest opportunity is merely time shifting.