Here’s further evidence that professionally produced video content is becoming a big business. According to the Diffusion Group, ad rates for professionally produced video is in the $30-$40 CPM range.
Check out this Silicon Alley Insider article for more.
I’ve recently discovered the blog Online Video Watch, which doesn’t an excellent job keeping tabs on the latest developments in the online video world. I particularly liked this recent post, which focuses on the migration from user generated content to professionally produced content on the web.
Now, I don’t think UGC is going away anytime soon. In terms of economic value, though, professionally produced content that is polished, smart, and sophisticated will have an edge. This is particularly true when large brands are concerned, as there is an even greater incentive to protect their core brand assets.
According to this NY Times article, Lorne Michaels and NBC has decided that Jimmy Fallon’s debut as host of Late Night will happen online. Instead of starting off on television, and potentially have a rough start like Conan did when he began his current tenure, the network thinks that putting Jimmy online will give him a chance to find his style and ease into his new role. It’s expected that the segments will be in the five to ten minute range, and will be published to the web every night at a set time.
Clearly, this is more evidence that video on the web is quickly becoming established as a viable medium that major brands and media companies will continue to leverage more heavily as time goes on.
This is NYTimes.com article is really exciting for a number of reasons:
We’ll be watching!
Big news coming from Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers: soon we’ll be able to choose from a “nearly infinite variety” of top-level domains (instead of being restricted to old workhorses like .com, .org, .edu, etc.) So perhaps we’ll see a greater variety of video-friendly extensions in the near future, like .movie, .film, .show, or .network.
This report is almost a year old, but still contains some enlightening statistics on the exploding growth of video on the web. From the report:.
This article on NYTimes.com raised my eyebrows, as the ISPs (remember the term - Internet Service Provider) set price tiers based on Internet bandwidth consumption. My initial reaction is indignation, after all, what is the $100/month high speed cable access for? The industry started pricing for connection speed and now are they planning to add additional charges on top of that? And it can’t be good for online video – it’s adoption and growth as a unique media format.
But perhaps it helps distinguish web video from the mass media, providing a competitive differentiation. We have the largest TV and movie producers distributing content and expanding their revenue sources on the backs of the Internet revolution. There is no doubt that watching full screen video online has enhanced the interactive experience, but if someone wants to watch a 2 hour movie, maybe they ought to get back on the couch. Perhaps the medium is better served by short-form, episodic video content with more opportunities for interaction – as long as it still plays in real-time.
I could argue either way, and of course prefer full speed, unlimited usage for free, but somebody has to pay for something.
Another recent article in the Times talks about how “lunchtime has become the new prime time” for web video. With millions of office workers around the country looking for a mid-day diversion, sites that feature video have been seeing massive traffic spikes when employees take a break for their afternoon sandwich.
What’s interesting is that media companies are now responding to the trend by actually releasing new content and webisodes to leverage the natural tendency for traffic to spike at noon. In addition, producers are now charging higher advertising fees for programs that launch at lunch, thereby turning the time slot into a web-version of prime time.
Here’s an interesting post from Silicon Alley Insider talking about the various ways that different web video properties count a “view”. The big question that companies are still trying to work out is whether a view is counted every time a video is launched, or whether to count only one view per IP address. The problem with the former is over counting, as a view can be registered each time a single person watches the same clip. The problem with the latter is undercounting, as often times many people can share a single IP.
It’ll be interesting to watch how this gets sorted out over the coming months and years.