Streaming Video Blog

Online video streaming remains a tiny part of TV viewers’ media consumption, but Dave Poltrack, CBS’ research head, has noticed trends that could make premium broadband ads more valuable than broadcast spots. Taking a panoramic overview of viewing data from Nielsen, MRI and CBS’ own internal research, Poltrack see more older viewers starting to watch online video in greater numbers, suggesting that the form is becoming mainstream and that ad dollars should follow suit. He used the research to back up a presentation to the Television Critics Association in Pasadena this week (B&C has that story). We’ve got the full deck and have mined it for you to find the latest on valuing digital ads, viewer behavior online and more (View select slides here or download the full presentation):

—Valuing digital ads: At the center of the study was an attempt to figure out how to wring dollars from digital video. Right now, broadcast is by far still the most profitable, followed by DVRs and then online. Keep in mind that an average hour-long prime-time show has about 10 minutes of ads—or roughly twenty spots. About 95 percent of a program’s audience sees the ads live, so the average live viewer is exposed to 19.5 ads. DVR viewers tend to skip a little over one-half of the ad. A DVR video gets a significant amount of playback during a three-day window covered by Nielsen’s C3 DVR ratings. That means the network only gets revenue from 44 percent of the ads—the equivalent of just 8.8 ads. But streaming videos tend to include about two minutes of ads, and even though those have an exposure of practically 100 percent, online videos have ad value of just 4.0.

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