Interviews with Digital Media Thought Leaders

Advertising on Internet TV Shows and Movies

Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on May 26, 2009

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Steve Robinson, CEO, Panache

If you would like to learn the latest from an expert about video ads for premium Internet streams such as popular TV shows and movies, this interview is for you.

Our guest today is Steve Robinson who is the CEO of Panache. His company provides an ad-insertion platform that offers media and entertainment companies the infrastructure to generate advertising revenues from their video streams. Representative clients include MTV, VH1, Country Music Channel, and Nickelodeon, among others.

We caught-up with Steve at the Streaming Media East conference where we could get a chance to learn his thoughts on the future of video advertising. Steve emphasized that his company is focused on premium content providers and probably accounts for about 10% – 15% of the business in his industry outside of YouTube.

The advent of websites like Hulu.com and the increasing abundance of popular TV shows and movie streams on the Internet means that it is crucial that the video ads in such streams generate sufficient revenues to adequately compensate the program providers. Steve makes a number of comments to this point.

First, the emergence of an accepted standard will be important because standards drive large scale adoption. For example, should the pre-roll be 15 seconds, or 30 seconds? Should it be interactive or passive?

Second, although standards will help establish scale, the industry is so young that there is likely to also be a lot of innovation. For example, clickable overlays that segue into interactive games have been popular on MTV.

Third, TV and movie producers are going to try and move slowly into Internet distribution because they want to be assured that the revenues generated via the Net are truly incremental. In our analysis, however, they may have to move faster than they want because consumers are connecting laptop computers to flat-panel TVs and thereby getting Internet access on the TV monitor. This is feeding demand for video content from the Net. If premium producers don’t provide it, consumers will find alternate sources. Some may even resort to piracy.

As noted in our Third Generation Television research report released in February we believe that video will inexorably migrate to the Internet. Furthermore, consumers will exhibit a decided preference for free viewing from ad-supported websites and podcasts. As a result, it is crucial that Internet Video ads generate enough revenue to adequately compensate the program producers.

To learn more about Third Generation Television report click here where you can purchase a copy or download a free Prospectus of our research report.