Articles by: "Rande Price, Research VP – DCN"

Publishers explore subscription models focused on inclusivity

June 14, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Reader revenue models raise concerns about subscriptions serving only wealthy and highly educated audiences. According to a Reuters Institute’s survey, almost half of news leaders (47%) are concerned that subscription models may “super-serve” more affluent and more educated audiences

A recent article by Laura Oliver identifies news publishers in Sweden, Spain, and South Africa that are creating inclusive offerings to ensure trusted news sources aren’t just available to those who can pay for them. Oliver offers examples of how publishers are paying it forward to readers who may not otherwise be able to afford a subscription. This allows them to access the news at a reduced cost (or even for free), while building good will and paving the way for a long term subscriber relationship.

Daily Maverick in South Africa provides a “pay what you can” model, while Spain’s elDiario.es allows members to pay nothing. Portugal’s Publico offers digital subscriptions to the unemployed, and Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter uses a flex paywall to attract younger and more geographically diverse audiences. Importantly, these publishers are focused on inclusivity and are setting the stage for others to follow.

South Africa’s Daily Maverick’s sliding scale

South Africa’s Daily Maverick offers a sliding scale payment for subscriptions. Readers decide how much to contribute, with prices ranging from just under $5 to just under $23 a month. There is also an annual subscription option from just under $50 to just under $230. Subscribers paying more than approximately $12 a month received the same amount in an Uber voucher as a perk.

The sliding scale attracted 24,500 Maverick Insiders, with a slight majority paying more than $12 a month. Additional benefits include ad-free browsing and invites to speak with journalists. Unfortunately, Daily Maverick Retention is somewhat problematic given credit card expirations and no auto-renewal process. Even with these obstacles, there are 17,100 active members. The Daily Maverick is looking into direct debit cards for less friction in the renewal process.

Sweeden’s Dagens Nyheter targets younger audiences

Dagens Nyheter introduced digital subscriptions in 2015 and expanded its offerings a year later. They employ a metered model, a premium model, and a dynamic model where most articles are free immediately after publication but then move behind the paywall. Approximately 60,000 people signed up for the free offer, and close to 30% converted into paying subscribers in the following year.

They used this strategy again during the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in 300,000 free registrations, with 25% converting into paying subscribers later. Dagens Nyheter subscribers started with approximately 2,000 digital-only subscribers. Now it has about 250,000 and reader revenues account for 78% of their total revenue.

elDiario.es reduced-fee options

Spanish news site elDiario.es believes developing an emotional relationship with audiences will grow its membership. Their offer allows members to pay from $8.50 to $80 or more a month for a subscription. They also offer a free or reduced-fee option for those who cannot pay. The site uses a metered paywall technology to help encourage loyal audiences to become supporters.

Nearly 21,700 members signed up for elDiario.esunder the free option. The site has almost 61,000 paying members, including 3,600 paying a reduced fee. In the elDiario.es revenue model, 50% of revenue comes from readers and 50% from advertising.

Pricing options allow readers with financial limitations to identify how best they can support newsrooms. Publishers willing to experiment with different pricing offers such as “paying what you can” show readers they are more human and less transactional. These efforts help them form a loyal and lasting relationship with audiences, regardless of their financial circumstances.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Publisher demographics are more effective than data-brokered targeting

May 24, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Many marketers believe that personalized advertising in digital media is very effective at offering efficiencies and generating clicks and conversions. While advertisers generally agree that targeting is a useful tool, there is little business-to-business (B2B) research that evaluates the efficacy of advertising tactics like this. However, Nico Neumann, Catherine E. Tucker, Kumar Subramanyam, and John Marshall explore What Type of Digital Advertising is Most Effective for B2B Prospecting? in a new study.

Reaching B2B decision-makers

This research questions the best targeting method to reach B2B decision-makers using digital advertising. The authors focus on the tech sector as their desired audience: the most extensive B2B advertising vertical with an over a 30% share of the U.S. B2B digital ad spend market. The goal for the campaign is to increase branding among Information Technology Decision Makers (ITDM). Therefore, reach is a key metric for this campaign.

Methodology and analysis

Seeking out expertise, the authors asked five different global data vendors to produce ITDM prospect lists. Two vendors provide a simple list of ITDM prospects, including user’s name, location, role, email, and cellphone information. Using their proprietary black-box methods, the other three data vendors provided a ready-made list of ITDM prospects. All five ITDM segments easily integrated into buying or data management platforms.

The core focus of the study is to examine the factors of data quality and their influence on results. The authors compared the five prospect lists to random prospecting on a digital publisher network of Time Magazine, Dotdash Meredith, Design Home, and other quality publishers to serve as a baseline for reaching the target audience. In addition, the researchers surveyed those exposed to the campaign to find out about their ITDM responsibilities, demographics, work-related characteristics, digital footprint, and content interests. This benchmarking exercise assessed the reach performance of the different ITDM targeting practices compared to the network of publishers without purchasing additional ITDM data segments.

The survey analysis examined all segments and found that over 84% of respondents have no IT product or purchase responsibilities despite the list of targeted ITDM users. Interestingly, the first two prospect lists were more effective than using black-box audience segments for identifying ITDMs via digital ads. However, even the prospect lists are not statistically better at reaching the defined target market than the digital publisher network.

The prospect-information validation using the collected surveys suggests a significant level of inaccuracy, consistent across the first two vendor lists.

Invalid data can occur if:

A potential error in the link to the data profile itself.
Data is classified incorrectly.
Information is outdated.
Inaccuracies with machine learning or other attributions problems.

Importantly, audience information generated by publishers is less likely to be subject to these errors.

Effective tools

After evaluating the cost-effectiveness of market costs and reach, the study found that contextual and content-interest targeting is almost 9 to 10 times more efficient than specific ITDM pre-packaged prospect lists. The custom B2B lists for ITDM are no more helpful in finding the desired audience than random prospecting from a digital publisher network. Further, publishers’ demographic first-party data targeting is most efficient.

This study provides independent evidence that publishers and first-party data efforts offer more effective and cost-efficient target audience reach than the use of data brokers and third-party cookies.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Streaming drives this year’s upfronts

May 10, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

The buzz this upfront season is all about streaming. As Tim Peterson at Digiday put it, “Historically streaming has taken a backseat to traditional TV in the annual upfront market. This year, however, streaming will be sitting shotgun as it gets closer to seizing the wheel.” Many upfront presentations this year emphasized the value of ad-supported services like Peacock, Hulu, and HBO Max. In particular, networks focused on the value proposition for advertisers to buy inventory on their ad-supported streaming offerings – to keep those dollars in their family of brands.

The strategy this upfront season contrasts with to Wall Street analysts’ concerns over the long-term viability of the streaming marketplace. In the wake of Netflix’s quarterly performance, Quibi’s short life, and CNN+’s untimely demise, analysts have been skeptical about the marketplace’s growth potential. BofA Global Research analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich reports, “We believe investors are now questioning the long-term market potential in streaming.” However, networks are not only confident that their streamers will continue to attract audiences, they are betting on their connected TV extensions to attract this year’s upfront dollars.

Networks believe that consumer viewing habits, particularly for those who ante up for subscriptions, will prove a viable market for advertising dollars. Streaming service penetration is strong among U.S. households. Deloitte research reports that approximately 80% of U.S. households in the United States paid for a streaming service in 2021, with about 35% churn across the member base. Monitoring engagement is essential to understanding churn. Subscriber growth and retention work hand in hand in monetizing the streaming ecosystem.

Streaming is nearly one-third of TV viewing

Time spent is an essential metric of engagement and retention. The Gauge, Nielsen’s total TV and streaming snapshot for March 2022, shows that streaming audiences spent nearly 30% of their total TV time watching over-the-top video content. Streaming gained a full share point over February as broadcast networks transitioned away from NFL football and the Olympics. The Gauge offers a monthly macroanalysis of how consumers access content across television delivery platforms.

There was a slight decrease of 0.7% in total streaming viewing when comparing total television viewing last month. Viewing share across all streaming providers, Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Prime Video, Disney+, and Other Streaming was either flat or gained slightly in March.

The slight dip in streaming usage is significantly less than the drop in total TV usage, down 4.2%. March’s drop-in TV usage is consistent with historical declines this time of year due to the increase in warmer weather and more time spent outside.

Advertisers chase audiences on CTV

Broadcast programming also lost more than a full share point, and sports viewing was down 53%. NASCAR and the NCAA basketball tournaments are big March events. However, “sports event programming” share of viewing dropped from 25% to 12% in March.

An important question for marketers and agencies is where to place their advertising bets; in other words: how much of their ad budgets should they be transitioning to connected-TV audiences? While linear TV still possesses strong advertising muscle, linear ratings are a dwindling sales proposition. Undoubtedly, audiences can increasingly be found streaming content and that’s where advertisers are looking for them.

Networks and content producers are looking to direct to consumer distribution and connect-TV is center stage. There’s still much to work out, especially around audience fragmentation and measurement. Importantly, connected-TV advertising offers quality and relevance and the ability to implement cross-channel media planning. No doubt that this year’s upfronts require a careful analysis of audiences’ video content consumption in order to make savvy decisions about where ad dollars will be best spent.

Industry-Research

The value of a shared experience: co-viewing and CTV

May 3, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Tracking co-viewing is essential for publishers to monetize all viewers they reach across all platforms and apps. It provides details of how people watch television in the household. TVision’s new report, Spring 2022 Co-Viewing Report, offers insight on TV and connected TV (CTV) reach with person-level data.

TVision’s technology detects viewers and what their eyes are looking at in the room. Their technology identifies the content that plays through the TV, or a device connected to the TV. TVision uses an opt-in panel of 5,000 households across the U.S. While the sample is small, when you slice and dice all of the streaming services and apps, it offers intelligence on the co-viewing experience.

Identifying co-viewing

TVision, like other rating companies, captures Viewers Per Viewing Household (VPVH). This metric represents the average number of viewers present when the television or device is on with the content tuned. Co-viewing offers high value to marketers. It provides an additional audience qualifier – especially if family programming and an adult and child are present. The report shows that viewers are more likely to watch CTV content with friends and family than Linear TV. CTV typically sees VPVH averages of 1.29, while Linear TV falls slightly lower at 1.26.

Family-friendly movies and TV shows dominated the most co-viewed programs across ad-supported CTV apps. Further, Tubi, followed by HBO Max and Hulu, has the highest VPVH. Additionally, movies (73.2%) tend to have more co-viewers than TV episodes (54.8%).

Not surprisingly, the pandemic triggered an increase in co-viewing habits. During Covid’s stay-at-home order, streaming TV co-viewing increased by 15%, and linear co-viewing increased by 9%. According to a Nielsen Study in 2020, co-viewing with streaming happened 47% of the time and 34% on linear.

A shared viewing experience yields more attention

When multiple people sit down to watch a program together, they’re more likely to keep their eyes focused on the screen. Interestingly, when comparing engagement and co-viewing metrics for some of the most-watched connected-TV apps, the majority with high VPVH also index well above average for attention.

TVision’s data shows that adult audiences pay more attention to ads overall when watching with other adults—with a 107.6 attention index. An increase in TV viewing, especially streaming, coupled with the rise in co-viewing, creates a ripe opportunity to connect with consumers.

Younger audiences are more likely to co-view CTV content, with viewers under 18 showing the highest co-viewing rates of all demographic groups. Overall, adult audiences pay more attention to ads whether they watch with others or by themselves. Children, however, are more likely to pay attention to ads when watching in a group than on their own.

The TVision report helps to quantify co-viewing audiences viewing TV and CTV services. However, using a co-viewing index as a multiplier can easily overestimate an audience size and distort total monthly unique users (MAU). As the industry looks to determine the size and scope of streaming and FAST channels, it’s essential to monitor and scrutinize audience viewership and co-viewing claims.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Contextual may be a better alternative to behavioral advertising

April 26, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Targeted contextual and behavioral advertising currently dominate much of the digital advertising marketplace. Behavioral advertising uses personal browser data collected by intermediaries to serve ads to users by assigning them into micro categories. In contrast, contextual advertising serves ads to match the marketer’s requirements.

GumGum, a contextual intelligence company, commissioned Harris Poll to survey consumers to better understand their online advertising preferences. Nearly eight in ten (79%) consumers report being more comfortable seeing contextual ads than behavioral. While more than three-quarters of all people are more comfortable with contextual ads, there are some generational differences: 84% of consumers ages 35 to 44 preferred contextual ads, while 76% and 75% of those between the ages of 18 to 34 and 45 to 54, respectively, preferred a contextual experience.

Personalized ads are not beneficial

In contrast, most respondents (66%) report they are uncomfortable with companies tracking their browsing history to show them personalized ads. Further, women are more uncomfortable with behavioral ads than men (70% vs. 61%). Older adults aged 55+ are also more likely than younger adults to say they are uncomfortable with brands tracking their browsing history.

While marketers often overstate the value of personalized ads, consumers are also uncomfortable when brands use their browsing history and habits to serve personalized ads. Personalization often relies on surveillance advertising, which is data-invasive and has consumers concerned.

Similar trends have also been observed in European research. Last year, Global Witness commissioned YouGov to conduct research among 2,000 regular social media users in France and Germany about personalization in online advertising. The findings show that consumers are uneasy about targeted ads — driven by everything from income and religious views to life events such as pregnancy, bereavement, or illness — and do not want to receive any personalized advertising. Further, approximately 38% of the respondents said they are “creeped out,” and 31% said they feel violated.

Behavioral targeting can lead to discrimination

Beyond privacy concerns, selecting specific demographics and audiences to receive certain advertising can be discriminatory. Civil rights groups accused Facebook of violating federal anti-discrimination laws in 2016 because of their targeted advertising practices. At least five lawsuits were filed against the company at that time. A settlement was reached in 2019, and it noted, “Facebook advertisers can no longer target users by age, gender and ZIP code for housing, employment and credit offers.”

Google announced a cookie replacement called FLoC, Federated Learning of Cohorts, in mid-2021. The company planned to shift online advertising tracking from user to group tracking. However, many voiced concerns that users could potentially be identified within cohorts. Google’s newest idea in their Privacy Sandbox is an API called Topics, which links user browsing history to topics for interest-based advertising. Unfortunately, there’s a significant disconnect between Google’s Sandbox initiative and consumers’ sentiment from the user privacy perspective.

Contextual relevance

Contextual advertising addresses consumers’ privacy concerns, allowing publishers to serve more relevant ads to their customers without tracking their browser history. Interestingly, few marketers transitioned their dollars from behavioral advertising to contextual advertising after Google announced the end of cookies in 2022 and then again when it announced its delay until 2023.

The research clearly shows that consumers are uncomfortable with behavioral and personalized ads. As the digital advertising industry moves forward to make changes and create solutions, transparency is essential, and it is necessary to inform consumers on how their data is collected and used. Digital ads that do not make consumers uncomfortable build brand trust and increase the likelihood of a positive response.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Industry-Research

Research highlights the need for diversity in media leadership

April 12, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Diversity in news media matters because it offers a voice to underrepresented communities and helps provides education to break down the barriers of prejudice. When the news media provides structural diversity – hiring, retention, and promotion – it better reflects the audiences it serves, and more accurately portrays society.

A recent study, Race and Leadership in the News Media 2022, from Reuters Institute, evaluates leadership diversity in the newsroom. The research includes a sample of 100 major online and offline news outlets in Brazil, Germany, South Africa, the U.K., and the U.S.

Key findings for the ten top online news outlets and ten top offline news outlets in each of these markets:

In total, 21% of the 82 top editors identify as nonwhite, compared to 43% of the general population across the five countries. However, excluding Africa from the analysis means only 8% of the top editors are nonwhite compared to 31% of the general population.
At the time of the analysis, Brazil, Germany, and the U.K. did not have a nonwhite top editor. In contrast, 33% of top editors are nonwhite in the U.S., increasing from 18% in 2021. Further, in South Africa, 73% of top editors are nonwhite, increasing from 60% in 2021.

Many journalists highlight the importance of diversity in the newsroom and its important impact on editorial decision-making. The Reuters research measures diversity in the newsroom and tracks its progress compared to industry studies across the globe.

Tracking change in the marketplace

American Society of News Editors (ASNE) research surveyed 293 news organizations in the U.S. in 2018. The study found that 23% of the newsroom employees included people of color represent and 26% for online-only news organizations. The research also shows that 79% had at least one woman among their top three editors, and 33% had at least one minority journalist in a top-three position.

The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) in the U.K. used the 2020 Labour Force Survey (LFS) data to identify diversity in journalism. Their report shows women employed in journalism as a majority (53% compared to 47% of men). There was also a slight decrease in the proportion of white ethnic groups (94% to 92%) in journalism compared to 2018. Journalists working in the U.K. increased from 78,000 in 2018 to 96,000 in 2020. However, nonwhite journalists did not grow proportionately.

In Germany, the New German Media Makers (NdM), a nonprofit association representing media professionals with immigrant backgrounds, conducted research in 2020 among 126 editors-in-chief and 122 editorial offices. The study found only 6% of the editors-in-chief have an immigrant background. While most editors-in-chief generally rated diversity in editorial offices as necessary, they did little about it. The NdM made three important recommendations to editors-in-chief and closely monitor the news media.

Report for the whole society: diversity in a program or publication can increase reach, circulation, and opportunities to employ people from immigrant families.
Decision-makers must develop a strategy to attract journalists and staff with immigration histories.
Disclose diversity data transparently, create clear targets, and document.

News media owners and their editors need to accelerate diversity initiatives in their organizations. Reuters research and the previous studies show a slow transformation of the newsroom with nonwhite journalists and editors under-represented. Importantly, transparency and documentation are essential to share best practices for building a diverse newsroom across the globe.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Industry-Research

Media companies build trust when they address audience concerns

April 5, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

No other business sector has more cultural relevance than media. Media shapes perception, but public perception deeply affects the media industry. Because of this, media companies need to identify the social discussions and issues in society and find a balance in addressing them without alienating their audience.

New research, Media Materiality 2022, conducted by the Responsible Media Forum with consultant Carnstone Partners Ltd, identifies the material sustainability issues for the media sector in the UK, Europe, and North America based on a three-tier research plan:

Reviews of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting frameworks, investor indices, and recent (2019 or later) materiality assessments published by companies participating (Axel Springer, BBC, Dentsu, ITV, and others) in the Responsible Media Forum.
Interviews with senior sustainability practitioners from media companies, including advertising, broadcast, entertainment providers, news publishing, and telecommunications.
Interviews with external experts, including ESG thought-leaders, investors, policymakers, non-governmental, organizations, and third sector (non-profits, social enterprises, cooperatives, etc.).

Identifying material issues

To build trust between a media company and its target audience, a company needs to take responsibility for its role in, and take a stand on, meaningful issues. There are consequences when a company fails to act. For example, Disney and its CEO, Bob Chapek face backlash due to company’s donations to Florida politicians who support the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Critics of Disney felt that that the company did not stand up for its LGBTQ employees, cast members, and guests. And fallout thus far has included widespread media coverage, employee walkouts and a public apology.

These sorts of situations are becoming increasingly prevalent. Thus, it is critical for organizations to understand the issues that are significant to staff, stakeholders, and their customers.

Responsible Media Forum defines material issues as “financially significant over the short to medium term.” These have the potential “to affect a key financial indicator, e.g., profits or revenue, by around five percent or more within two years.” These issues were found to be material: climate change, cyber security data privacy, diversity, equity & inclusion, people management, responsible content, skills development, sustainable value chain, and well-being.

Interestingly, both fake news and net neutrality are no longer identified as material issues as they were in the 2018 report. Important material issues for publishers to incorporate into their best practices.

Responding to material issues

While the media’s carbon footprint is relatively small, integrating climate change content can encourage behavioral shifts in society.
Data privacy is an essential practice of media companies. With privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), becoming standard practices, publishers should communicate how they collect and use consumer data.
In 2018, the Responsible Media Forum now includes “equity” as part of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Equity refers to the creation of a level playing field and increased commitment to diversity in both developing and retaining talent and entry-level recruitment. This is an important issue among those under 40 years old. DCN’s research on Gen Z Digital Media Attitudes, Values & Behavior shows that both Gen Z and Gen Y see this as the foremost issue companies should care about today.
Responsible content is crucial for publishers. Media companies are responsible for their content across their portfolios and usage of intermediaries. Related concerns include diversity of output, editorial compliance, creative independence, transparent and responsible editorial policies, freedom of expression, impartial and & balanced output, and promotion of causes.
Media companies must invest in their employees. Skill development, including training and mentoring, are strong retention tactics, especially against tech platforms.
A sustainable value chain is important to manage. Media companies need to manage the upstream and downstream of their supply chain beyond their own needs to support.
The 2018 report expanded the definition of well-being to include a focus on mental health. With the Pandemic and employees working from home, it’s no surprise that mental stress is an integral part of the wellness category.

Other areas to watch

In addition, the Forum identified three additional categories to determine whether an issue did not meet its materiality threshold but still represented an important matter.

Strategic: an issue that can significantly affect the ability of the company to deliver its strategy in the medium to long term.
Operational: an issue that matters for internal, reputational, and efficiency but is neither material nor strategic.
Emerging: an issue that is not yet widely on the radar of a company but is increasing in importance and expected to become a material or strategic issue within the next two years.

Media plays a critical role in reflecting and responding to the needs of society. This report provides a starting point for media companies to access material issues and other key areas of potential concern in order to better meet audience expectations.

Industry-Research

How differentiation and education will shape the next phase of streaming

March 29, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Video is exploding, and new services and platforms are popping up right and left. From broad TV platforms categories like SVOD. FAST, and vMVPD, the wide range of products and offerings can be confusing. The two biggest areas to address are viewing choice, which is about deciding what to watch (the content), and where to watch (the platform).

With series distribution deals, syndication rights, and talent deals, it’s hard for viewers to know what shows are on which platform and where to find what they want to watch. However, it is clear that content drives subscriptions with over more than one-third of viewers (36%) signing up for a service to watch a specific show/movie in the past year according to new report from HUB Entertainment Research.

Acronym soup

Consumers and professionals alike are confused about the proliferation of acronyms such as:

SVOD: subscription video on demand service that users must subscribe to access (i.e., Netflix) content.
FAST: a free, ad-supported streaming TV services like a Roku’s Roku Channel or Paramount’s Pluto TV.
vMVPD: a virtual multichannel video programming distributor. It offers aggregate live and on-demand TV and delivers the content over the internet. vMVPD services resemble the familiar cable line-up and packages like Hulu Live TV and YouTube TV.

Multiple streaming sources

HUB Entertainment Research’s Evolution of Video Branding report confirms that consumers are unclear about platform offerings. For the report, HUB surveyed 1,601 US broadband consumers aged 16-74 who watched at least 1 hour of TV per week in February 2022.

According to HUB, viewers use 5.7 TV sources compared to 3.7 before the pandemic in 2019. Numerous streaming brands like Amazon Prime Video, Apple, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, and Netflix are marketing to consumers around exclusive content deals.

Disney+ and Warner Media were the first to offer theatrical releases straight to SVOD during Covid-19. Antenna Research’s analysis of Hamilton and Wonder Woman 1984, theatrical release directly to streaming, showed that roughly half of the U.S. viewers joined the service after their premieres but were gone within six months.

Awareness and differentiation

HUB’s analysis examines the ways in which streaming brands are trying to break out of the pack to attract and retain viewers. Awareness is ubiquitous among five brands – Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max. However, aside from Netflix in this top tier, two-thirds or less of respondents understand the top brand’s offerings and how they’re differentiated. Further, the next tier of streaming services presents even lower awareness and knowledge of the service.

Programming as a differentiator

Interestingly, consumers view Disney+ and ESPN as TV streaming services with strong genre focus. Their programming genre is their brand: Disney+ is synonymous with children and ESPN with sports. Interestingly, among those aware of the different services, Disney+ is viewed to have the strongest genre focus in their programming.

Options and confusion

In particular, awareness about FAST services is very low. Less than one in three of those surveyed understand what differentiates one brand from another. Consumers view FASTs services as interchangeable and impossible to tell apart from one another.

According to Nielsen, consumers had at least 200 streaming service options in mid-2021, with more to come. The Hub research identifies the consumer confusion associated with the tremendous growth of TV streaming services. Together, these services accounted for 28% of total TV usage in October 2021.

Consumers welcome guidance in identifying and understanding the value of each streaming proposition. Strong branding and points of differentiation are encouraged among services and platforms, especially FAST programmers. To fully maximize the opportunity streaming offers, the market will require increased consumer education. And streamers need to focus on what makes them unique, whether that stems from a strong genre focus, breadth of offering, affordability, usability, unique content offerings, or brand recognition alone.

Industry-Research

Streaming strategies are essential for publishers

March 15, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Consumers increasingly cut the cable cord and spend more of their TV time on connected televisions (CTV) enjoying over-the-top (OTT) streaming content. eMarketer forecasts this year’s cord-cutting population will climb to 55.1 million people in the United States. Further, according to the Leichtman Research Group, a connected TV is found in at least 80% of all TV households, and 60% of these viewers in the U.S. watch free ad-supported TV streaming (FAST) services.

Tubi, an ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox Corporation released new research, Audience Insights 2022, which explores what is driving the streaming market. According to the report, early adopters jumped to ad-supported streaming services as an alternative to cable subscriptions. Numerous content options also attract new audiences. Many streamers offer extensive libraries of TV hits, nostalgia, and familiarity. Others feature originals content that feels current, trendy, and innovative. While still others include new blockbuster films or breaking news.

If publishers haven’t already, now is the time to launch a streaming product that leverages their intellectual property (IP) to attract audiences and remain competitive. Options include AVOD (ad-supported video on demand), which provides audiences with a customized and on-demand experience. The marketplace is ripe, and the revenue opportunities are robust.

Booming market

Consumers easily access their Smart TVs, or streaming devices offer simple shortcuts to OTT video. There are many services available in the U.S, and it’s common for a large company to have multiple services. Paramount Global has several paid and free services such as Paramount+, Showtime, BET+, CBS News, and Pluto TV. According to Tubi’s findings, Americans spend $65 a month on average on approximately 4.2 streaming subscriptions.

Tubi conducted its study among 6,000 U.S. adults who stream to understand the barriers to AVOD. Streamers look for an easy onboarding process and simple and intuitive navigation. However, one in four adults report that they don’t believe a service is free because upselling is involved. Further, 23% say that they think there are strings attached.

Given streaming’s audience growth, OTT is now the fastest-growing long-form video platform in advertising sales. Interestingly, upfront CTV advertising sales grew 50% in 2021 and is expected to grow another 32% this year.

Advertising value

Tubi also conducted a study with Advertiser Perceptions, showing that 56% of marketers rate the cost-effectiveness of streaming investment as a 9 or 10 on a ten-point scale. eMarketer predicts strong year-over-year advertising growth – citing $17.4 billion advertising spend on CTV in 2022.

Advertisers value streaming audiences and platforms:

Offer incremental reach of limited linear channels,
Ability to target hard-to-reach on linear like Gen Z and Millennials and Hispanic, Black, and multicultural audiences.
Relevant audiences for targeting higher income and core demographic targets.
Brand-safe environments in extensive content libraries.

Tubi expects older, more educated, and affluent households to continue adopting streaming options this year. The research names OTT as an essential strategy for 2022. It offers new digital distribution channels, instant access to potential viewers, and new opportunities to attract advertisers.

Research

Publishers question AMP’s value

March 8, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) promised a faster and better user experience on mobile while helping publishers boost traffic and generate more revenue. Recently, however, a number of digital publishers have announced that they are reassessing their usage of AMP.

Google introduced AMP in 2015 presenting it as open-source code available for developers. Before AMP’s announcement, Apple, Facebook, and Snapchat announced content partnerships (e.g., Apple News, Instant Articles, Snapchat Discover) which focused on improving the consumer experience but shifted the publisher’s content to their platforms. Each of these proprietary, closed services promised consumers easy access to content but offered limited publisher monetary upside.

Industry executives feared that publisher brands would fade in the background on platforms. Others debated that these channels would provide a path to new and younger audiences, which seemed like a fair trade-off for content control. However, AMP had a unique proposition for publishers: They would keep publisher’s content on the “open web” and, maybe more importantly, they’d also gain a special shortcut to the top of Google search results through a new carrousel.

Fast forward to 2022, and publishers increasingly question the value of these partnerships because they add overhead and offer limited revenue or consumer benefit. In particular, AMP appears to restrict some mobile page functionality like detailed navigational paths and search icons. Given these disappointing results, some publishers are testing life without AMP, while others are phasing it out altogether.

It is important to note that, in December 2020, a lawsuit filed by multiple states accused Google of “anti-competitive conduct” in the digital advertising ecosystem. An unredacted version of the court document became available in January 2022, offering additional details. The added information explains that AMP pages hosted on Google’s servers made it difficult for publishers to use auction platforms other than Google’s ad exchange. It also alleges that Google made non-AMP pages load with a one-second delay. This gave publishers even more reason to be skeptical.

Publisher’s response

Digital Content Next (DCN) surveyed its membership earlier this year to provide insight into publishers’ experience with AMP, its impact, and its use in the future. The results show that most respondents use or have used AMP (96%), with the majority re-evaluating (57%) their AMP usage. Close to half (48%) report that they have they stopped or will stop using AMP.

Respondents report that their top reasons for using AMP were the promise of more search traffic, faster website performance, attracting new audiences, and industry pressure. Unfortunately, respondents reported mixed results in some core benefits like increased search traffic and audience development.

AMP’s reassessment

A recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article, Publishers Move to Abandon Google-Supported Mobile Web Initiative, essentially confirms the DCN survey results. WSJ reports that Vox Media, BuzzFeed, Complex Networks, and Bustle Digital Group started “testing or are considering using their versions of mobile-optimized article pages.” These publishers are in addition to The Washington Post, which stopped programming AMP pages last year.

Many publishers said they started to review their AMP usage after Google made algorithm changes in 2021. According to the WSJ, Google made changes “so that pages’ loading speeds, interactivity, and visual stability became factored into its search rankings.” Also, AMP content was no longer exclusively featured in a top-stories carousel in search results. Further, as publishers started testing, they learned that dropping AMP did not affect their load time or search ranking.

Reassessing the benefits of using AMP is triggering many publishers to rethink the control of their content, page designs, ad formats, and paywall. Publishers are rightly taking a harder look at content partnerships to evaluate how they fit their editorial and business strategies and monetization goals.

Industry-Research

Collaborative models of journalism offer sustainability

March 1, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

The Center for Cooperative Media sees collaborative journalism as a way to share power among journalists, readers and others to deliver information that centers and addresses people’s needs. They believe that collaboration can be particularly impactful when it involves the community.

Researchers Joy Jenkins and Lucas Graves explore collaborative journalism in practice at a local level in Europe. Their report, Do More with Less: Minimizing Competitive Tensions in Collaborative Local Journalism, offers a local approach to journalism that serves a community rather than delivers a news product to an audience.

Their research analyzes three collaborative journalism experiments in Europe:

The Bureau Local in the U.K is a nonprofit collaboration of journalists and non-journalists (data scientists, academics, citizens, etc.) engaging in topic-driven reporting projects.
“L’Italia Delle Slot” in Italy is a collaboration among one legacy, and two start-up news organizations focused on a single topic.
Lännen Media in Finland is a co-op collaboration among regional news organizations through shared content production and distribution.

They conducted 29 interviews among journalists, senior management, community organizers, data analysts, technical experts, and others.

Collaboration models

Each of the three publications offers different collaboration models:

Lännen Media

This is a co-op model where similar news organizations join on specific topics and do not compete. They manage daily reports via video conferencing and skype with editors and share a content management system to follow what they work on in the different newsrooms.

This setup allows journalists to rotate into the cooperative from the regional newsrooms for two or three years and then return to their original masthead. While larger newspapers contribute more, all members share the costs of running Lännen Media.

“L’Italia Delle Slot

A contractor model that establishes a commercial contract to dictate the collaboration among organizations with specific areas of expertise. In this case, a large legacy news publisher combines efforts with two data-journalism-focused start-ups. In 2013, Effecinque, a start-up, began researching the increase in slot machines in Italy. Effecinque partnered with Dataninja, a data-journalism network, to investigate if slot machines in Italy correlated to the rise in gambling addiction. Effecinque and Dataninja partnered with GEDI Visual Lab to produce a web portal, data visualizations, videos, and other interactive content to showcase the details of the investigation.

This approach allowed the two start-up organizations, GEDI and 13 local newspapers, to define their roles based on areas of expertise. Further, the 13 local newsrooms provided local knowledge to tell the stories about their community using the data set.

The digital media ecosystem is a great environment to start collaborations such as establishing networks across localities and shared resources. Jenkins’ and Grave’s research illustrates three collaborative journalism models to showcase each of their unique approaches. Lännen Media’s co-op model shares resources across regional newspapers, “L’Italia Delle Slot’s” contractor model engages expert journalists on short-term investigations. The Bureau Local NGO model manages a shared database by a nonprofit. Each model offers a viable model for publisher sustainability – maintaining a healthy structure of shared economics, goals, and healthy competition.

Industry-Research

Does sponsored content influence broader news agendas?

February 23, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Sponsored content plays a sizeable role in publishers’ revenue model. According to eMarketer, ad spend on sponsored content in 2021 neared $57 billion. Advertisers find the high production quality of today’s sponsored content a compelling marketing vehicle. As a result, audiences often find it difficult to differentiate between sponsor content and actual news content. Therefore, the FTC requires publishers to label it as advertising. As the market for it grows, it’s essential to understand how the publishers’ production and reliance on sponsored content affects news content.

An advertising quandary

While sponsored content has been around a long time, it’s grown significantly in the past 10 years in the digital media sector. Marketers value the “halo effect” of a publisher’s editorial integrity offering strong reader engagement. Sponsored content is usually a narrative, which contrasts with display and video ads. It often includes custom video, interactive elements, and high-end graphic designs.

Many premium publishers have content studios dedicated to creating sponsored content. The New York Times (NYT) launched T Brand Studio, The Washington Post (WP) owns BrandStudio, and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has The Trust.

A recent article by Michelle Amazeen looks at how sponsored content relates to the coverage news organizations create. She explores whether sponsored content boosts or reduces the amount of media coverage for corporations that invest in it. Amazeen conducted research with Christopher Vargo, Agenda-Cutting Versus Agenda-Building: Does Sponsored Content Influence Corporate News Coverage in U.S. Media, to analyze these questions.

Research methodology

In a two-step process, Amazeen and Vargo identified 27 sponsored content articles in WP, the NYT, and WSJ across five years. They first scraped the content studios’ Twitter accounts to identify sponsored content links. They then used a custom Bing program to search for sponsored content links inside the news websites. The 27 sponsors include Verizon, Airbus, Volvo, American Petroleum Institute, Dow Jones, Qualcomm, Holiday Inn, Huawei, Purdue Pharma, Netflix, Gartner, Subaru, Oracle, Fox Sports, Deloitte, Walmart, Nordstrom, Allergan, Accenture, Lockheed Martin, Samsung, IBM, Wells Fargo, MetLife, Delta Air Lines, Aetna, and Starz.

The researchers then used the Global Database of Events Language and Tone (GDELT), a news article database, to match sponsored content mentions of corporations and brands to articles matching the corporate or brand sponsor. In all, they found 2,707 articles related to the companies and brands sponsoring content.

Analysis details

The research assessed the relationship of corporate sponsorship to news coverage of the same company across time. The analysis evaluated whether publishers filtered and shaped their news accordingly to accommodate corporate sponsorship. This practice is known as agenda setting. It refers to how the news publishers can influence which issues become the focus of public attention. In the case of sponsored content, publishers can add news coverage of a company and brand or reduce and cut their news coverage.

They divided the news articles into two segments for further analysis:

Elite publishers (NYT, WP, and WSJ), and
General (non-premium) news media landscape.

Omitting any seasonality mentions (i.e., earning calls), 20 of the 27 sponsored content companies showed at least one instance of agenda cutting or agenda building.

Further, of the 27 brands analyzed, only three companies showed an agenda-building effect among elite publishers: Huawei, Qualcomm, and Purdue Pharma. Amazeen and Vargo conclude that agenda building is a less likely occurrence with sponsored content companies or brands.

In addition, seven brands showed significant agenda-cutting effects among premium publishers: Netflix, Nordstrom, Starz, Wells Fargo, Aetna, Oracle, and Qualcomm. The researchers also found a significantly higher agenda-cutting effects across the entire U.S. media landscape — 14 companies and brands.

Amazeen and Vargo acknowledge that the news media is not immune to internal and external forces in their newsrooms. Publishers often set guidelines for creative and narrative executions in content studios. Amazeen and Vargo suggest publishers monitor and develop measures to assess the additional news coverage or lack of for companies and brands of sponsored content.