ADVERTISING
There’s been a lot of news out of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, and this was as significant as anything else: Apple has added an ad tracker to the Safari desktop web browser. The company is calling the product “intelligent tracking prevention.” According to the company, the feature uses machine learning technology to prevent outside parties from following users to different sites as they browse the web. While ads themselves aren’t blocked, the feature prevents third-party data trackers and ad-trackers from collecting users’ browsing data. It’s safe to say that some advertisers and ad tech vendors won’t be pleased; that information is regularly used in ad retargeting and behavioral targeting.
TV audience targeting platform Simulmedia announced that its internal software system will now be available to outside marketers and agencies. Called the Video Advertising Marketing Operating System (VAMOS), the tool is designed to optimize TV campaigns “on an audience-and-outcome basis.” Simulmedia will now license VAMOS to agencies, media owners, and marketers as aSoftware as a Service, or SaaS.
PLATFORMS, APPS + DEVICES
Looks like Apple and Amazon have holstered their guns for a moment. At its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced that Amazon’s Prime Video app is finally making its way to the Apple TV app store. The app, which offers access to all of Amazon’s video content, will debut on Apple TV later this year. Amazon had withheld its app from Apple’s streaming box until now, for the same reason the company banned the device from its e-commerce store in 2015: Apple TV is a primary competitor to Amazon’s Fire streaming devices.
Snapchat parent Snap Inc. has called itself a “camera company” a time or two, and indeed that’s technically true: Snap does sell a camera product. Unfortunately, said product accounts for a micro-fraction of the company’s business. If that’s going to change, this is an important next step: Spectacles, Snap’s video-recording sunglasses, have launched in Europe. Snap is now taking European web orders for the product. The company has also placed Spectacles vending machines in a select number of European cities, just as it did when Spectacles were first rolling out in the U.S.
Turner ’s SVOD service for classic and indie movies has struck a new platform. FilmStruck, which initially launched last November, is now available on Roku devices. The service had already launched on Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV, Android and iOS devices, and the web. It costs $10.99 per month.
As Bloomberg foreshadowed in an unconfirmed report last week, Apple used its developers conference to announce a new smart speaker that will compete with the Amazon Echo and Google Home. Called HomePod, the device will cost $349. It’s set to ship in the U.S., UK., and Australia this December.
VIRTUAL + AUGMENTED REALITY
In other conference news, Apple unveiled its new augmented reality software. Called the ARKit, the software lets users place virtual characters and objects into real-world physical surroundings using an iPhone camera. Apple exec Craig Federighi said that the tech giant aims to make the iPhone “the largest AR platform in the world.”
AMC ’s Breaking Bad earned plenty of superlatives over its five-season run, but does that mean anybody wants to step into the show’s grim universe? Vince Gilligan is certainly hoping so. The Breaking Bad creator is teaming with Sony’s PlayStation division to create a cinematic VR experience based on the series. There aren’t too many details just yet; Sony hasn’t said when the experience will debut, whether the project will be episodic or a one-off, or who’s attached to star in it. At any rate, we can probably guess that meth will be involved.
OTT + SVOD
Surprise surprise: Netflix doesn’t seem to have any growth problems. According to a new forecast from Digital TV Research, the streaming giant is set to reach 128 million subscribers by the year 2022. That’s an increase of 44% over where Netflix was at the end of last year, when the service had 89 million subs. (By the end of 2017’s first quarter, the number was 98.78 million.) A lot of this growth is being driven by the company’s international expansion; Digital TV Research predicts that Netflix’s international subscriber base will exceed its U.S. subscriber base by early 2018.
RESEARCH
SHAREABLEE SOCIAL TV RATINGS: Top U.S. Streaming Shows Overall by Engagement for the week of May 29-June 4, 2017
Source: Shareablee Inc. The total actions metric includes the total volume of post-level likes, shares, favorites, retweets and comments. Total content includes all posts, tweets and media posted by each TV property across all platforms. Actions per post metric notes the average e number of actions garnered by each property. Total fans/followers includes Facebook and Twitter and Instagram followers.
The ListenFirst Television Interest (TVI) Rating (TM) is a standardized measurement of the most buzzed-about TV programs on linear TV and streaming services. A complement to ListenFirst’s other syndicated data products (such as the ListenFirstDigital Audience Rating – TV), the metrics included in the rating capture organic actions that are largely unaffected by paid media. Programs that surface on the TVI leaderboards are the most hashtagged on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, as well as most searched for on Wikipedia (used as a proxy for organic search volume).
All Series (5/29/17 – 6/4/17)
Source: ListenFirst. The TVI Rating aggregates metrics that measure organically generated activity by fans of the TV show. The metric includes total volume of official hashtag mentions on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, along with Wikipedia page views (as a proxy for organic search volume) for a show as a percentage of the total volume of the same activities for all shows.
OpenSlate Engagement Data for the Pets & Animals vertical, based on the engagement metric for the week ending June 4.
Channel (Engagement) / Monthly Views / Total Subs / SlateScore
Brave Wilderness (8.8) / 58,527,871 / 6,290,717 / 688
Purina Beneful (8.4) / 49,551 / 10,263 / 429
Bird Spy Australia (8.3) / 42,151 / 5,160 / 369
bradjosephs (8.3) / 104,017 / 5,234 / 388
The king of DIY (8.3) / 3,871,402 / 409,474 / 578
Simon’s Cat (8.3) / 5,123,824 / 4,328,992 / 622
Cole and Marmalade (8.3) / 7,592,426 / 551,176 / 599
Die Meeries (8.0) / 2,212,131 / 243,069 / 561
The Pet Collective (8.0) / 8,598,262 / 993,646 / 607
Talking Kitty Cat (8.0) / 7,941,048 / 917,126 / 542
Source: The Engagement metric is one of OpenSlate’s component scores, and is a measure of a producer’s ability to evoke meaningful interaction with their audience. It is calculated on a scale of 1-10 with higher being better. The OpenSlateEngagement score uses a subset of the data incorporated in the SlateScore to perform a set of unique calculations. It factors in views, comments, likes, and more.
TRIVIA
Our Last Trivia Question: Production company Tilted Productions is known for producing two series: Showtime’s Weeds, and a well-known show that runs on Netflix. Which one? Answer: Orange Is the New Black. Kudos to Andy Pittman-TAMU/TX, Louis Lewow-Lewow Media Group/GA, Sheena Das-Disney Media/NY, Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/CA, Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/CA, Luke Watson-Roker Labs/NY, David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/CA, Travis A. Del Valle-Viceland/NY, Lorrie Shilling/CA, Aaron Paquette-Scren Engine/ASI/TX, and Mathew Tombers-Intermat, Inc./NY
Follow-up: What production company is credited with producing Orange Is the New Black alongside Tilted Productions? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and state.)
