OTT + SVOD
Dish Network’s Sling TV continues to roll out more pay-per-view offerings, making it fairly unique amongst virtual MVPDs. Next up is the September 9 UFC 215 event, featuring a fight between Demetrious Johnson and Ray Borg, followed by the September 16 boxing match between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. Sling TV began offering pay-per-view events this summer, including the blockbuster Floyd Mayweather–Conor McGregor fight on August 26.
Earlier this year, IAC’s Vimeo decided not to launch its own Netflix-style SVOD service, despite long-in-the-works plans to do so. But that isn’t stopping Vimeo from lending support to other services. In a new deal with Lionsgate, Vimeo will provide back-end infrastructure for two Lionsgate-backed OTT services: The movie service Tribeca Shortlist, which launched in 2015, and Kevin Hart’s Laugh Out Loud, a comedy service which launched last month. Laugh Out Loud will use Vimeo’s software development kit technologies and video programming interfaces, while Tribeca Shortlist will use Vimeo’s OTT out-of-the-box solution.
Days removed from filing for its IPO, Roku is out to add a new layer to its business. The streaming device-maker has launched a new channel on its platform. Simply called The Roku Channel, the offering gives users access to hundreds of free films from studios like Warner Bros., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Sony Pictures, and Lionsgate. The channel will also feature videos from platforms such as Fandor, FilmRise, Popcornflix and others. The Roku Channel is ad-supported.
PROGRAMMING
New York Fashion Week kicks off today, and Snapchat is rolling out a new show to meet the occasion. Called Nail the Look, the new original will focus on two aspiring stylists who compete to create the perfect look. Celeb stylist Sophie Lopez, known for working with actress Kate Hudson, will host and judge the series. The show is being produced by Thumb Candy Media, a newly formed digital studio division of production company B17 Entertainment. Thumb Candy says it will produce a number of upcoming shows for Snapchat’s Discover channel, including Fright Club, a comedic prank series, which will debut in October.
BRAND INSIDER
Apparently nothing screams flavor like a reanimated corpse. PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew has partnered with AMC to offer The Walking Dead Encounter, a free augmented reality app. The launch comes as part of a broader partnership that will see Walking Dead characters appear on limited-edition Mountain Dew packaging this fall. The app, available for both iOS and Android, lets users “unlock” up to 20 zombies (walkers, sorry) by scanning the limited edition packaging. By choosing the “Create a Scene” mode, app users can collect a walker, compose a scene, and then record that scene as a video or photo, sharing it on social media. Mountain Dew ads that air during upcoming Walking Dead broadcasts will let users unlock additional walkers. The season 8 premiere – which happens to be the show’s one hundredth episode – arrives October 22. Bottoms up.
MEASURING UP…
Tubular Top Ten Global Sponsored Videos Monday, August 28, 2017 – Sunday, September 3, 2017. Based on Tubular Video Ratings measuring 8 million video publishers, 3 billion videos, and 400 million viewers. Sponsored videos are ranked by V3, total views in the first three days after upload.
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 ListenFirst Digital 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).
Streaming Series (8/28/17 – 9/3/17)
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.
SHAREABLEE SOCIAL TV RATINGS: Top 10 U.S. Primetime and Streaming Shows for August 28 – September 3. Based on Shareablee’s Video Power Index (VPI), which combines viewing, consumer interactions and audience scale across all active platforms, and includes the video performance of primetime and streaming shows.
I
Source: Shareablee Inc. The total actions metric includes the total volume of post-level likes, shares, favorites, retweets and comments across social platforms.
OpenSlate Engagement Data for the Gaming vertical, based on the engagement metric for the week ending September 3.
Channel (Engagement) / Monthly Views / Total Subs / SlateScore
PewDiePie (8.8) / 207,509,849 / 57,191,757 / 816
FaZe Rug (8.8) / 69,881,056 / 6,223,879 / 752
JuegaGerman (8.5) / 219,509,634 / 21,399,579 / 754
rezendeevil (8.5) / 151,792,651 / 12,729,421 / 796
VEGETTA777 (8.5) / 179,446,695 / 19,192,162 / 766
AM3NlC (8.5) / 80,374,809 / 7,681,943 / 773
AuthenticGames (8.5) / 146,985,828 / 10,856,841 / 768
jacksepticeye (8.5) / 210,728,381 / 16,563,318 / 752
Jazzghost (8.5) / 51,986,491 / 4,332,689 / 746
Markiplier (8.5) / 189,365,834 / 18,349,594 / 767
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.
Tweet of the week: @carolyn__ann: Welp, these clowns are going to give me nightmares. #AHSCult
Canvs, the emotion analytics company, analyzed tweets about TV and streaming programming from Aug. 30 through Sept. 5 using Twitter data from Nielsen. Insights from the 1,663,384 tweets expressing a specific Emotional Reaction (ER) include:
– Viewers were mighty fearful during the premiere of American Horror Story: Cult on FX, with people being particularly scared of the scary clowns during the episode.
– College football fans were psyched for the beginning of another season, with ABC’s broadcast of Alabama vs. Florida State coming out tops in excitement ERs.
– Given the propensity of viewers who love to hate-watch reality TV, it’s no surprise that people expressed annoyance during the latest episode of Big Brother on CBS, with people calling out Josh in particular for being so whiny.
– People were shocked at Lawrence’s rude behavior toward Issa during HBO’s Insecure, and talked at length about how crazy he was acting.
– Canvs
EXECUTIVE MOVES
Last week, Spotify parted ways with former VH1 President Tom Calderone, who’d been overseeing the music streamer’s original video and podcast efforts. But the company insisted it wasn’t giving up on those efforts altogether, and it looks like they meant it: Courtney Holt, a longtime digital media vet, is joining the company. He’ll pick up where Calderone left off, overseeing Spotify’s original video and podcast programming. Holt headed up Maker Studios’ when the multi-channel network was acquired by Disney in 2014; He continued on as a Disney exec, most recently holding the title of EVP, Advanced Media Strategy. Holt’s move to Spotify was first reported by Variety.
TRIVIA
Which Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel alum currently serves as co-showrunner of Netflix’s The Defenders? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and state.)
Our Last Trivia Question: Actor Jonathan Groff will star in which upcoming Netflix drama? Answer: Mindhunter. Kudos to Andy Pittman-TAMU/TX, Louis Lewow-Lewow Media Group/GA, Ikechukwu Michael Opara-Boston University Television Graduate Program/MA, Andrew Bellamy-Producers Guild of America/NY, Matthew Melendez-SUNY JCC/NY, David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/CA, Genesis Lopez Garced-BMG Models/FL, Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/CA, and Lorrie Shilling/CA
