Over-the-Top TV (OTT) is attracting new entrants and keeping some on the sidelines while they assess their best strategy. It’s “game on” for local TV broadcasters to put their premium video in front of multi-screen consumers in marketable formats. As important as access to MVPD audiences and retransmission revenues are to broadcasters, they can’t miss that TV audiences are voting with their eyes. A number of local station groups have been making their moves to follow those eyes. You can learn more about what they’re doing and the road ahead by checking out an upcoming NAB webcast on the topic on September 20th.
BIAK/Kelsey’s take on this is that there’s plenty of innovation going on among local station groups, and that’s a good thing to see. For example, Premion, a TEGNA company, is pursing a business model that offers a, “one stop shop for advertisers to access Over The Top content from over 100 premium networks.” Premion has the benefit of monetizing this with parent company TEGNA’s 700+ local sales team members who will sell impressions on a DMA-targeted basis. Another business model features the broadcaster-led OTT venture, NewsON. This Sinclair-owned entity offers a free ad-supported app with over 170 local stations in 114 markets providing news content. In another approach that pools pre-cleared content for distribution deals, we point to Disney’s ABC TV Group move. Disney’s ABC TV Group announced its Clearinghouse initiative that brings over 160 stations into a partnership to distribute their contnet on a “pre-negotiated” basis over a number of platforms including OTT. In yet another business model for bringing local TV content to OTT platforms, YouTube entered the local TV station game by expanding to 14 markets where its “YouTube TV” service features programming from local network affiliates. A number of other OTT platforms also are partnering with local TV groups as the march to connect with audience eyeballs continues across a variety of screens and business models.
NAB’s next webcast features digital experts from four local media companies who are will share their own OTT case studies. They’ll share their strategies and what they’re seeing as tangible monetization opportunities. Learn more about this latest webcast on OTT and local TV and register here.
