At last night's Yahoo NewFront event at Lincoln Center, interest in programmatic video advertising and the opportunity to buy highly targeted audiences, was widely talked about by Yahoo executives and several of media agency executives. For Yahoo, programmatic video is now a key part of the company's monetization offering with its BrightRoll unit, which it acquired late last year. At the event, we [...]

Long-form video viewing on digital devices has achieved ubiquity, says Lauren Weinberg, VP Strategic Research & Insights at Yahoo, in this interview with Beet.TV. More than 90% of consumers in all age groups from 13 to 54 now watch long-form video on digital devices, according to a study of online consumers conducted in the fall by search giant Yahoo. For many teens and [...]

Not that long ago, video journalists were sort of appendages to print reporters, expanding and amplifying print stories.   That role has evolve to where video journalists are now journalists, says Bruce Headlam, Managing Editor for Video at The New York Times, in this interview with Beet.TV To demonstrate the new enterprising role of video journalism, Headlam points to The Times [...]

It's taken some time to convince them, but advertisers are now on-board and enthusiastic for the various ways "programmatic" ad-buying can help them better target and automate their messages. Havas Media channel investments EVP Melissa Keller says her agency has gone from "seeding" experiments with clients last year, to implementing full-on "roadmaps" this year, in an interview with Beet.TV about the future [...]

Slowly but surely, television is opening up to the "programmatic" ad sales revolution that has happened in online display and video. What are some of the biggest inhibitors? One factor is lack of a common, open format for audience targeting data, says Havas Media channel investments EVP Melissa Keller. In an interview with Beet.TV, she targets "getting standardization of the metrics we’re looking [...]

Australia is one of the world's leading online advertising markets. So how will the year ahead play out in the nascent field of "programmatic" TV advertising? TV companies have to get onboard or risk being left behind, says one sector exec. "2015 will be the year many of them realize they’ve got to get on this programmatic TV journey to imp the relevance of [...]

LAS VEGAS -- Can one broadcaster move the entire consumer electronics manufacturing industry? Perhaps when that broadcaster is as powerful as the BBC is in the UK. The corporation's support for MPEG-DASH, an emerging media streaming standard that supports adaptive bitrate streaming over standard HTTP web servers, could move the industry toward the format, says Unified Streaming CEO Dirk Griffioen. "The BBC in England wants [...]

LAS VEGAS -- MPEG-DASH, the digital video standard that uses adaptive bitrate streaming to offer higher-quality video and audio with encryption and cross-platform capability, is increasingly being looked to by video content owners searching for an alternative, says a video server vendor. "DASH is getting more and more attention out in the real world," Wowza streaming industry evangelist and VP Chris Knowlton tells Beet.TV [...]

LAS VEGAS -- Take two bottles in to the shower? Today, two online video standards are in the frame for adoption - but, in time, one may be victorious. The MPEG-DASH standard, which can use adaptive-bitrate streaming to scale quality regardless of connection speed over standard HTTP servers, is gaining supporters. But Apple's HLS format remains influential, says digital video infrastructure security [...]

LAS VEGAS -- The MPEG-DASH video standard is bringing higher-quality video and audio to digital media by using adaptive bitrate streaming. But the improvements will keep coming on top of that platform, says one of the leading digital audio outfits. "It’s the right format for industry partners to come together to create a platform that’s scalable and flexible … but have [...]

LAS VEGAS -- DASH by name, dash by nature? The draft international standard for MPEG-DASH, the video standard bringing higher-quality video and audio to digital media by using adaptive bitrate streaming, was first specced out in 2011. Now it is fast being adopted by big-name video server vendors. "We have been involved in DASH from the very beginning," says Iraj Sodagar, a principal chief [...]

LAS VEGAS -- Google's recent decision to end Chrome browser support for Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface and, with it, for Microsoft's Silverlight video format, will spur adoption of fast-growing rival format MPEG-DASH, says one online video boss. "We will see a lot of deployments now with Silverlight dropping out of Chrome. The signs are really good," according to Austria-based Bitmovin's CEO Stefan Lederer, whose [...]

LAS VEGAS - Widely known as a global content delivery network, Akamai has been evolve its media offering to include a video player which is being used by some of the biggest online video publishers, explains Frank Paolino who heads the video player development at Akamai. The player, which was launched five years ago,, has picked up momentum recently, he explains why. We [...]

Consumption of video is moving increasingly to mobile apps and Yahoo can provide brands with deep targeting data around 1.5  billion global users, now that the integration with mobile analytics firm Flurry is complete, says Andrew Snyder, VP of Video Sales at Yahoo, in this interview with Beet.TV Yahoo acquired Flurry last year. The monetization of mobile video with Flurry will be [...]

LAS VEGAS -  Following its acquisition by Yahoo late last year, programmatic video adtech company Brightroll is now using data from Yahoo's one billion global users, says Brent Horowitz, VP of Business Development at Brightroll, in this interview with Beet.TV. He says that the merger has also brought a vast video inventory from Yahoo to the Brightroll platform.  Another significant data [...]

As programmatic buying starts to take root in TV, industry players are finding benefits both in efficiency in the buy as well as in the outcome, says Dan Ackerman, Senior VP of ONE by AOL, in an interview with Beet.TV about the future of TV advertising. "We are seeing the benefits for programmatic on TV and it is in the application [...]

Addressable delivery of ads is on the rise by early adopters in recent years, says Steve Marshall, CEO of multi-platform advertising sales software firm Invision, in an interview with Beet.TV. Many MVPDs are moving aggressively to sell their inventory on an addressable basis, he says. "We are focused on helping sellers to automate their platforms," he explains. "Not until the last two [...]

One of the biggest goals for marketers today lies in achieving better attribution across screens, says Melissa Keller, EVP, Channel Investments at Havas Media, in an interview with Beet.TV about the future of TV advertising. "As a media agency, our goal is to guide them through the right media mix and right amount," Keller says. Consumers aren't so much shifting from TV [...]

LAS VEGAS - Faced with an onslaught of successful offerings from the likes of Netflix, the cable network industry is pushing back by embracing "TV Everywhere," explains Will Richmond, editor & publisher of VideoNuze in this interview with Beet.TV He paraphrases the on-stage comments by CTAM head John Lansing at the Online Video Conference hosted and organized by Richmond. Launched some five [...]

If you think it is too soon for so-called "programmatic" advertising buying techniques to jump from the web to mainstream television, consider this - the future president of the United States may already be buying TV ads this way. That is according to video ad tech firm YuMe. Its chief revenue officer Scot McLernon concedes that "there is a little bit of hype around it", with only 1% of [...]