The term "premium online video" has often been used to refer to programming produced by Hollywood studios and programmers, but premium is now increasingly being defined by the marketer and by the viewer, said online video ad experts during the Beet.TV Leadership Webcast which originated in the AOL Studios in New York last month. The session included Jordan Bitterman, SVP of [...]

"I really like to see a lot of small media companies like Andy's just take the diversity that is really encouraging and move it into the next era of journalism," Kara Swisher, co-executive editor of All Things Digital, tells Alison Kitchens of the American Journalism Review in a feature story on Beet.TV. Also in the story, Daniel Heaf, the BBC's Worldwide [...]

Some brands are still unaware of what constitutes premium content online, and will often think first of YouTube and Hulu for online video advertising, even though those sites are still more centered on user-generated content and TV programming, respectively. As a result, many marketers aren’t aware of the vast range of Web original content even on sites like AOL, Yahoo, or [...]

Ad networks like Tremor Video aren’t aiming to compete with the premium publishers, said Jason Krebs, SVP and Chief Media Officer for Tremor, who was a panelist in the Beet.TV Leadership Webcast which originated in the AOL Studios in New York last month. Instead, Tremor focuses on selling reach, frequency and engagement, while premium sites sell brand adjacency, custom ideas and [...]

Affine Systems, a small San Francisco-based, venture-backed start-up built around machine learning, has created a technology to "rip apart video frame by frame," enabling advertisers to associate ads with desired content. Largely under the radar, the company is working with YouTube and many of the major video ad networks and advertising technology platform providers including Adap.tv, TidalTV, DBG, TubeMobul, Collective Media [...]

TVGuide.com, a comprehensive guide to broadcast, cable, web and downloadable video, claims 23 million monthly unique users.  Its growth has been driven by effective indexing, a successful social strategy and original editorial content provided by 20 editors, says Christy Tanner, EVP & General Manager, in this interview with Beet.TV. This week, the company extended its social functionality with an expanded "Watchlist." Tanner says [...]

Watch live streaming video from beet_tv at livestream.com  Online Video Goes PrimetimeThe maturation of pricing, metrics and ROI -- and the emerging technology of distribution and consumption Presented by Adap.tv and hosted by Horizon Media Tuesday, August 23 from 3:00 - 5:30 p.m. EDT on Beet.TV via Livestream with Dave Campanelli, SVP, Director of National Broadcast, Horizon Media Tim Connolly, VP for Digital Distribution Disney/ESPN Toby [...]

Digital Broadcasting Group (DBG), the big video ad network and production/syndication firm, is expanding its syndication platform for premium publishers, the company announced today. For an overview on DBG's production and syndication business (of its shows) we spoke with Chris Young, founder and CEO.  He calls his company a sort of "digital television network." We interviewed him in November and have republished the [...]

AOL is bringing its original video programming to connected TV's with AOL HD.  The new dedicated app will surface a range of lifestyle, entertainment and technology programming to several connected devices including Boxee, Roku and Yahoo Connected TV. Some 1300 videos are now available on these devices, including programming from Engadget, which had been available only on Boxee. Soon, TechCrunch, another [...]

YuMe, the big online video advertising platform company, has named founder Jayant Kadambi CEO, replacing Michael Mathieu who had been CEO for about three years. Kadambi was the original CEO and had served as President during Mathieu's tenure. We recently spoke with him in our New York studios about developments in the industry and with the company. We have republished the video [...]

Internet-connected TVs with built-in apps are poised to grow 36% over the next five years. That growth will be fueled in part by demand for built-in apps for Netflix, YouTube and others, said research firm In-Stat. Already, 60% of homes that have these apps are using them once a week. This research underscores the powerful position Netflix is in, but [...]

While advertisers and ad networks are driving online video ad rates "to the floor," the lower prices are making the media more efficient, providing a return on investment of 3 to 5X for digital video versus 2X  for television, says SVP Jordan Bitterman, who heads the media and social practice for Digitas, a Publicis unit. Bitterman said the comparative numbers were [...]

CNN iReport, the five-year-old platform for citizen journalists to upload and share photos and videos, will become something of a "social network for news" with its imminent redesign, says Lila King, Participation Director of CNN Digital, in this interview with Beet.TV. She explains some of the site's new functionality, which will be launched this fall. Today, CNN's iReport is celebrating its fifth-year [...]

Vimeo, the big video sharing site, known mostly for its global popularity as the video player of choice for the creative community, is launching today a commercial service for small businesses. The site, which had not permitted commerical content, is launching Vimeo Pro, an online video platform product which has an annual fee of $199 and provides 50 GB of storage [...]

On Tuesday (August 2), hundreds of citizen reporters around the world will attend Meetups organized by CNN to mark the fifth year anniversary of its iReport. CNN iReport has over 800,000 registered contributors in virtually every nation, says Lila King, Participation Director at CNN Digital and longtime head of iReport, in this interview with Beet.TV CNN is the leader in integrating UGC [...]

More consumers will cut the multichannel cord over the next few years, according to the latest research from SNL Kagan The firm predicts that 10% of US homes, or 12 million, will not subscribe to a pay TV service by 2015. At the end of this year, 4% of homes, or 4.5 million, will have nixed their cable or satellite service. For [...]

SAN FRANCISCO -- Adobe Premiere, the professional video editing software program, is experiencing annual growth of 45 percent among Mac users, says Al Mooney, Product Manager at Adobe in this interview with Beet.TV. Mooney says the revenue from the software is growing by 22 percent year-to-year. With the mixed reception to Apple's Final Cut X, Adobe is aggressively seeking to convert Final [...]

The BBC's iPlayer is going global today, at least in 11 countries as an iPhone app, according to a report in today's Guardian newspaper.  The successful digital consumption platform had been restricted to users in the U.K. In November, at the Monaco Media Forum, we spoke with Daniel Heaf, the BBC's Worldwide Digital Director about the success of the iPlayer and the [...]

While many brands would like a viral video hit, getting one isn't easy -- and it is not free, says Seraj Bharwani who heads analystics for Visible Measures and Molly Sugerman, Director of Digital Innnovation at Horizon Media, the industry's biggest independent media buying agency. While "earned media," meaning video which takes off virally, outside of a conventional media buy, is [...]

The calculation around the value of video advertising is based principally on  Gross Rating Point or GRP, meaning the total size of an audience.  It is a necessary benchmark right now, but is is not an accurate measurement of the impact of the emerging medium, says Jordan Bitterman, SVP of Digitas, in this excerpt from the Beet.TV Leadership Series taped at [...]