Tuesday 30 August 2016

The BBC saw a drop of 18% in viewing from 16-34s after making BBC3 online only

"The BBC saw a drop of almost 20% in younger viewers to its TV channels in the months after shutting the youth-focused BBC3, according to commercial rivals.
TV marketing body Thinkbox, which has shareholders including ITV, Sky, Channel 4 and UKTV, conducted an analysis of total viewing in the period from March to May.
This time period was chosen to reflect TV viewing after the BBC3 TV channel was closed in February but before the start of Euro 2016 in June, to keep a reasonable year-on-year comparison.
According to the figures viewing across all the BBC’s broadcast TV channels – including viewing up to a week from first broadcast on catch-up services but not devices such as tablets and mobiles – showed that the 16- to 34-year-old audience declined by 18%.
This younger audience was BBC3’s core audience; the BBC Trust had warned the corporation before it moved to take the channel online-only that as many as 750,000 viewers who use no other BBC TV service could be lost.
Commercial TV companies say they have benefited from TV viewing since BBC3’s closure with more youth-focused rivals ITV2 and E4 experiencing uplifts.
ITV2 has been boosted by snapping up shows such as former BBC3 programmes Family Guy and American Dad, and having a strong second series of Love Island."
Source:  The Guardian, 22nd August 2016
Related - BBC3 content is over 10% of iPlayer requests

Half of US and UK Netflix subscribers also subscribe to Amazon Prime Video

"Futuresource Consulting has published the 12th wave of its Living With Digital consumer survey, which reveals the latest trends in digital entertainment, with a focus on the US, UK, France and Germany but has now expanded to cover Italy, Spain, Australia, Canada, as well as Japan, South Korea and China. It explores topics which highlight consumer preferences for digital video format adoption, influences affecting purchasing decisions and connected device adoption. Also included is an ongoing narrative around pay-TV cord-cutting and the multinational competitive situation between Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
The report highlights the continued growth in SVoD users, amongst both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, in addition to the rafter of local competitors. There is also encouragement from the growing base of transactional digital video consumers and digital media adaptor owners, together with details on the continued but steady shift away from scheduled TV viewing to non-linear content consumption.
The study highlights that multiple online subscription uptake continues to rise compared with results from the previous wave of research. However, there is high overlap between Netflix and other leading SVoD services in each country, particularly Amazon Prime Video in the US, UK and Germany. Approximately half of Netflix subscribers also use Amazon Prime Video in the UK and US, with 30 per cent of US respondents now using both Amazon Prime Video and Netflix.
“Netflix uptake continues to grow in all countries and although satisfaction levels for Netflix are high, they do vary considerably by country” commented David Sidebottom, Principal Analyst, Media and Entertainment at Futuresource Consulting. “Over half of US respondents say they are extremely satisfied with Netflix, 83 per cent are satisfied or very satisfied; this falls to around two-thirds in France and Germany.”"
Source:  Advanced TV, 24th August, 2016

A Compendium of Rio 2016 Olympics Stats


Snapchat viewing 
"Almost 50 million people have watched the Olympic Games on Snapchat so far, as broadcasters including NBC and the BBC use the app to reach a millennial audience.
Nearly one in three daily Snapchat users has viewed the clips in Live Stories, showing that the app could challenge other social sites such as Facebook and Twitter for dominance in live events.
The LA-based start-up partnered with broadcasters in seven countries including the US, the UK and Brazil to show stories that include footage from the games and from the crowds in the last 24 hours.
In the first seven days to last Thursday, 49 million unique visitors viewed Olympics content on Snapchat, almost a third of the 150 million daily active users of the app."
Source:  Irish Times, 15th August 2016

Over 5bn viewers globally
"Heading up this vast operation is Yannis Exarchos, who runs Olympic Broadcast Services on behalf of the International Olympic Committee, and says that the Rio Games saw internet and on-line viewership as big a factor as [conventional] television. He added that social media helped drive this digital audience to Rio, and took this year’s viewing numbers to a record 5 billion users. Within the first 4 days of competition more people had watched Olympic activity on second screens than during the whole London Games of 2012.
Within 10 days of the start of the Rio Games the on-line streaming numbers had passed the two previous Olympics (London and Sochi). Ratings agency Nielsen said more than 2 billion minutes (33 million hours) were consumed in the US alone in the first 10 days of competition.
Exarchos also said that this year’s experimental Virtual Reality (VR) programming was also a huge hit with viewers, and by Tokyo in 2020 VR and 360-degree material could be a very important factor for consumers and where viewers are at the centre of the action right alongside the athletes."

NBC's US TV viewing fell 15% vs London 2012
"While Mr. Burke's nightmare scenario didn't play out to the letter, the final Nielsen numbers were fairly grim. Through the 17 nights of ceremonies and competition, NBC averaged 26 million viewers and a 14.9 household rating, which marked a 15% decline from the 2012 Summer Games' draw of 31.1 million viewers and a 17.5 rating. (Rio's ratings reflect NBC's Total Audience Delivery, a metric that blends broadcast and cable prime-time deliveries with streaming data.)
More importantly, NBC missed its ratings guarantees by 3.1 points, or 17%, a result that found the network working overtime to make its advertisers whole through Sunday's closing ceremony. Media buyers last week said they were satisfied with NBC's make-good efforts but said that they expected some high-end clients to receive complimentary units in the network's Sunday and Thursday night football packages as a goodwill gesture. (UPDATE: NBC said that all of its Olympics advertisers were made whole within the Games themselves and that the network would not be offering so-called audience deficiency units in the fall."
Source:  AdAge, 25th August 2016

NBCU on TV and Snapchat
"NBCUniversal decided to turn over the keys to its Snapchat account to BuzzFeed for the Olympics. The move seems to have paid off to the tune of 35 million viewers over two weeks.
In April, the media giant announced a partnership with Snapchat, under which it would distribute Olympics-related content on the media and messaging app. The content was available in two ways: a pop-up Snapchat Discover channel and multiple daily Live Stories. Across both, NBCU totaled 2.2 billion views and 230 million minutes of consumption, the company said.
With the Discover channel, NBCU gave near-total editorial control to 12 BuzzFeed video producers it had invited down to Rio (NBCUniversal invested $200 million in BuzzFeed last year). “We would talk to them every morning — what we were focusing on and the stories that were emerging, and there would be some coordination that way,” said Gary Zenkel, president of strategy and operations for NBC Sports Group and president of NBC Olympics. “But we did not want to impair their ability to exercise and flex their creative muscles for that day’s edition."
Source:  Digiday, 25th August 2016

7.5bn video streams watched in China
"Shanghai-based Alisports, a division of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, said it saw similar success streaming the Olympics in China through a partnership with online video hub Youku Tudou.
A total of 7.5 billion streams were watched by Olympics fans in China, according to newly released figures from Alisports.
Alisports last month had announced a licensing agreement with Chinese state-owned CCTV to stream the Rio Olympics via Youku, which is also owned by Alibaba, albeit with a 30-minute delay to CCTV’s own broadcast. About 380 million viewers logged on to watch, Alisports said. That’s almost half the size of the traditional television audience of 793 million claimed by CCTV."

35m in the US watched Usain Bolt's 100m live - AdAge, 17th August 2016

BBC - A breakdown of access by devices - 14th August 2016

Flurry - App usage - 24th August 2016

Monday 22 August 2016

19m unique browsers visited BBC Sport on 'Super Sunday' during Rio 2016

"BBC Sport cemented its position as the number one digital destination for sport as record numbers accessed digital services. This week has been the biggest ever week for BBC Sport online with 58.2m global unique browsers following the action from the Rio Olympics, the return of the Premier League and England’s Test match v Pakistan from around the world.
The new seven-day record for BBC Sport digital traffic smashes the previous record of 41.4m set during the first week of Euro 2016. Of the 58.2m unique browsers, 40.3m came from the UK, setting another personal best for the BBC.
And like many of the Olympians competing in Rio, BBC Sport beat its own record for daily traffic which stood at 14.6m unique browsers from the day England faced Wales at Euro 2016, five times since the start of the Games. It now stands at 19m for Super Sunday as fans followed Team GB’s historic medal haul.
Mobile
Audiences have been glued to the action on their mobile devices throughout the Games and the BBC Sport mobile app had its biggest ever week with 4.4m unique browsers. Sunday was a record day for mobile audiences overall too, with 2.7m browsers in the app contributing to 8.4m unique browsers overall, beating the previous record of 6.3m.
Personal
The opening week of the Games has also seen people personalise the BBC Sport digital service more than ever before, a record 347k unique browsers visited the ‘My Sport’ area of the website, with over 500k topics followed.
Online Video
An enormous 81.2m have accessed video clips, catch-up services and watched live streams across BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer since the start of the Games, with audiences using the digital service to watch both live and on-demand.
Team GB’s success has also led to a record week for the BBC Sport app on Connected TV with 1.74m browsers and an all-time high of 1.67m using the BBC’s Red Button+ service."
Source:  BBC Media Centre, 15th August 2016

Monday 8 August 2016

Pokemon Go generated an estimated $200m in revenues in the first month

"While bugs and feature complaints are still causing a decent amount of negativity among users, Pokémon Go continues its upward trajectory in terms of overall revenue. App analytics platform Sensor Tower reveals that the game now have over $200 million in net revenue from players based on their estimates.
The spending frenzy in Go compares favorably to in-game revenue generated by other huge in-app purchase-driven games, according to data also tracked by the firm. Pokémon’s star power has helped it nearly double the first month revenue of Clash Royale, the other big in-app star this year. And it’s made almost four times as much as Candy Crush Soda Saga managed during its first 30 days of availability."

Five of the six most valuable public companies in the world are tech companies


Source: Chart by Statista, 2nd August 2016

97% of smartphone in India use Android

"Apple’s smartphone marketshare has halved from 4 percent to just 2 percent in India during the past year. Apple iOS will need to reduce iPhone pricing to cheaper levels, attract more operator subsidies and enlarge its retail presence through Apple stores or online channels if it wants to regrow significantly in the future.
Total smartphone shipments in India grew a healthy 19 percent annually from 25.8 million units in Q2 2015 to 30.7 million in Q2 2016. India is currently the world’s third largest smartphone market, after China and the US. India is growing quickly due to low smartphone penetration rates, an expanding middle class with more disposable income, and intense competition among major vendors, retailers and operators.
Android shipped 29.8 million smartphones in India in Q2 2016, growing an impressive 28 percent annually from 23.2 million units in Q2 2015. Android maintained first position across India with a record 97 percent OS share for the quarter, up from 90 percent a year ago."
Source:  Next Big What, 5th August 2016

62% of music sold comes from just 3 companies


"Despite massive disruption and upheaval over nearly two decades, the recorded music industry remains highly concentrated at the top.  According to data released by independent label group WIN, an astounding 62.4 percent of all music sold, downloaded, and streamed worldwide comes from just three major labels, in 2016.  In the United States, that figure is 64%, and a lopsided 77% in the UK.
The three major labels — Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group — are currently enjoying a surge in streaming revenues from companies like Spotify and Apple Music.  Spotify and other streaming services, in turn, are paying the greatest percentage of their royalties to the majors.  According to some estimates, the ‘Big Three’ command more than 80% of streaming royalties from Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, and others."
Source:  Digital Music News, 3rd August 2016

A third of online Britons have had a 'Digital Detox'

"Ofcom’s Communications Market Report 2016 reveals how our reliance on the internet is affecting people’s personal and working lives, leading many to seek time away from the web to spend time with friends and family.
It finds that one in three adult internet users (34%), equivalent to 15 million people in the UK, has sought a period of time offline, with one in ten (11%) doing so in the last week alone.
Of these digital down-timers, 25% spent up to a day internet-free; 20% took up to a week off; and 5% went web-free for up to a whole month.
Many people found their time offline to be a positive experience: a third (33%) said they felt more productive, 27% found it liberating, while a quarter (25%) enjoyed life more. However, 16% experienced a ‘fear of missing out’ (‘FOMO’) while on the web wagon, 15% felt lost and 14% ‘cut-off’.
Ofcom’s report shows that faster internet access is more widely available than ever before, with take-up of superfast broadband2 and 4G on the increase.
With people better connected than ever before, they can spend more time doing what they love online – such as watching the latest on-demand series, or chatting with friends and family via instant messaging services, both of which have seen a recent surge in popularity.
Three in four internet users (75%) consider the web ‘important’ to their daily lives. Nearly eight in 10 (78%) agree it helps keep them up-to-date about current affairs and social issues, while almost two thirds (63%) credit it with inspiring them to try new things such as travel destinations, restaurants, recipes or entertainment.
As a result of the internet’s importance in many people’s daily lives, adult users in the UK currently spend an average of one day per week (25 hours) online; 42% say they go online or check apps more than 10 times a day, while around one in 10 (11%) access the internet more than 50 times daily.
Most internet users (59%) even consider themselves ‘hooked’ on their connected device – while a third (34%) admit they find it difficult to disconnect."
Full report here
Report Charts here