Can YouTube TV Crack the Cord-Cutting Code?

One of the things youamp8217ll notice first is that YouTube TV doesnamp8217t offer adskipping capabilities a boon for advertisers perhaps though of dubious appeal for consumers There are additional advertising issues to be finalized as noted in an April 10 2017 thoughtleadership report Barclays Live from Barclays Bank on Testing YouTube TV amp8220The free content from YouTube presented alongside premium content does not have any advertising However what is not clear to us is how the increased viewership of these free videos will impact advertising on the free version of YouTube Presumably the viewership counts on YouTube TV would port over to the free version of YouTube Given that this free content is curated on YouTube TV a certain degree of selection bias could creep into advertising dollars on YouTube which may favor more professionally produced content or their own starsamp8221Back on the consumer experience there is also no traditional channel guide But honestly that channel guide is based on actually tuning the TV to a specific frequency something we havenamp8217t had to do in decades The Barclays Live report agreed amp160amp8220We believe consumerfacing interfaces will gradually shift to resemble aggregation platforms rather than a traditional linear program guide In this respect we believe YouTube has done a great job aggregating content from all platforms into a unified interface and the service in many ways appears quite similar in concept to Comcastamp8217s X1 platform For instance sports are not presented by network Instead the home screen has icons for Knicks Lakers and Yankees etc similar to Comcast having just an icon for the Rio Olympics on X1 instead of individual networks with the content which consumers can click on to get to their live or recorded games One can also add any team to the library which essentially would result in the games of that particular team getting recorded This can be quite powerful in the context of YouTube TVamp8217s unlimited DVR storage which in a way removes another point of interface friction for consumers one just goes to the library and everything is there The DVRrecording functionality becomes part of a continuum on the UI rather than a break On the scripted side the interface only highlights individual shows rather than networks similar to Netflix or Comcast X1 While Network names and icons are displayed below each show the presentation on the user interface makes this almost irrelevantamp8221For Millennials and younger the network is not nearly as important as the shows or contentamp160 Many players are building their interface based on content the network is still listed but itamp8217s not the central point as it is in traditional TV One challenge is that since everything is based on individual viewing numbers it could reduce viewership to certain channels if their programming doesnamp8217t show up on the home screen or recommendation engine This per Barclaysamp8217 report could impact valuation for specific networks in the futureYouTube TV also takes great advantage of metadata and stacking rights As also noted in the Barclays Live report amp8220Similar to Netflix YouTube TV has a section called amp8216Resume Watchingamp8217 for shows or movies that one leaves in the middle which eases the content discovery process While this may seem trivial services like HBO GO Showtime Anytime and other apps from media companies still donamp8217t manage even simple enhancements like these which can reduce usage frictionamp8221I believe that there is growing frustration on the part of the consumer as networks put the same content on different platforms As a consumer I donamp8217t want to have to go to multiple locations to watch different episodes of the same show And this different set of rules will create challenges Barclays Live notes amp8220Therefore for networks like CBS which want to keep stacking rights for their own platform like CBS All Access this could become a tradeoff between underindexing on viewership on traditional platforms vs trying to grow their own platformamp8221The ability for the user to determine how and when theyamp8217re watching is critical During a presentation I made at SXSW on Gen Z William one of my panelists who was 13 at the time made an excellent point about content and Gen Z amp8220If the experience of free is better than the experience of paid then they won39t be payingamp8221 Notice he didn39t say they wouldn39t pay for content Just that when they paid for it it had to be a better experience than what they can put together themselves Content needs to be completely portable and watchable based on the consumeramp8217s desires not the industriesBack in 2006 when YouTube was around less than one year it was already attracting lots of content The trigger for me was that it was about to be valued at 1 billion which was huge back then Part of my blog then noted amp8220There was a lot of good commercial quality content on the site One thing is very cool about sites like this It does take distribution control away from a small group of media companies Now anyone has a place to showcase his or her talentsamp8221When you look at the top YouTube videos of 2016 you see that commercial content put out by the traditional outlets still comprises most of the top 10 Thatamp8217s because no matter the medium good storytellers are still good storytellers and for the most part we like to put our time against content that we consider high qualityThere are currently many changes happening in the media space especially as it relates to cordcutting and OTT Every major player is creating their own amp8220skinny bundlesamp8221 and it will be interesting to see how many of these bundles the consumer has the appetite to pay for Comcastamp8217s announcement that they will join the wireless space in combination with the proposed changes to net neutrality will see many more changes in the very near future Google is adding to the data layer that they collect from each of us and this is an easy step for them to make As the Barclays Live report concludes amp8220 while we were initially skeptical about YouTube TV based on the launch demo we do believe Googleamp8217s product vision is quite compelling and could have legs Success however will depend on the ability to compete with bundles in different forms wireless wireline and video in the case of Comcast for example or Prime and Video in the case of Amazonamp8221Click the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this article are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

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Can YouTube TV Crack the Cord-Cutting Code?

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David Polinchock

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 6) - By Carl Mayer

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