Ten’s online video strategy starts to add up
These days, I’m seeing a lot of Ten News.
And that’s something I never expected to say.
But Ten appears to be the network that is trying hardest when it comes to putting its content, and particularly news material, onto third party platforms.
It’s only a few weeks since Ten signed the deal to make its news video available to Fairfax Media.
And Ten’s got an interesting YouTube strategy too.
Recent weeks has seen it rapidly gear up the quantity of news content it makes available on Ten’s YouTube channel.
A string of reports – generally with newsreader intro – are going up each day.
I’m one of, I see, 2,540 subscribers to the channel.
Take this morning. We were chatting in the office about the World Cup fortune-telling octopus (we’re a regular Algonquin Round Table here). A few minutes later, up popped an item on the Ten YouTube channel about it, which I forwarded on to the colleagues I’d been talking to about the psychic cephalopod.
At the time of writing, that particular video has had very few views. But that’s not the point.
By consistently posting its material, more and more people subscribe to the channel, which incrementally increases the likely audience for future items.
So far, the most viewed clip on the channel has had a little under half a million views. But that’s been around for a couple of years.
But a smattering of more recent videos have picked up decent audiences – last month’s coverage of Mark Schwartz keeling over has already picked up 150,000+, for instance.
And the channel is creeping up the Australian YouTube rankings. Today it’s the seventh most viewed Australian channel.
So where’s the business case for giving away this content?
That bit is, I suspect, unproven. But there are ads appearing in heavy rotation against Ten’s material. I keep seeing online electrical retailer Kogan, for instance. And the Dorito’s make-an-ad call for entries has been popping up too.
It then depends what cpm Ten is receiving, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume five dollars. To date the channel has had just over 6m upload views.
Based on my back-of-the-envelope calculations, that would be $30,000 dollars. In TV terms that’s a drop in the ocean, but on the other hand, it’s from repurposing content already available.
And remember, Ten has only recently started frequently uploading news content.
And for every video added and for every new subscriber, the odds improve on a clip going viral and creating a big payday.
Of course, the numbers may not work. For every big number, there are a bunch of other clips that have only had a few dozen views.
But if it does, then Ten will be so far ahead of its rivals, that it may be impossible for them to catch up.
Update:
Ten boss Grant Blackley says more about it here:
Tim Burrowes
Linkedin
Very smart move on their part – good to see them breaking out of the mould and challenging the rest of the industry to start engaging with the new media channels.
User ID not verified.
Is good. Is very good.
Vis a vis the business case, I suspect that someone at Ten understands the strategic value in making the connection between online experiences, offline (TV) viewing and advertising on both.
Very refreshing.
User ID not verified.
ABC News posts its videos on YouTube as well, and its version of the octopus video has about double the views compared to Ten’s (still not many).
https://www.youtube.com/user/NewsOnABC
User ID not verified.
I don’t think any youtube video that’s gone viral has had a big payday …
Ten is giving away their content with a spray and pray approach … not sure what the end goal is. Makes for a good story but not sure what the revenue figures would look like.
User ID not verified.
ITV could have got $2m from Susan Boyle: http://business.timesonline.co.....151358.ece
User ID not verified.
@Speedboat – “David After Dentist” has actually had a pretty nice payday: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TE.....index.html (and I’m sure there are more are out there.)
Accidental or not, I think there’s definitely a revenue model in there for players who are smart, adaptable and think outside of the box – and there’s nothing to say that television stations can’t get in on that game as well.
User ID not verified.
Do the math on CPM’s and PVs
If a video has 5m views … earning potential gross is around $100k most likely (@ $20cpm) with full sell through
Rev share from that even at 50/50 is $50,000. Assuming Goog is doing 50/50 deals and being transparent around sell through and CPM yield
If a video does 150k views with the same CPM … earning potential is around $3000 gross, $1500 after a revshare at 50/50
Can’t imagine Grant Blackley getting too pumped about these sorts of numbers given what Ten makes from broadcast
Good tactical ideas but hardly a strategy
User ID not verified.
Good point Speedboat, but I think at this early stage it’s about building a subscriber base rather than growing immediate revenue
User ID not verified.
It’s more about moving with the times than revenue but, as a poorly Channel 10 shareholder any revenue is good in my eyes.
User ID not verified.
While it’s ridiculous for Rupert Murdoch to feel threatened by Google search sending hits to his news articles… I think it’s a whole other matter when YouTube becomes the monopoly presence for video on the web and all TV networks can do is try to scratch out some advertising percentage.
Where’s the innovation of TV networks trying to build their own audiences on their own websites and doing innovative things with online video? Or are they just happy to throw all their content over to Google and let them do the thinking about media consumption?
User ID not verified.
Don’t forget that by having a YouTube presence, Ten has a purpose built mobile video infrastructure that’s ready to go. Think of that in terms of iPhone 4 and other mobile devices over the horizon. No need to “tool-up” and migrate from Flash to HTML5.
Good job Ten.
User ID not verified.
This would have been a reasonable strategy ten years ago. But these days media companies shoudl know better than to give away their content for free. The only thing Spooner is doign is watering down the value of the content licences he shd be selling to publishers like Fairfax or carriers like Telstra (T-Hub or BigPond) or TV makers like Samsung (for its TV widgets)… As yr back of the envelope calculations show — and as Rupert figured out a while back — there is no useful business model rev sharing with Google.
User ID not verified.
It wouldn’t have just been a reasonable strategy ten years ago, anonymous, it would have been a visionary strategy.
YouTube celebrated its fifth anniversary about six weeks ago.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
If this strategy is to spread the Ten logo to more people and associating it with great content and (subliminally) with the generosity of allowing sharing something – then it would appear to be a cost effective way of doing do. If the strategy is to replace the falling revenues from falling live viewing, then this might take a while. But I am might take some convincing that this platform will drive more people to watch more live TV (and live ads)?
But in the meantime, I’m going to support Ten by making it easier for me and my friends (who do not watch the ABC) spread cool news stories (and Ten show highlights of course).
User ID not verified.