Yahoo7 and Mi9 open hostilities in catch-up TV space as Plus7 names exclusive online series
Yahoo7 has secured the rights to show Sin City Saints on Plus7
Rival TV networks Seven and Nine have ramped up the rhetoric in the increasingly important catch-up TV space with both sides seeking to claim online dominance in advertising supported video on demand.
Mi9 has today published Nielsen numbers for its 9Jumpin service which show it has had the most unique visitors of all the local AVOD services for the last three months, while Yahoo7 has fired back claiming it has the highest number of video streams and touting the launch of Yahoo! created TV series Sin City Saints and Other Space on the Plus7 service as it looks to put more exclusive content on there.
The battle to be the biggest is becoming more important with TV ratings provider OzTam working on a way to include online streams in the official ratings, as the online video space continues to provide better advertising yields for publishers.
Source: Nielsen
Spear
“When it comes to video streaming we are the number one platform,” said Cora Spear, head Of TV and global content at Yahoo7.
“We know that Nielsen Online Ratings are going to be releasing their mobile panel data soon and that our internal data shows that mobile usage (in particular apps) is a strong driver for Plus7 – which isn’t reflected in the numbers at the moment, we anticipate that the release of this data will better reflect the total usage of the service,” she said, when asked about recent declines which showed Plus7 down 19.28 per cent year on year in unique audience.
Parsons
Alex Parsons CEO of Mi9 said he was pleased with where his platform was up to in terms of unique audience but acknowledged 9Jumpin still trailed Plus7 in total video streams, with Nine’s offering reporting 7.1m streams to 8.7m in June for the Seven/Yahoo joint venture.
“We are winning the battle in this market,” said Parsons. “At the end of the day streams, unique audience, page views etc. are all interesting but we need to look at them in different ways.
“Our unique audience is high, our streams are also pretty high but at the end of the day… our future horizon is very different to the game we are playing today.
“We need to match consumer expectations. Today they expect to be able to watch content online minutes after it has aired.”
Earlier this year, Marissa Mayer CEO of Yahoo7’s US parent company Yahoo, used the Digital Newfronts in New York to announce a slate of new US shows designed just for the online space.
Spear said the local venture would seek to leverage some of that overseas content for a competitive advantage in the space.
“This is extending the content offering to be a TV destination in our own right,” she said. “We are fortunate enough to launch with two flagship original shows from the US, Sin City Saints and Other Space.
“These shows will offer in particular millennial audiences some great content to binge on in the online space. We have also secured other content which will launch exclusively on the Plus7 platform.”
Other US online programs set to launch on Plus7 include: The Great Food Truck Race, Cutthroat Kitchen, All on the Line with Joe Zee, Life with La Toya and Abby and Brittany.
Asked if 9Jumpin would follow the lead of its rival in launching online content exclusively for its catchup platform Parsons said: “That is something we will look at in the future where and when it makes sense.
“For us their has been a whole new focus on online video. It is now that the core of everything we do and with focus and good content.”
As part of today’s Plus7 announcement Yahoo7’s PR agency did a basketball activation around Sin City Saints in Martin Place with the Sydney Kings this morning.
Nic Christensen
“That is something we will look at in the future where and when it makes sense.” Wow… pretty much makes a lot of sense now!
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A very strong play by Yahoo7 – the launch of new and premium content by an on-line publisher is a very strong and positive move!
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Just out of curiosity, does anyone know where the Nielsen data comes from (i.e. media releases? report series?) Can’t find it anywhere
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Can I ask what Nielsen report the graph uses? The numbers seem different to anything I’ve seen in the past so unsure if they’re a “surfing audience” or “streaming audience” which are very different, and the numbers too.
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