Watch all red carpet interviews from Streaming Media West in San Jose.
NBC’s digital team is always fun to talk to. I caught up with Matt Weisbecker, Director of Sales, Western Region, NBC Universal Digital Media at Streaming Media West in San Jose last week.
I moderated a panel at last year’s Streaming Media West conference and had Hayle Chun, Director, Digital Media, NBC Sports & Olympics talk about the Olympic experience in Beijing, the first Olympics that really had, in my mind, a meaningful, coordinated online strategy related to the television broadcast in the US.
With Matt I talked about the upcoming Olympics in Vancouver.
NBC is a great example of a big content company that is exploring various cross-platform distribution and monetization strategies for its content.
Matt talked about NBC’s focus on selling cross platform ad campaigns and the need for a high level of collaboration between traditional and digital sales teams. They work together to sell advertisers into 360 programs around a specific show where advertisers can touch consumers across platforms (TV, online, mobile). On air is the reach and online is more activitation related where a brand can connect with consumers on a 1-1 basis. Compensation for the sales teams is created to foster collaboration between digital and traditional teams.
The reason I find this level of collaboration interesting is because of all the stories I’ve heard about they way old school media and publishing companies have treated digital and the digital sales teams in the early days of digital. It was almost an afterthought or a throw in – buy an ad in the paper and we’ll give you the bowl of soup for free.
On Hulu, the NBC sales team sells advertising directly against USA, Bravo, Sci-Fi or NBC content. For FLO TV NBC sells most of the Ad inventory and FLO TV gets to sell a minute or two per half hour program, similar to what a cable operator can do in a local market. On the Xbox and Playstation, NBC still owns the advertising experience because consumers are accessing the NBC.com web site within the Xbox browser.
The Olympics, Beijing last summer and Vancouver this coming winter, is what interests me the most. I’ve been intrigued thinking about how major sports events or leagues (Olympics, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB) put a value on such a new medium during the negotiation process. For example, when NBC won the rights to the 2008 Olympics, I can’t imagine at that point in time anyone at the IOC had the foresight to think that online had much revenue opportunity.
But I’m sure now, as the IOC negotiates deals for future Olympics, they are accounting for significant online revenue generating potential. And valuing broadcast rights accordingly.
Same goes for sports leagues that realize there is great potential online and want to deliver directly to consumers rather than rely on a third party such as a TV network. Why share the revenue when you don’t have to? And when you are not as dependent for distribution.
The Olympics is unique in that there is a limited, premium opportunity, during a very condensed window of 17 days, for a brand to connect to consumers.
Beijing had 52 Million unique online users in addition to all the people who watched on TV.
As part of a cross platform package, NBC is selling online Olympics ad inventory @ $45 CPM, versus the typical $10 – $20 CPM for a network show. Sponsors cannot buy an online only package. They have to buy the cross platform mix (TV, online, mobile). Starting price is $500,000, with the next level package at $1,000,000 and going up at $500,000 increments.
On the metrics and measurement front mobile is still a challenge. Right now NBC’s research is focused on on-air and online and focuses on brand lift. Cross media studies are done with Dynamic Logic or Insight Express. More work needs to be done on mobile.
I wondered, with mobile and online delivery, whether advertisers are still measuring success of a campaign in the same way they might measure success of a TV campaign, such as reach, frequency, and brand lift, or are they focusing on new metrics such as measuring engagement as a driver of brand loyalty and lift.
Live streaming is another area that interests me. Curling enthusiasts can breathe a sigh of relief. NBC will stream all curling events live online from Vancouver. Same goes for Hockey. They will decide what other events to stream live closer to the day of the event rather than announce it in advance.
In Beijing NBC streamed 20 events live online. In the winter there are less sports, but they will stream a similar percentage of events live. The deciding factor in what to stream comes down to not cannibalizing the TV experience. While not all events will be streamed live, every event will be available on-demand right after it is over.
And of course I asked Matt about the Comcast rumors. He declined to comment. As did Gerald Abrahamian from Comcast, who I interviewed the following day.
