VOD | Video-On-Demand
Players Network's distribution partner Comcast expects Video-On-Demand advertising impressions on free VOD content to increase tenfold in the next 12 months, according to Chip Meehan, Comcast Spotlight's West regional vice president of integrated media sales. "We have 400 million monthly VOD views on Comcast. I'd love to have a dollar for every view," Meehan said, speaking on a panel at the Multichannel News/B&C fourth annual On Demand Summit. Meehan predicted that Comcast will see the proverbial "hockey stick" upswing in VOD advertising revenue as the MSO completes licensing agreements with programmers. 
About 80% of Comcast's 400 million monthly VOD views are free TV content. "That’s 160 million impressions per month. That times $40.00 starts to be a pretty big business." Comcast currently has 17 million homes enabled with Dynamic Ad Insertion for VOD, aiming for full coverage by the end of 2012. As of the end of the first quarter, Comcast had about 20.1 million digital TV subscribers.
"The addition of Dynamically Inserted Ads into VOD actually results in a much better user experience", said Scott Criley, director of new media at Harris's Broadcast Communications division. Prior to VOD DAI, "it was a painful experience, because you would see the same ad over and over again -- and you'd abandon halfway through," he said. "Now with Dynamic Ad Insertion the ad mix you see are more like linear TV."
"Programmers now are shifting rapidly for Dynamic Ad Insertion on VOD", said Avail-TVN vice president of advanced advertising product placement Joni Kinsley. "Content owners need the media-services company to process their VOD content for much faster turnaround, to take advantage of Nielsen's C3 ratings window, and they need more visibility into operators' ecosystem."
"Even in the last year, the industry has come a long way on the VOD advertising front", Viamedia chief operating officer Joe Noonan said. "We're talking about data in a way we haven't before, we're talking about Nielsen, online impressions as a comparison," he said. "We're buying tools to allow us to pitch a multimedia platform -- that didn't exist last year."
