Category: In the News

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‘Everybody is in a similar situation’: Sports publishers try teaming up on ad deals

With no live sports on television and athletes sheltering in
their homes, sports publishers are hoping that teamwork will help them keep their
advertisers’ attention.

Over the past six weeks, a number of sports publishers, including CBS Sports, USA Today Sports and Minute Media, have either pitched or discussed pitching advertisers different ad programs that combine either those publishers’ audiences, media, production capabilities and content, sources said. A few sports publishers have had discussions about similar collaborations with non-endemic partners in the news and lifestyle space, though none have progressed all the way into pitches, two CROs said.

During that same period, sports publications owned by
corporate conglomerates, such as Disney-owned ESPN or WarnerMedia-owned Bleacher
Report, have begun pitching packages to advertisers that involve their sister
brands’ audiences. WarnerMedia, for example, is pitching agencies the idea that
it can target the same viewers it might have attracted with March Madness
coverage on other WarnerMedia properties using Xandr, two agency sources said.

Though different combinations of these publishers have
worked together in the past on programs, the discussions around possible collaborations
have stepped up in recent weeks, as economic uncertainty and public health
concerns have turned sports media upside down.

With no clear timeline for when major sports league seasons
will resume, and advertisers grappling with major changes to consumer demand
and their supply chains, there are fewer opportunities to win big, seven-figure
deals from clients.

“There was a time when there were 50 of these [RFPs] coming
through the door,” said Rich Routman, the chief revenue officer of Minute
Media. “Now, it’s seven or eight.

“Everybody is in a very similar situation,” Routman added. “You’re
just trying to find ways to capitalize on the macro state of the industry.”

Over the past six weeks, digital ad spending has fallen by
almost 50%, according to the investment bank UBS, putting enormous pressure on every
corner of the media world.

But while certain categories of media have enjoyed spikes in
traffic recently, sports publishers have struggled over the past six weeks,
during a time of year when their audiences normally surge, thanks to events
including the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the NFL Draft and the NBA
playoffs.

In the first week of March, sports publishers’ sites attracted more than 1.2 billion visits, according to Comscore data; in the first week of April, total visits to those sites had slid 34%, to more than 790 million visits, the data showed. Through the first three weeks of April, no single week has improved on that total.

Collectively, sports sites’ total views in March 2020 were
down more than 25% year over year, Comscore data showed.

Yet the lack of live games has hurt linear TV too. Broadcasters have tried everything from rebroadcasting past games to live-streams of esports, programs that some advertisers responded to coolly.

That has many sports publishers hoping to fill that gap. “Brands, advertisers, agencies, are looking to get the biggest footprint they can outside of linear right now,” a revenue leader at one sports publisher said.

In theory, teaming up offers publishers a chance to shore up
some of their weaknesses. In addition to more scale, combining forces gives
publishers more resources to work on branded content at a moment when
publishers, agencies and production companies are all limited in what they can
make. 

“The production side is the bigger limiting factor for a lot
of these guys,” said Jason Haddad, svp of media at the sports marketing agency
Revolution World.

But collaboration can also require trade-offs. Combining audiences can mean settling for lower CPMs than an individual publisher might charge on their own. It can also slow the process down at a time when more publishers are trying to act quickly.

“You don’t want to invest your time into 90 different partnerships,” Routman said. “If it’s a huge process, it’s not going to make us win anything.”

The post ‘Everybody is in a similar situation’: Sports publishers try teaming up on ad deals appeared first on Digiday.

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News publishers tap into live streaming on YouTube

With content production curtailed, news publishers have tapped into live feeds on social platforms, especially YouTube, to fill schedules.

Publishers like Sky News, The Sun, The Guardian, Euronews and The Telegraph are among those with the most amount of live-streamed minutes watched during this time. As a TV broadcaster, Sky News has broadcasted its TV channel around the clock on YouTube since November 2019. For that reason, it had 1.1 billion minutes of live-streamed footage watched during the four weeks, more than other news and politics creators and media companies. 

“We’ve been doing a lot of daily live streams to strong numbers as well as a number of original longer-form public service announcement-content around coronavirus,” said Phil Han, director of video at News UK tabloid The Sun. 

During March, the amount of live-streamed minutes watched on YouTube ballooned, increasing 189% in the four weeks beginning March 12 compared with the four weeks prior. At its peak, there were 180 million minutes watched during one week, according to analytics firm Tubular Labs.

Other news publishers have increased the amount of live-streamed footage during March but more sporadically, for instance by pulling in feeds for political debates during weekly Prime Minister’s Questions in parliament. Since September 2019, in addition to its TV live stream, Euronews has been streaming events like news conferences, political events and speeches, live interviews, accompanied with community management.

“We saw strong growth on all our YouTube channels,” said Youva Bouzidi, head of digital products at Euronews. “Most of our channels passed the 500,000 subscribers mark, and two of them passed the 1 million subscriber milestone recently.” 

For news publishers, live-streaming feeds have always been a feature, but with current restrictions in play and a voracious — if waning — appetite in news, it’s now one of the few content levers left to pull. 

Another is health-related and public service content. Three weeks ago The Sun launched “Ask Dr. Hilary” series every Monday to Thursday, where general practitioner Dr. Hilary Jones, known for his media appearances, answers questions about coronavirus. Videos typically get views in the six figures. 

The News UK tabloid has grown its YouTube subscribers to nearly 800,000 in 18 months by producing more original content rather than aggregated clips from agencies like Reuters. The rate of subscriber growth and videos watched has jumped since January, according to analytics firm SocialBlade, the restrictions in larger-scale productions hasn’t dampened growth. During April, The Sun’s YouTube channel has already fetched 20 million unique viewers, said Han.

News, in all its guises, is trickier to monetize, although YouTube’s Player for Publishers initiative helps some media companies build their video operations. YouTube has been slowly allowing content creators to monetize videos that mention “coronavirus” since March after saying several weeks earlier that videos mentioning the virus would be automatically shut off from monetization. This week, the platform introduced more granular brand safety controls, although the fear is they will add to creators’ headaches by over-blocking content that is brand safe, if not suitable.

“We have fed back to teams not to arbitrarily put [coronavirus] in if you don’t have to,” said a chief revenue officer at a publisher. “We saw a competitor doing backflips on a YouTube video to not mention it. It’s a classic hammer to crack a nut solution.”

Bouzidi said Euronews it leans towards pushing more brand-safe content and products that are closer to users’ interests to mitigate against the impact of keyword blocking.

Elsewhere, in early April, CNN International released a new 20-minute weekly show on the technology, etiquette and optimum ways of working remotely, “WFH New Reality.” Led by anchor Richard Quest, the shows are also produced remotely, with Quest making sure the lighting and shots are adequate and carrying out interviews via Zoom and video conferencing software. Coming episodes will look at whether the arrangements that organizations have put in place for working remotely can survive, and there will be big questions to answer once the pandemic ends.

News publishers have expanded beyond their regular heartlands. Unexpectedly, positive stories and good-news content is also booming. “People singing” is the fourth most popular topic by views from news publishers, behind content covering overwhelmed hospitals, the situation around the world and life during lockdown. Videos of people singing — like this family’s rendition Les Misérables — have fetched 7.9 million views, per Tubular, despite only accounting for 7% of the content uploaded.

This article was updated to include comment from Euronews.

The post News publishers tap into live streaming on YouTube appeared first on Digiday.

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