News & Opinion

Media Companies Created and Processed Nearly Three Times as Much Video Content in Q1 2018 vs. Q1 2017, Ooyala Study Finds Report Highlights: Mobile devices accounted for 58% of all videos watched globally, stabilizing at 1.8% growth, one of the smallest increases in 14 quarters Q1 2018 marked the first quarter-over-quarter decline in mobile’s share of plays Media companies created and processed nearly three times as much video content as in Q1 2017 Long-form video (20+ minutes) exceeded 50% of time watched on every device and screen On smartphones, viewers watched long-form content (20-40 mins) to completion 57% of the time; ultra-long form content (40+ mins) more than 45%   Mobile video consumption continues to rise, but growth stabilized in Q1 2018; total video plays increased during the quarter just 1.8% from the prior year, per Ooyala’s newly released Q1 2018 Global Video Index Report. The increase was one of the smallest in 14 quarters, and also marked the first quarter-over-quarter decline in mobile’s share of plays at nearly 4.6%. Nevertheless, consumption on mobile devices of long-form video – defined as more than 20 minutes in length – continues to thrive, the study finds.  On smartphones, for example, 20-to-40-minute-long videos were viewed to completion 57% of the time, while videos exceeding 40 minutes (ultra-long form) were viewed to completion more than 45% of the time, the Ooyala study found. On other devices, Ooyala found: Viewers watched long-form content (20-40 mins) to completion 61% on tablets and 71% on PCs Viewers watched ultra-long form content (40+ mins) to completion 51% on tablets and 59% on PCs "Consumers are becoming far more comfortable watching any content on every screen than they've ever been," said Jim O'Neill, Ooyala principal analyst. "The traditional barriers to multiscreen viewing -- the amount of available premium content, the cost of service and the quality of experience -- all have fallen. The first screen for viewing truly has become the screen that's most available to the viewer at the moment." Regional Mobile Video Viewing Trends Latin America (LatAm) saw significant quarter-over-quarter gains in mobile’s share of video plays while Asia-Pacific grew slightly, despite declines in Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) and North America. But in North America, mobile video plays were still up 9% from a year ago and 18% over the past two years, accounting for 56.6% of all video plays in Q1 2018. In related findings: EMEA saw mobile video plays hit 58% in the first quarter of 2018, a 22% Y/Y increase from 47.8% in Q1 2017, and 39% better than Q1 2016 Asia-Pac saw the share of video plays on mobile devices hit 60.7%, up from 52.3% a year ago Latin America’s share of video plays on mobile devices reached an all-time high of 59.5% The Rising Tide of Streaming Video Content While OTT services more than doubled their hours of content offerings in Q4 2017, even more content was created in Q1 2018 – reaching nearly three times the amount processed the year before. Specifically: Long-form content (longer than 20 minutes) jumped 189% Medium-form content (5-20 minutes) was up 171% Short-form (shorter than 5 minutes) grew 178% “Mobile video content is coming from an expanding universe of creators and distributors across sports, news, entertainment and enterprise,” added O’Neill. “They understand that mobile needs to be a pillar of any content provider’s streaming video strategy. Ignore mobile or allow lower-quality standards for your video stream, and you’re likely to lose a significant portion of your business.” The full Ooyala Q1 2018 Global Video Index Report can be found here.

Ooyala has collaborated with Avid® to integrate the new Flex Media Platform into Avid MediaCentral®. The new Flex Media Platform now provides comprehensive, fully integrated media logistics functionality. With this new integration, Ooyala and Avid now offer a best-of-breed solution to get content to consumers seamlessly, rapidly and in a manner that is truly streamlined to maximize ROI. “Media companies are managing growing inventories of high quality content, and they want a solution that eliminates the complexity of the process while increasing operational efficiencies,” said Jonathan Huberman, CEO, Ooyala. “Being an Avid Alliance Partner means customers won’t have to uproot their existing tools and systems in order to have the most comprehensive solution possible. They can now leverage the advanced Media Logistics capabilities of the Flex Media Platform seamlessly within their existing Avid infrastructure.” Managing video assets is a common challenge for many media companies that handle large amounts of content yet lack efficient metadata capabilities. Ooyala, a leading provider of software and services that simplify the complexity of producing, streaming and monetizing video, solves this challenge with the Flex Media Platform. It is an open and extensible video production, delivery and content-supply-chain-optimization platform that simplifies and streamlines the process of managing, curating, orchestrating, publishing, measuring and monetizing video content. Among other features, the platform can automate the assignment and management of metadata across complex, fast-growing inventories of video assets. The integration empowers customers with advanced metadata modelling using metadata aggregated from a variety of sources.  Assets can be seamlessly transferred from cloud-based storage into existing Avid production environments. “By integrating the metadata capabilities of the Ooyala Flex Media Platform, we’re powering a best-of-breed solution that provides a ‘single source of truth’ and better overall orchestration of the process,” said Ed Caracappa, Sr. Director Global Alliances at Avid. “We’re now able to provide modern content supply chain solutions to digital media production processes that continue to become vastly more complex.” Ooyala will showcase its new Flex Media Platform at NAB 2018 in Las Vegas, with hands-on demos at the Ooyala booth #SV1000 in the Silver Parking Lot, just outside the North Hall entrance. Avid, Interplay, and Media Composer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. The Interplay name is used with the permission of the Interplay Entertainment Corp. which bears no responsibility for Avid products.