Video Ads Deter Online Newspaper Readers

by Erik Sass , February 4, 2010

online

Newspaper Web sites have attracted a substantial online audience, but face some major obstacles to monetizing their readership with advertising, according to several new studies. However, online publishers and advertisers outside the newspaper business must also confront the same issues.

The most recent study, from TubeMogul -- an online video research and analytics outfit -- confirms what many have long suspected. Consumers dislike pre-roll video advertising to the point that it will actually deter them from viewing online video content.

Specifically, TubeMogul found that one-quarter of visitors who click on an online video link on a newspaper Web site will close or navigate away from the video window without watching the video if a pre-roll ad begins playing.

This also held true for visitors to magazine Web sites -- but the figure was much lower (11%) for visitors who clicked on online video links on broadcast Web sites. This may reflect an expectation that TV content will be accompanied by advertising.

For the Web in general, the "quit rate" for online video links preceded by video advertising averaged around 17%, according to the same research findings from TubeMogul, which observed online interactions with 1.8 million video streams over a two-day period.

Newspaper publishers also face a loss of traffic, due to consumers skimming headlines on news aggregators but not clicking through to the newspaper Web sites, according to a new report from Outsell Research analyst Ken Doctor.

Doctor found that in 2009, 19% of those surveyed chose to visit news aggregators like Google, Yahoo or MSN as their first destination for news, up from just 10% in 2006. Over the same time period, the number visiting newspaper sites as their primary destination increased from 3% to 6%, giving the news aggregators a threefold advantage in 2009.

More ominous for newspaper publishers, 44% of respondents who visited news aggregators first used Google to skim headlines, but without clicking through to read the full article on the newspaper Web sites. This presents problems not only in terms of advertising, but also any proposed system to charge for online content. Restrictive pay walls will have to reveal article titles and probably small descriptive blurbs, to market them to online readers.

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newspapers, online publishing

2 comments about "Video Ads Deter Online Newspaper Readers".

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Jonathan Mirow from BroadbandVideo, Inc., February 5, 2010 at 12:41 p.m.
Well, this is going to depend on the quality of the content and how much the viewer desires said content. I'm probably not going to sit through a commercial for highlights of highschool volleyball or whatever local video drivel the newspapers are dishing out these days (most of it seems to be repurposed national feeds or B-roll from their TV Station "partners"). Certainly VERY little of it is unique, engaging or exciting in any manner or form - these folks pride themselves on the fact that they are "writers" and will do so all the way to the unemployment line. The thing that REALLY deters most people from newspaper sites (this is my own personal research, mind you) is the plethora of annoying flash pop-outs, drop-downs and pop-overs (delicious in the morning with coffee) that literally assault the viewer once they come to these sites. Even Yahoo was smart enough to take that annoying left-side screen-grab pop-over off after a few months. We know you guys are suffering for income, but that shouldn't turn every newspaper site visit into a full-on Netflix ad assault.
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Steve Noble from VideoAdMan.com, February 5, 2010 at 12:55 p.m.

I have been doing video for newspaper websites for 8 years. I find this a bit hard to believe without more details on the content of the pre roll and what news content it is matched with, the length of the pre roll, the page and location, the quality and creativity and several other factors. If you test with a bunch of garbage it would probaly be true. I have found that good video increases the time spent overall on the page and the site in general. Figures never lie but liars figure... right? The newspapers have never been experts when it comes to video where broadcasters have a bit of an edge when it comes to quality and context and thus the better figures. Tell me more I am open minded.