New fancy TV/video digital providers beware: Not all content providers are interested in your new platform -- especially if you can't verify your audience through research.
A CBS technology
executive says CBS won't deliver content to alternative distribution systems that have no reliable audience measurement -- and this includes mobile DTV.
Though the network has an iPhone app for
CBS News and provides entertainment and other content to mobile TV packager FLO TV, CBS won't participate in other mobile efforts, such as the Open Mobile Video Coalition, because it has no plan as
yet to measure audiences.
The OMVC has done some trending studies when it comes to user habits, part of a deal the group made with Rentrak and Harris Interactive. But it isn't enough for CBS.
Considering the issues the Internet has already had with varying research providers, this kind of caution is probably smart. Why blast out press releases that your content is the latest and greatest
when there is no way to actually monetize it?
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Digital video marketers are demanding much more than they have gotten from traditional media, such as television. They won't put up with same-old
viewer research TV stuff -- even if accuracy isn't an issue. They want deeper consumer research, as well as engagement, specific ROI and other metrics.
CBS figures technology alone isn't enough
to play around in the research and development space for these platforms -- especially if some of these new video services aren't completely developed.
There seems to be little downside in this
approach.
Perhaps fewer people are worried about getting in on the ground floor of something new when hundreds of vendors will sell digital wares after a particular video technology/service
release.
Why rush? Why play around -- to use a CBS competitor's words -- with digital pennies?