YouTube aside, broadcast TV networks and "pure-play" online media brands are presently winning the online video wars, according to a new study by video distribution and analytics startup Tubemogul
in conjunction with video platform Brightcove. In their wake lie magazine sites and music labels, and further behind, newspaper sites.
During the first quarter of the year, the Broadcast TV
networks sampled in the study streamed 380 million videos, with Web media brands trailing right behind with 326 million video streams.
How are consumers finding these videos? The majority --
51.75% -- are navigating directly from the publisher's main site, according to the joint report. Google is the next biggest driver of video-viewing traffic at 38.92% -- followed by Yahoo, at 5.58% and
Bing, at 2.29%.
While a force in virtually every other Web-related area, Facebook is presently responsible for driving just 0.40% of video traffic online.
Compared to search engines and
other social media sites, Twitter referrals generate the highest level of consumer engagement for online video content from broadcast networks, magazine publishers and music labels. Newspaper
publishers, meanwhile, see the highest level of engagement from viewers who find their content via Yahoo.
In their favor, newspaper and magazine publishers now have the greatest number of video
players across online media properties, while newspaper publishers show the most growth in video production for online properties -- followed by broadcast networks and pure-play Web media brands.
In-stream video advertising is the dominant ad format followed by overlays, sponsorships, companions and player skins. Indeed, despite experimentation with other ad formats, 35% of survey respondents
said in-stream video advertising produced the most revenue for their media business compared to other ad formats.
For in-stream advertising, respondents said the dominant insertion point is
pre-roll, followed by post-roll, player load and mid-roll. Also, more than half of the survey respondents indicated that they would add sponsorships to their monetization strategy for online video
this year.
What's more, close to 70% of respondents said their media companies sell their own advertising versus using an ad network. While just over 10% of respondents said they currently
distribute ad-supported video content to mobile devices, more than 50% said they will roll out ad-supported mobile video within the next twelve months.
The data used for the analysis included in
this report was taken from a cross-section sample of Brightcove customers representing media industry verticals.
