The "New" Video Revolution

After about 10 years of astounding dimness, the online media industry is starting to wake up and realize that not only is television not dead, but the future of online advertising revenue is largely going to come from video. The rush to video among online publishers is approaching hysteria.

Of course, as usual the marketing and advertising industries are marooned on some distant planet and are still yapping about the death of TV. But don't worry, it'll only take them a couple of centuries to catch up.

Here are some interesting thoughts on this subject:

According to Kevin Draper at Gawker...

"We are, right now, in the midst of a digital media upheaval. What was previously conventional wisdom—that a media company with hopes of turning a profit needs, above all, to achieve scale—is being proven false. The new conventional wisdom is that video will be digital media’s savior..."

Michael Wolff in The Hollywood Reporter agrees...

"The sinking value of web and mobile page views — heading to an increment barely above zero — has galvanized a flight at nearly every major digital media company to a premium video strategy, and even to television itself." 

From Paul Verna, senior analyst at eMarketer,  

“While so much debate has centered on a supposed tug-of-war between TV and digital video, the reality is that digital video is growing not at the expense of TV, but because video content is more popular than ever."

By far the bulk of video viewing is still done via TV programming. According to Toby Byrne, president of ad sales for Fox Networks Group, over 90% of video time is spent on “premium” video, i.e., traditional TV shows. And everyone's favorite obsession, millennials, spend 80% of their video time watching TV programming.

Online media publishers are hellbent on stealing consumer video time from television by becoming video content producers. What does this mean to consumers?

It means it's time to put on your hard hat. We're in for an avalanche of bad video.

Oh, and one more thing. According to Digiday, 85% of video on Facebook is viewed with the sound off.

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