It's time to acknowledge that digital video will completely rule media's future
Every year in April and May, digital-media publishers gather in New York to show off their content to potential advertisers. This event, known as the "NewFronts," offers a peek into what the likes of Yahoo, BuzzFeed, and YouTube are planning to do to win over audience and advertisers.
The companies that can master digital video - and do so in a world where much of this video is viewed on smartphones, tablets, and PCs - will win the future. BI Intelligence research shows that the domestic digital-video ad market will grow 21.9%% on average of the next five years.
Here are just a few of the digital-video-related announcements made this week at the NewFronts:
- YouTube now reaches more US millennials between 18 and 34 just on mobile than any cable-TV channel does on television, according to Nielsen data cited by Google during its NewFronts event earlier this week. The stat is also true for slightly older viewers between 18 and 49, according to YouTube, says Google.
- Yahoo announced 18 new digital-video series.
- AOL announced it will produce a number of new video-series titles with big-name celebrities this year, including "Park Bench" featuring Steve Buscemi, and "Making A Scene" with James Franco.
- Condé Nast announced it will produce 2,500 new digital videos this year, including two series filmed in virtual reality.
- Yahoo announced 18 new digital-video series.
- BuzzFeed announced a new dashboard for managing video-advertising campaigns, Ad Age reports. BuzzFeed currently serves up 1 billion video viewers per month, according to the publisher.
- The New York Times debuted its virtual-reality film, "Walking New York." The Times will also produce a slew of digital-video series, including several documentaries and a new series from DealBook called "DealBook Explains."
- Hulu announced it has the exclusive streaming rights to the entire "Seinfeld" catalog, and exclusive rights to content from AMC networks. Hulu also announced five new originals series that will premier late this year. Hulu has 9 million subscribers, an increase of over 50% since last year.
- Online publisher Refinery29 will launch nearly 30 new video series geared towards millennials this year, AdWeek reports.
- Bloomberg announced Responsive.TV, an app that allows viewers to view Bloomberg videos at different durations (e.g. very short, medium, etc.). The videos are produced in such a way that none of them feel incomplete, but instead feel like a coherent whole, at the different durations. Bloomberg delivers 83 million video streams per month, according to the company.
This research post originally appeared on BI Intelligence. To read more of my research on digital media, please sign-up for a trial subscription at intelligence.businessinsider.com.