Audience Engagement
2 mins read

FreeWheel Video Monetisation Report reveals growth of live and ‘TV-style’ ad viewing

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FreeWheel, the leading video advertising management solution, has today announced the launch of its Q2 2017 Video Monetisation Report (VMR), revealing that the growth of premium video is continuing apace across all devices and platforms, with viewers particularly embracing live and TV-quality digital content.

The report found that Europe saw a 44% year-over-year (YOY) increase in premium video starts, while ad views grew by 21% – compared with 26% and 17% respectively in the US – highlighting the European market’s unique monetisation trends.

The figures also demonstrated that more consumers are watching full-episode video ad content, with entertainment dominating, and that a growing number of viewers are tuning into live content, with sport being the main focus.

The importance of user experience, TV-quality content and devices that allow ‘linear-style’ viewing were also evident in the latest figures. While desktop ad views continued to decline (down 15% YOY), OTT and STB VOD grew again, with 49% of ad views happening on traditional televisions.

Additional findings from the report included:

  • While the growth of live video in Europe (up 12% YOY) was slower than in the US (up 40% YOY), the rise does suggest that broadcasters are becoming more willing to experiment with content type
  • The European market is significantly ahead of the US when it comes to programmatic, with 21.6% of all monetisation happening via this channel (compared to 11% in the US)
  • Ad views on smartphones (20%) and OTT devices (24%) continue to steadily increase in Europe, while desktop’s share of views, at 34% for 2017, decreased

The FreeWheel Video Monetisation Report is released quarterly and highlights the changing dynamics of how enterprise-class content owners and distributors are monetising premium digital video content.

The dataset used for this report is one of the largest available on the usage and monetisation of professional, rights-managed video content worldwide, and is based on census-level advertising transaction data collected through the FreeWheel platform.

The full report can be downloaded here: http://freewheel.tv/insights/#video-monetization-report