Online Video Platform Expands Opportunities for Monetizing Live Event Streaming
SAN FRANCISCO – Episodic, Inc., an emerging online video platform provider, unveiled a solution for inserting mid-roll advertising into live streaming content. With the Episodic Live Ad Manager, live event producers can easily insert standard ad units delivered by Episodic or any of the major ad servers directly into live online broadcasts. This technology signals a major shift in the revenue potential for live events, opening up doors for significant monetization opportunities in delivering live video on the web.
“This unique technology opens up a new pool of ad inventory for publishers and allows them to maximize revenue from their live events,” said Matias Cudich, VP Product Management at Episodic. “Publishers often simulcast their television broadcasts to the Web with ads and all. Although these publishers are broadcasting the same commercials twice, once on television and then again on the Web, oftentimes they are not paid twice for these advertisements. Now with Episodic, publishers can simulcast their broadcasts online and open up a new pool of ad inventory that their online ad sales teams can sell against.”
With this innovation, Episodic is offering programmers and cable operators a real-time, multi-platform ad campaign management and decision system for delivering timely and relevant ads during live streaming sessions. Ad placement for a live event may be pre-programmed or inserted manually from the Episodic Live Ad Manager.
A Customized Viewing Experience
Rather than mixing the advertisement into the actual video stream, Episodic sends a command to the video player, which responds by playing the right advertisement at the appropriate moment in the live stream, as dictated by the director of the live event. When there is a break in the action, a call is made to an ad server and delivered flawlessly, without any stutters or buffering, ensuring a television-like experience online. Because the ad is not actually mixed into the live content feed, ads may be served from remote ad servers and localized to the viewer. For example, fans in Brazil may see one advertisement during a live event while fans in France see another.
This technology is not limited to advertising and can be used to create a more dynamic and engaging viewing experience. For instance, a producer may add content during the live stream to indicate that a player has just scored a touchdown. That content can then be sent to the Episodic player which would react by bringing up instant highlight reels from the last five touchdowns the player scored. These sorts of dynamic experiences where the video player reacts in real-time to the action in the frame are unique to the web and essential for driving viewer adoption and monetization of live web video.
Episodic is now offering dynamic live ad insertion as a standard component of the Episodic Publishing Platform. Episodic continues to extend its lead as the only online video platform that allows content publishers to manage and monetize both live and on-demand video from a single application.
About Episodic, Inc.
The Episodic publishing platform enables the broadcast of live and on-demand video to any web site, mobile phone or Internet connected device. With Episodic, content producers are able to push video to their web properties, showcase content via social networks, and even build custom branded iPhone applications around their media. Episodic spans the video value chain, providing everything publishers need to manage, measure and monetize their content. Episodic is based in San Francisco, CA and is privately held.
