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[originally posted as PeerLogix (LOGX): OTT Data Licensing Takes Center Stage by CNA Finance - March 2019]
As the ‘cord cutting’ phenomenon continues to grow, the OTT landscape has become crowded by up-and-coming OTT networks, newly minted streaming content distributors and major media companies interested in taking the OTT plunge. Digital media trade headlines are regularly filled with stories of investments, acquisitions and launches of new streaming content offerings. And, as in any sector where there is exuberant speculation and tight competition, increasingly, there is a hunt for the data that can provide even the smallest competitive advantage. PeerLogix (OTCQB: LOGX) is positioned to play a key role in helping those companies successfully navigate the evolving landscape by offering them unlimited access to the company’s vast library of historical and real-time OTT viewership data.
PeerLogix’s Data Licensing Offering
With its patented technology platform sitting ‘in the stream,’ PeerLogix sees a massive amount of raw viewership data – over 50,000 premium shows and movies across dozens of streaming platforms. The company takes this vast amount of fragmented global OTT viewership data and packages it into valuable data products made available for purchase in the advertising industry.
In addition to its lead role in leveraging OTT viewership data to allow advertisers to target content consumers across the programmatic media ecosystem, however, PeerLogix also licenses its vast library of historical and real-time streaming viewer data to parties across the video content landscape – from up-and-coming OTT networks to major traditional players – allowing them to conduct proprietary analyses of the company’s data sets. The data can then be parsed to reveal correlated behavior and preference patterns across households and by specified categories.
Potential uses for this data, outside of direct media buying, include: content recommendation strategies, content licensing decisioning, viewership reconsolidation and investment research.
PeerLogix Data in User Conquesting
Anyone who has spent time binging their favorite content on OTT/streaming behemoths like Netflix (NADAQ: NFLX), Hulu and Amazon Prime (NASDAQ: AMZN) understand the ‘sticky’ power of a well-executed content recommendation engine. And the OTT networks understand it as well. The ability to suck viewers in and keep them watching speaks directly to their bottom line. And while these OTT big boys may not need help beefing up their perceived value, there is an army of mid-tier OTT networks doing battle to steal viewers away from the titans…and away from each other.
To accomplish the holy grail of conquesting a competitor’s audience, it is a tremendous advantage to have the content ready to stream that they most want to consume. And to build a library of the best possible content, with the highest correlation to a desired audience, requires information that very often lies beyond one’s own reach. Because understanding preferences for content you already have is only one piece of the correlation puzzle. The other piece is about tying in data from content that is ‘out there’ but that you do not already have. And this is the data – gleaned from networks across the spectrum – that PeerLogix can make available.
And to understand just how competitive the mid-tier OTT network space is, it may be useful to meet just a few of the contenders.
- Pluto TV may now be the most recognized name in the group, due to its recent acquisition by Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA)
- Fubo TV has raised $150 million to date and recently added content from MTV, Nickelodeon, and other Viacom properties (an OTT ‘double dip’ from Viacom)
- Tubi boasts Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF.A) and MGM (NYSE: MGM) as key strategic investors
- Philo TV’s CEO that is considered one of the co-founders of Facebook
PeerLogix Data Solves the ‘Walled-Garden’ Challenge
When it comes to making distribution decisions for their growing library’s of original and curated content, OTT programmers have sometimes run into a bit of a Catch-22. While they depend on deals with ‘app-centric’ third-party platforms like Apple TV and Roku to amplify their reach, the rules of engagement for these ‘walled-garden’ players often mean giving up the ability to glean and leverage the valuable viewership data sets, even from their own content.
Here is a perfect example of how PeerLogix’s data licensing offering provides a ‘best of both worlds’ solution. The data sets that PeerLogix is able to capture are easily large enough to act as proxies for the data lost to deals with top-tier players, leaving the programmer with both the reach and revenue they need as well as the data sets necessary to help them plan, curate and create content that will help build their business models.
PeerLogix Data Can Help Big Media’s Land Grab
Traditional media giants have made no secret of their interest in the OTT marketplace. In addition to the aforementioned acquisition by Viacom of Pluto TV, stalwarts like Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS), AT&T (NYSE: T), NBCU, CBS (NYSE: CBS) and many others have all laid their bets on the OTT/ streaming table.
To understand the value of data sets like those offered by PeerLogix to these major players as they build out their audiences and strive to create and curate content which will ultimately win over and keep users, we need only heed the words of CBS CEO, Joe Ianniello in an interview [last year] with MediaPost as he describes the value the company has seen in its own audience data leveraged from the company’s highly successful streaming play, CBS All Access”
“[Thanks to] the data that we're getting, we're really starting to sell beyond demographics. And I think that is really proving to be extremely valuable to our advertising clients, but also to the content creators as hopefully, we can make shows that speak to our audiences as we learn more and more about them. Showtime [another CBS property] has been in the subscription business since inception, but never had any of the data on the subscribers, because the third-party distributors had a hold on that. Now we have that for the first time and we're getting smarter and smarter with all that.”
The Bottom Line
The bottom line, here, is a relatively simple one. PeerLogix isn’t just an advertising play. LOGX is leveraging their patent-protected platform, and the data it surfaces, to not only give advertisers the data that they need to be successful in this evolving environment, but it is also providing content creators, programmers, and distributors more with valuable insights that have the potential to greatly increase their position in the ecosystem and their perceived value as the OTT ’wild west’ settles and takes its place as a major media segment. All in all, LOGX, with its data licensing offering, is a powerful partner in the fight to achieve a real understanding of the streaming content industry, as well as a necessary tool for those looking to capitalize on the changing behaviors of video content consumers.