Corus putting more focus on AVOD strategy

High demand among advertisers for premium content to be siloed in ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) platforms has driven Corus Entertainment Inc. to place more attention on that strategy. Noting a statistic that only 12 per cent of premium content in the United States is being watched online through an AVOD platform -- not including YouTube-type content -- Corus CEO Doug Murphy said those numbers are being mirrored in Canada and his company is maximizing all platforms to take its premium brands out from behind a paywall. The company became the first Canadian broadcaster to launch its Global TV channel on Roku, which brought its AVOD service to Canada last year. Global TV is also available on Comcast, Android TV, iOS, and Amazon Fire. “In the coming year, we’ll explore additional platform opportunities,” Murphy said Friday on a conference call with analysts following Corus' fourth quarter earnings report. The value of AVODs has been increasing, as have subscription-based services like Netflix Inc. The CRTC’s 2017 Communication Monitoring Report shows a trend of rapid revenue growth for both AVODs and subscription video-on-demand services over the past five years in Canada. From that period — between 2012 and 2016 — the compound annual growth rate of AVODs has been 33.6 per cent, compared with 47 per cent of SVODs. The latest numbers show AVOD platforms increased revenues from 2016 to 2016 by 21.1 per cent to $582.9 million in the Canadian market. Last year, BCE Inc. announced the launch of two new AVOD services. Corus is also focusing its efforts on its audience-based buying platform, called Cynch. It said that the audience segments -- such as “foodies” and “fashionistas” -- have been attractive to advertisers and said Rogers Communications Inc. is onboard to use the same segments for its own ad-buy strategy around the beginning of next year. Recently, Bell teamed up with Stingray Group Inc. for targeted ad segments for radio and audio streaming. Murphy noted that he hopes other broadcasters will adopt its audience segments to create uniformity in the market, but said that could take a “couple years to get a common industry standard. “It’s impossible to argue with the merit of doing this,” he added. With the federal vote on Monday, Murphy also reflected on this campaign as being different when it comes to recognizing the need for internet companies to contribute to the system. “I think for the first time in many, many years the people that make the decisions as regards regulations of our industry and the broadcasting sector are aware of the fact that the time is now to act and so let’s just see what happens when we get a new government,” he said. The federal election has so far yielded promises from the parties for foreign internet players to pay into the Canadian system. Murphy has made his position clear on previous calls about foreign internet companies coming into the country and not paying the same tax that Canadian corporations do. “The government lacks the will to do is right, because it’s politics,” he said on another call earlier this year. “God knows we need the revenue,” Murphy said on Friday. For the three months ending Aug. 31, Corus revenues were down to $377.5 million compared to $379.1 million in the same quarter last year, with both television and radio seeing slides. Profit was also overall down for its combined television, radio and corporate segments, which sat at just under $110,000 compared to the $114,561 it brought in over the same period. — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Corus putting more focus on AVOD strategy

News | October 18, 2019

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Corus putting more focus on AVOD strategy

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