Avail-TVN has come up with some new dynamic ad insertion (DAI) tools to help content providers monetize VOD viewing.
DAI in VOD and TV Everywhere has been a growing opportunity for cable operators, content owners and ad agencies. With the increase in available VOD content, most notably free VOD offerings, cable operators and other stakeholders have been looking for ways to monetize all of those on-demand views. According to Rentrak’s “State of VOD Trend Report,” there were 8.8 billion VOD transactions performed in 2011, indicating a huge opportunity for monetizing VOD assets.
Last year, Avail-TVN launched its advanced advertising insertion and marketing service (AAIM), and today it announced that it now supports mid-roll content marking and stream conditioning services, in addition to encoding and editing workflow. The end result is a DAI application at the edge that was designed for seamless playout.
Avail-TVN has added placement opportunity authoring and management capabilities, which allow placement opportunity business rules to be made available through a POIS interface, under SCTE 130 standards, or inserted into the content metadata in accordance with CableLabs SaFI (Stewardship and Fulfillment Interfaces) specifications.
Avail-TVN also offers interface support to manage the metadata exchange between content providers and operators. Avail-TVN said it had successfully integrated Content Information Service (CIS) and Placement Opportunity Information Service (POIS) interfaces into multiple, commercially deployed ad decision systems, but it didn’t say who the industry partners were.
“Until now, content providers have not been able to fully realize the promise of dynamic ad insertion,” said Laurie Lawrence, chief marketing officer at Avail-TVN. “With the only approach that enables mid-roll ad insertion for their content in any environment, Avail-TVN is delivering the industry’s only working solution for increased revenue opportunities from VOD content. As TV Everywhere applications and increased use of on-demand services continue to change the face of television viewing, the ability to monetize content on any screen, in any environment, will be a key component of the digital video ecosystem’s growth strategy.”
With the recent additions to its AAIM service, Avail-TVN said it could now capture the live network feed, QC for the Nielsen watermark, encode the program, apply the advertising insertion mark into the stream or metadata, and author the placement opportunity rules for future advertising insertion once the C3 window expires.
Avail-TVN will be showing its advanced advertising service at next week’s Cable Show in executive suite 33.
Last year, BlackArrow added mid-roll capabilities and application programming interfaces (APIs) to its DAI in VOD platform. Last month, BlackArrow released new software that was designed to help cable operators work with programming networks to expand the sale, placement and measurement of dynamic advertising insertion across IP and traditional pay-TV platforms.
Among cable operators, Comcast and Rogers Communications have both been active on the DAI front.