Brightcove to Drive Radical Improvements in Video Economics and User Experience for Media Organizations

BOSTON, January 25, 2017 - The economic health of broadcasters, publishers, and other media companies is under great stress today.  A small handful of large platform companies are capturing the vast majority of marginal ad dollars spent, rapid technology changes and platform fragmentation are increasing the cost and complexity of operating an online video business, and broken ad-related user experiences pose increasing challenges to sustained, profitable growth among media businesses, according to a new Brightcove (NASDAQ: BCOV) whitepaper. 2017 is an inflection point for many of these organizations. The new whitepaper, Experience and Economics: Brightcove’s Manifesto for Media in 2017, provides a clear roadmap on how Brightcove will work with media companies to address these issues in 2017.

“Consumers are rebelling against bad ad experiences online. Their unwillingness to watch poorly executed ad-supported video and their use of ad blockers is putting a dent in revenue,” David Mendels, CEO, Brightcove said. “Platform players such as Facebook, Google, Snap and Twitter have invested heavily in video and are consuming the vast majority of incremental ad dollars in the market, making it harder for independent media organizations to maintain ad-supported businesses. And this is happening as these businesses continue to deal with the rising cost and complexity of delivering video to an expanding landscape of platforms.”

In response to the problem, Brightcove has published Experience and Economics: Brightcove’s Manifesto for Media in 2017 (read the blog here), in which Brightcove identifies three ways it will help media customers address these broad issues:

1. Radically improving the user experience. While online video viewing experiences have improved over the past decade, they still fall short of the instant on and uninterrupted experience that traditional TV has delivered to audiences throughout its history.  But achieving TV-quality experience - and the increased view times and repeat visits that the data shows will result from such improvements - is within reach. To get there, media businesses will need to integrate ads seamlessly into content via Server Side Ad Insertion (SSAI), continue to improve on video player load time and time to first frame, enable higher quality formats like 4K and UHD, and improve key Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics.  Read more on Brightcove’s blog.
2. Increasing video revenues by up to 50 percent. SSAI provides a better, more TV-like experience than client side ad insertion (CSAI), which has long been the standard for delivering pre-roll and mid-roll advertising, resulting in more views, longer view times, and more repeat visits. It also solves the reach problem, expanding monetization and reducing errors across devices that don’t work with the legacy CSAI approach, like Chromecast, Apple TV and a significant number of Android devices. Lastly, because advertising is seamlessly embedded in the video stream, it bypasses the impact of ad blockers, further increasing ad revenue potential. Improvements and availability of new recommendation and syndication technologies are also creating opportunities for greater returns on content investments.  Read more on Brightcove’s blog.
3. Reducing the cost of delivering great video experiences by as much as 50 percent. Video workflow is a complex web of platforms and standards. Technology innovations, such as Brightcove’s Dynamic Media Delivery capability, can dramatically reduce costs associated with bandwidth and storage, simplify production operations, and speed time to delivery.  Advances like OTT Flow can reduce service development and maintenance costs and speed time to market, enabling companies to compete with the industry giants and profitably serve audiences large and small. Harnessing the power of social platforms for video distribution can also lead to significant cost savings. Brightcove Social, which simplifies the the native delivery of video content through multiple social media platforms, offers savings in time and staff investment.   Read more on Brightcove’s blog.

“2017 will be a breakthrough year for many online video services and publishers. At Brightcove, our recent innovations will come together to address the three key issues that our media customers have highlighted as their primary concerns,” Mendels said. “We look forward to delivering the benefits of our investments to our customers over the coming months.”

Download Experience and Economics: Brightcove’s Manifesto for Media in 2017 here.

About Brightcove

Brightcove Inc. (NASDAQ:BCOV) is the leading global provider of powerful cloud solutions for delivering and monetizing video across connected devices. The company offers a full suite of products and services that reduce the cost and complexity associated with publishing, distributing, measuring and monetizing video across devices. Brightcove has thousands of customers in over 70 countries that rely on the company’s cloud solutions to successfully publish high-quality video experiences to audiences everywhere. To learn more, visit www.brightcove.com.

Press Contacts

North America:

Phil LeClare
Brightcove
(617) 674-6510
press@brightcove.com

Europe:

Rebecca Lake
WE Communications for Brightcove
+ 020 7632 3856
rlake@we-worldwide.com

This press release may include forward-looking statements regarding anticipated objectives, growth and/or expected product and service developments or enhancements. Such forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of the following words (among others): "believes," "expects," "may," "will," "plan," "should" or "anticipates," or comparable words and their negatives. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees but are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations contained in these statements. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent annual report on Form 10-K. Brightcove assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release in the event of changing circumstances or otherwise, and such statements are current only as of the date they are made.