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March 28, 2024

Voxant’s “Newsroom” One of Few That’s Growing

Important Details: Online video. Online advertising. It’s one of the main matings of 2007, as industry estimates say online video ads are expected to pick up share from text paid search in the coming years. Outsell’s own Annual Ad Spending Survey (Jan. 19, 2007) reported that online video advertising would gain 6% of the budgets redirected from newspaper and trade magazine spending. Just in recent months we’ve seen the announcements of video-embracing Google Universal and new Ask.com, placing videos next to text in search. CNN’s Pipeline video service has gone from paid to free and inline videos are becoming a staple of NYTimes.com.

Voxant has grown into that arena, connecting video producers and online distributors. Building on a mature broadcast transcript business, Voxant has emerged as a leading syndicator of online video, like its more text-oriented competitor Mochila, building its supply side. Since its “Newsroom” launch in March Voxant has grown its offerings substantially:

  • It now offers 175 sources of video, from Dow Jones and McClatchy Tribune Information Services to GulfCoastNews.com and the HuffingtonPost, Susan Kearney, vice-president of strategy for Voxant, told Outsell. Recently announced was its first foray into local news broadcast video, as it licensed content from CBS‘ 13 owned-and-operated stations, as well as national CBS. In total, Kearney says Voxant has 300,000 content units in its system, with 3,000 being added daily. While it is video-heavy (80% of its syndication business), text licensing is a small part of its mix.
  • It has 3,700 distributors in its system, 65% of which are websites and 35% of which are blogs.
  • While Voxant is willing to offer video on a license fee basis, its ad revenue share model is the one that almost all distributors choose. With no upfront or set-up fees, Voxant shares revenue from video pre-roll advertising. Distributors take a 20% share of the ad buy, with Voxant and the content producer then splitting the remainder 50/50. Kearney declined to say how much revenue is moving through the system currently, but noted that video CPMs are running $25-$65, depending mostly on brand value of the content. As the business matures, Kearney expects topics – finance, health, travel+ – will drive differentiated pricing. Its recently launched Campaign 2008 product focuses on the the politics of the day.

Using a self-service web metaphor, Voxant hosts and serves the video on distributor sites, which must use the Voxant player.

Implications: “Content type” has finally entered the vocabulary of traditional media, whether print publishers or broadcasters. It’s clear that readers/viewers enjoy both reading and viewing, and that online they can toggle between the two in ways legacy media couldn’t offer.

Voxant’s syndication play is one of those kinds of connectors that make sense going forward. As a single point of aggregation, it makes licensing and offering video easier. In addition, its viral mashing program, in which distributors essentially became re-sellers in a daisy-chain fashion, is smart at embracing the pass-on nature of the web. Forgoing traditional licensing fees – which have long been a barrier to online content sales – the ad share model reduces still another barrier to entry.

There are numerous strategic questions for web publishers here. The video world is still highly fragmented, as publishers work through the questions of producing their own video, bringing in video from several sources, working their technical player issues, and figuring out how best to monetize the new medium. Voxant is one part of that learning and bears checking out.