@ VOD Summit: Data Unavailable

(by Dorian Benkoil) The panel on VOD for Programmers spent a lot of time saying they’re having a hard time getting good data on usership. Ron Lemprecht, VP/New Media of NBC Universal Cable, complained that it could take up to five months for MSOs (cable operators) to get him data on how many viewers VOD content got, compared to, say, home video, which has almost instantaneous data from retailers like Walmart on how many units were sold.

It’s hard for me to believe that anyone has to, or is willing to, wait for data in today’s world.

The assertion of the need for more data was repeated in later panels, prompting Comcast’s Thurston to speak up and say that “there’s no conspiracy to withhold information” but rather it was a desire to not start releasing data in the absence of industry-wide standards that all the MSOs agree on. “We are happy to have science and math on the VOD front, so we will be very forthcoming with as much information as possible, but also want to do it in a unified front, in a unified way across the industry,” he said.

The Kagan VOD Summit coverage is sponsored by Maven Networks’ IP VOD Delivery Platform

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