The Online Video Infrastructure Challenge

I’m at the Online Publishers Association Global Forum listening to a panel with digital execs from Disney-ABC, NBC Universal, and CBS (moderated by Larry Kramer of CBS). Some interesting comments on the deep infrastructure problems that online video needs to overcome.

1. What ad creative works?

15 second, 30 second, pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll — oy vey

“It requires a lot of time and energy with advertisers and agencies to figure out what works.” — Betsy Morgan, SVP and GM, CBSNews.com

The market for online video will undoubtedly be huge — but WHO, exactly, has the time and resources to figure out how to make advertising work in the fragmented, distributed, networked, and highly targeted online world?

2. How to manage audience targeting in a syndicated, networked world?

Albert Cheng, EVP, Digital Media, Disney-ABC Television Group, made the observation that more you syndicate video content, the more difficult it becomes logistically to measure and define audiences for the purpose of ad sales.

As Jeff Jarvis (who is sitting right behind me blogging the conference) observed, there’s a big opportunity here.

Interesting asides:

– CBS has a “team of lawyers” who issues daily takedown notices to YouTube for pirated videos — Betsy Morgan emphasized that every pirated video taken down is replaced by a legitimate copy, so as not to be hostile to consumers by depriving them of content they want.

– ABC ranks right after Google, Yahoo, AOL as a top recognized online brand.