Dive Brief:
- Comcast is launching a new free streaming portal and is making advertising attractive for content partners by offering 70% of ad revenue they generate.
- The revenue split is better than content creators get from those that YouTube and Facebook offer.
- "Watchable," the new portal, gives Comcast a way to reach cord-cutting audiences.
Dive Insight:
Comcast is launching a new free streaming portal to reach the growing cord-cutting audience, especially among younger viewers. Even though the exact line up of content producers hasn’t been announced its expected to include Vox, Buzzfeed, NBC Sports, Refinery29 and Vice, among others. Comcast's "Watchable" has been compared to YouTube, and with the revenue split it plans to offer content partners, it will likely get the attention of its competition.
Comcast’s rival, Verizon, is also launching a streaming video service. Both moves reflect the fact younger viewers watch less conventional TV -- Nielson Total Audience Report for Q1 this year found the 18-34 age group watched less TV than any other group at just under 22 hours a week. No other age group watched less than 33 hours of TV per week.
There is industry speculation that beyond hoping to reach a younger audience, Comcast is also interested in the revenue sharing model instead of cable content licensing fees.