ComScore Analyzed Cord-Cutter Behavior; Verizon Will Likely Be Slow To Integrate Yahoo

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A Score To Settle

ComScore dug into the media consumption habits of 870 households that consist of true cord-cutters – people who dropped a subscription for cable or satellite TV – as well as for a larger set of households with both linear and OTT subscriptions. Cord-cutters watch an average of 79 hours of OTT content per month, about 60% more than the 49 OTT viewing hours among households that also have cable subscriptions. “That may sound like a lot but it pales in comparison to traditional TV viewing,” writes Mike Rich, comScore’s VP of emerging products. “The average US household watched 225 hours of linear TV content in March.” More.

Slow And Steady

How fast will Verizon integrate Yahoo after the deal closes this week? Not very, judging from its progress with AOL, Mike Shields writes for Business Insider. “They have made some marginal progress but are nowhere near integrating the disparate data sets or unlocking the vision of integrating their content and people inside Oath,” one ad buyer says. The company may have to earn the esteem of advertisers and agencies, but no one denies the power of its data asset. As DigitasLBI head of social Shreya Kushari says, “While Google and Facebook are a bit of a black box, the data that [Verizon has] is real accurate verified. It’s extremely rich.” More.

Snap To It

Snap launched an agency training program called Snapchat Certified Partners, with 35 agencies in the program. Reminiscent of Facebook’s Blueprint training program, Snap Certified Partners trains agency buyers for an exam that will earn them a buyer certification or the next level of training. “Our ad business is still relatively new, so educating people on our ad product, our creative, our measurement system – all of those things will help our advertisers to get better performance,” says CSO Imran Khan. Snapchat also rolled out its self-serve buying product as it angles for more direct-response and app-install dollars. But, “This isn’t something that we can enter into on a self-serve basis,” Anthony Koziarski, head of media solutions at Resolution Media, told Adweek. “As they continue to iterate at such a speed, it’s almost impossible to keep up.” More.

Jet.com’s Jealous Parent

Walmart loves its Jet.com acquisition, which has jumpstarted overall ecommerce performance, “but one element of Jet’s success hasn’t sat well at the parent company.” Jet is phasing out “Kirkland Signature” products, a private label owned by Costco, America’s second-biggest retailer, reports Bloomberg News. Jet accounted for 5.5% of the Costco brand’s ecommerce revenue last year – compared to 23% via Costco’s owned-and-operated site. More. By contrast, Amazon drives almost 70% of Kirkland’s online sales even while churning out its own private label products.

Instant Gratification

Facebook may fulfill a long-awaited request from publishers to incorporate subscription services into Instant Articles. Details aren’t clear, but potential changes include direct subscription sign-ups through Facebook and content metered to users per month (a typical site strategy among paywalled publishers), reports The Wall Street Journal. The revenue model is still fuzzy. The move could open a new competitive front with Apple, whose App Store previously led the way on digital subscriptions. More.

Growing Pains

Univision has been buying its way into new media, acquiring publishers like Fusion, The Onion and Gawker’s post-bankruptcy assets. But digesting is harder than chewing. While Gizmodo Media Group, the combined Fusion-Gawker entity, expects a 30% increase in revenue this year, employees felt its culture as a digital media pioneer was squashed by its old-media parent. “It has been an unexpectedly bumpy transition, to put it mildly,” Gizmodo Media Group CEO Raju Narisetti wrote in a memo to employees. “And I want to personally acknowledge and apologize on behalf of Univision, FMG and GMG, for all the stress and angst this is causing.” More at Business Insider.

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