Media Companies Leaning Toward TV Everywhere, Away From SVOD, S&P Says

Instead of going through independent subscription VOD services like Amazon.com, Hulu and Netflix, media companies are increasingly exploring other SVOD models -- particularly ones giving "more control over their content and opportunities to yield more profit over the next two to three years," Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said in a report released Wednesday, "Conversations on the Road: Media Companies Finally Take a Stand on SVOD." Media companies "recognize that ... they have given up too much control of their content to the SVOD operators and are not being compensated for the content's full value," S&P said. As their current SVOD distribution agreements expire, media companies will put more content into TV Everywhere, giving them that greater control and better shot at monetization, S&P said. Meanwhile, since Nielsen doesn't measure SVOD viewing, media companies, advertising agencies and others "are furiously building out their data-driven programmatic advertising capabilities," but there still is no one universally accepted audience measurement system -- meaning advertising dollars continue to move from TV "to other media that can provide a more accurate measure of return on invested capital," S&P said. Nielsen's Total Audience measurement is expected to be done by year's end, and rolling out beginning in early 2016, the report said.