The NYT has a great article about the growth of online video advertising – here are some highlights, but the whole article is worth reading:
At a time when other categories of advertising dollars are shrinking, video ads are booming. News sites are adding more video inventory to keep pace with the demands of advertisers, and benefiting from the higher cost-per-thousands, or C.P.M.’s, that ads on those videos command.
The attention to video mirrors changes in how consumers are experiencing news. “Every watershed event leaves video more popular than before,” said Charles W. Tillinghast, the president of MSNBC.com.
Media companies typically do not break out figures for video advertising, and certainly the video revenue pales next to search and display advertising. But the growth has spurred investment and interest in video production.
The rate card for WSJ.com lists pre-rolls for a $75 C.P.M. before advertiser discounts. Mr. Quinn said the C.P.M. was around $50 last fall.
Among Web sites operated by newspapers, The New York Times, Gannett and Tribune each reach more than a million viewers a month with video streams, comScore says.
News sites account for only a small portion of the 25 billion video streams counted by comScore on an average month. The firm reported almost 500 million video streams in its news and information category in September — still a substantial figure. Most of the streams occurred on MSNBC.com (162 million, according to comScore) and CNN.com (148 million).
Beyond news sites, video is now the fastest-growing segment of the Internet advertising market. Digital video amounted to $477 million in revenue in the first half of 2009, up 38 percent from the same time period in 2008, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
Analysts say they expect the flow of online advertising dollars to video to continue. The research firm eMarketer projects 35 to 45 percent growth for the segment for each of the next five years, topping out at $5.2 billion in 2014. (Even then, it would hardly rival search advertising, which is projected to be a $16 billion business.)
Advertising – Online Ads Are Booming, if They’re Attached to a Video – NYTimes.com
