Canoe Says VOD Ad Impressions Rose 21%

Canoe says that video on demand ad impressions rose to nearly 5 billion during the first quarter.

In a new report, Canoe, owned by Comcast, Cox and Charter, says it delivered 4.995 billion impressions, up 21% from 4.133 billion in the first quarter of 2016.

During all of 2016, Canoe delivered a record 17.9 billion impressions.

Canoe handles VOD dynamic ad insertion when shows from national TV networks run on MVPDs' VOD platforms.

Canoe ran 2,286 campaigns during the first quarter, up 31% from 1,751 a year ago. Canoe said that 75% of the campaigns were for external clients and 25% were comprised of network tune-in ads. The campaigns for clients were in a broad variety of categories ranging from addiction help to auto sales to toys and travel.

The vast majority of VOD ads ran as mid-rolls, with 4.2 billion running in the middle of content, compared to 733 million running as pre-roll and 95 million delivered as post-roll.

There was an average of 3.84 ads in each mid-roll break, down from four a year ago. Some clients employ frequency capping to make sure their ads don’t run too often during a show being view on VOD. The average campaign is capped at two impressions per episode.

There was an average of 1.13 pre-roll ads per episodes, up from one a year ago, and 1.05 ads in the post-roll position, up from one.

The weekends remain the most popular time for VOD delivery, with 817 million ad impressions coming on Sundays and 806 million on Saturday. The most popular weekday is Monday, with 703 million.

(Photo via FamZoo Staff's FlickrImage taken on May 25, 2016 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 3x4 aspect ratio.)

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.