Ads on Live Videos Drive the Market, Showing Impressive Growth

Ads on short and mid-form videos are growing. Ads on long-form videos are growing even more. But if you want to see what real growth looks like, look to live video.

Online video monetization company FreeWheel is back with its latest quarterly Video Monetization Report, and this one shows that live is the place to be. Q2 2015 saw a 25 percent year-over-year growth in video views and a 32 percent growth in ad views. That exceeded expectations for what is typically a slow quarter, the report says.

But when you break those ad views down by video type, a strong trend emerges. Ad views for short and mid-form videos grew by 16 percent year-over-year, and those for long-form video grew by 26 percent year-over-year. The real driver is live video, which showed a 146 percent year-over-year growth rate.

The report looks at a variety of topics, including living room streaming devices. The Apple TV might be well overdue for an update, but that isn't stopping its progress. For the first time Apple TV owned the largest share—39 percent—of the OTT video ad view market. Apple TV was only at 28 percent the year before. Roku slipped into second place with 32 percent. What changed, says FreeWheel, is that Apple launched several popular apps for viewing video. Chromecast is still at number 3, and its total dropped a bit from 12 percent last quarter to 11 percent in Q2. Connected TVs own a scant 3 percent of the OTT video ad market, but that's up from 2 percent last quarter.

For smartphones, FreeWheel finds the market evenly divided between iOS and Android devices. In Q2, iPhones streamed 53 percent of all mobile video ads, up from 50 percent the previous quarter. Android devices counted for 46 percent. The report notes that strong sales for the iPhone 6 helped Apple push forward. Not only were iPhone sales high, but so were the rates of people switching from other platforms. With the iPhone 6s announcement and launch imminent, it's worth watching to see if Apple can maintain that momentum.

Download the full report for free (registration required).

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net