In the spring of 2017 Yandex has placed on its home page button “TV online” and started testing the show of television programs. Now live broadcast and programs of “Channel One”( “Perviy Kanal”), NTV, TNT, REN TV, “Channel 5”, “Russia-24”, RT , etc – are showing on the main page of Yandex.Teleprogramms – a total of 27 channels. Yandex plans to add federal and regional Russian TV channels, and also foreign TV channels, said Irina Skripnikova, the head of development of advertising of the company.

The partnership of Yandex and TV channels

“The negotiations about the connection are going in two threads. On the one hand, there is a baseline in which we speak with all leading TV channels. On the other hand, new channels come to us, we actively respond to their offers. Federal partners and local players are equally important for us. Often, large TV holdings, with several projects, connect one channel first, evaluate the results, and then add their other channels. Project is increasing partners gradually,” — Irina Skripnikova, the head of development of advertising of Yandex, said to Sostav.ru.
One of the major new agreements is with “Match TV”. Now Yandex is also actively working to attract foreign television content, said Irina Skripnikova in live broadcast of “Ask Yandex” on November 17.

One of the major new agreements is with “Match TV”. Now Yandex is also actively working to attract foreign television content, said Irina Skripnikova in live broadcast of “Ask Yandex” on November 17.

Audience of TV broadcasts on Yandex

Yandex uses its own technological infrastructure to display TV content, which makes the stream more stable. Television viewing on the main page and the portal of Yandex (as well as the integration of the VOD libraries into “Yandex.Video” and “Kinopoisk” services) allows expanding the audience of video content, according to the company.

Monthly audience of Yandex page with the TV broadcast is about 4 million people, according to Mediascope (September 2017, Russia, the population of 12-64 years, desktop).

Monetization of TV content

Now the project of Yandex with TV content monetized through video advertising on the broadcasts. All advertising sales are going through the advertising services of Yandex, said the Internet Company. In addition, Yandex has its own technology for the replacement of broadcast advertisement, Irina Skripnikova, the head of development of advertising, and Evgeny Zaytsev, head of development of the platform of video broadcasts, said in live broadcast of “Ask Yandex”.

On other platforms of Runet television content is monetized mainly by the largest seller of online advertising — Gazprom-Media Digital and IMHO. National Advertising Alliance, which sells advertising on most Russian television channels, offered Yandex a collaboration and monetization of TV content on the main page, was reported this spring. Apparently, the parties did not agree. The NAA did not respond to a request of Sostav.ru about partnership.

“The project is monetized through video advertising. First, it is pre-rolls and mid-rolls inside the broadcast and VOD, where there is no broadcast advertising and no possibility to replace it. Secondly, it is the replacement of broadcast advertising by video advertising from Yandex, for channels where there is a technical and legal ability. From the technology point of view it is two different formats of video advertising. The second format, which replacing broadcast advertising, is more complicated, but easier towards the user, it takes into account all our opportunities of relevant ads for targeting videos for different audiences and advertising does not create additional load. In this project, we are working with media video (where sales are made on the model of the fixed or auction CRM), and video additions in Direct (where sales are on models of ALS),” said Irina Skripnikova.

Potential of TV project of Yandex

Media Buying Agencies, respondents of Sostav.ru, found it difficult to say, if is it promising for TV channels to give their content to the home page of Yandex, and for brands to be placed in this content, because the model of advertising sales is not clear. Many players believe that third-party sellers and National Advertising Alliance (which started to monetize TV content in Internet and in the Big TV project) are selling advertisement on the home page of Yandex.

In this model of sales “the share of Yandex in the budgets of advertisers would not be big,” says Anna Valter, Digital Operations Director of Publicis Media. “For the channels the button “watch TV online” on the main page of Yandex is useful because it attracts more audience to their content. For advertisers the placement in TV content of Yandex is an additional method of inventory purchases in TV content,” — the expert adds.

Yandex explained that a new group of advertisers got access to video traffic in this project – non-television brands that still could not get on-air. In Yandex.Direct they can make creative video for the campaign using ready video templates from a large database of Yandex.

SOURCE: SOSTAV