Unicast

Why is CBS gaining, and what do they need to do to continue generating revenue from March Madness on Demand (MMOD)? Here's my take:

- Online video consumption is on the rise in general, as we know. More and more people have the hardware and bandwidth that makes this exercise more popular than in past years

- CBS is gaining because they are the only website that is allowed to stream video content for March Madness. They have purchased the rights to the tournament

- People planning to watch games online (54% from our survey) will need to go to the MMOD site, which is powered by CBSSports.com. So, even though they may be ESPN.com customers or Yahoo! Customers – they will inevitably go to CBSSports if they want to watch games

- Making the video free is a huge deal, consumers do not like to pay for video content online

- To continue to grow, they need to continue to promote the video coverage on their site. They need to innovate on the ad format perspective to charge a premium to their advertisers and also offer innovative, rich, and palatable experiences to the viewing online audience

Take a look at the full Ad Age article:

CBS scores $37 Million in Online Ad Sales for March Madness

Check out our 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament Fever Report:

http://www.unicast.com/Unicast_NCAA_Basketball_Survey.pdf.

March Madness is right around the corner but what are NCAA Basketball Tournamet followers doing to stay on top of scores, watch games and check the status of brackets?

According to Unicast’s 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament Fever Survey:

- 83% of March Madness fans will watch coverage on TV

- 44% will go online and just 10% will use a mobile device

- 20% plan to visit online newspapers and magazines barely beating social networks at 18%

A full report of the findings is available here: http://www.unicast.com/Unicast_NCAA_Basketball_Survey.pdf.