Digiday Research: Where publishers get their video revenues

That led us to question the source of publishers’ existing video revenues. In a survey of 51 publishers at the Digiday Video Summit, the vast majority said they make most of their video revenues from their owned and operated sites, but almost half reported revenues from Twitter.

Owned and operated sites are publishers’ second most-used platform for video distribution, behind YouTube. But these sites contribute significantly more than YouTube to publishers’ revenues. While 82 percent of publishers make money off YouTube, just 6 percent of that group makes at least half of their video revenues there. In contrast, 79 percent of publishers attributed at least half of their video revenues to their owned and operated sites.

For the foreseeable future, owned and operated sites will continue to be publishers’ preference for hosting video, as companies like Refinery29 redesign their sites to emphasize video viewership. But as publishers seek scale via platforms, they are increasingly prioritizing YouTube over former video view goldmine Facebook. Genius now has a YouTube-first video strategy, for example, calling YouTube its “most important platform.” Other publishers favor YouTube because the platform offers a more predictable revenue stream than Facebook.

Fewer publishers earn revenue from Twitter than from Facebook, according to the survey from Digiday’s video summit. But that could change if more publishers, like The Weather Channel, stop distributing videos on Facebook. Since Facebook de-emphasized publishers’ posts in its news feed, publishers have seen a boost in video views coming from Twitter. As Twitter tries to capitalize on Facebook’s retreat from publishers’ video, Twitter’s Amplify program has increased the ways publishers can monetize videos on the platform to include sponsorships with standard pre-roll ads.

Other platforms, including Apple News and Tumblr, offer ways for publishers to make money, but those efforts are still in the development stage. Apple News, which started selling ads on video content last year, has yet to become a significant revenue source for publishers. Verizon is attempting to turn Tumblr into a home for original video series, but the platform lacks a clear video distribution and monetization strategy.