I’m inclined to agree with you for the most part. However, it is highly unlikely that we’ll see long-tail video publishers rank their own content as “not worth your time,” which is what the survey leans towards.

Back to me harping on the value exchange and content that is very difficult to effectively and efficiently monetize at any scale, regardless of the ad format.

Healthy discussion, of course. Just a lousy survey.

That’s the problem for most online viewers of one-off VoD content. They don’t really know how good the content they are going to see really is. They don’t know if they’ll get a preroll or not. They don’t know if the ad will be repeated a thousand times or actually be relevant. They don’t know if it’ll be 5 or 50 seconds long.

Once online video content and ad producers communicate what the actual ‘give and get’ will be, consumers will hang around during midrolls for shows they like….just like on TV.

Half are abandoning “once they encountered an ad.” Without any information about the length of the content or type of content, I’m guessing that we are talking mostly about pre-roll here (so said the headline of that section.) If a user sees the start of an ad without any information on the ad-to-content ratio (ie, they don’t know if its a 5, 15 or 30 second ad), then the conclusion they have drawn is that “there is nothing I am willing to give up as part of this value exchange. I am not even willing to give 5 seconds of my time in order to see this particular piece of content.”

Yes, it is the ad that is disruptive. I’m not arguing that point. But in the value exchange, the user provides insight into the perceived (and real) value of the content. Mid-roll abandonment tells the same story. Assume there is no pre-roll. When a user is presented with an ad, and has already been given “a taste” of the content, they are again faced with the decision about the value exchange - is it worth it to continue? Am I enjoying this content enough to give up :15 or :30 to ads? And, if the content is long enough to support mid-roll advertising, then it probably has some semblance of quality about it. Why anyone would watch a post-roll is still beyond me.

As I said, I’m assuming that the broadcast networks aren’t too concerned with their rates of abandonment. Why? They know the value of the content.