I Want To Change TV: Mitch Berman, CEO of ZillionTV (Part 6)

SM: In terms of an investment thesis, how many millions of dollars has ZillionTV raised?

MB: Not going to be speaking to that right now.

SM: The investment thesis on which the premise of this company is built is that there is going to be some superior user personalization experience that is dramatically going to change the viewing experience for the television user without the need to interact with the computer.

MB: That is correct. There is no subscription and no charge for any hardware device, either.

SM: Let’s drill down on those key points, because those are industry legacy models.

MB: Without getting into the IP details, we started out the conversation with discussion about the ecosystem. That is based on a foundation of partnership and revenue share. For an advertiser, the ability to send a targeted ad is huge. In our case, a pull model versus a push model is dramatic. When a person asks for a particular brand, every time he does that he is clicking around and we are collecting valuable information. We have taken the best from Amazon, TiVo, Google, and others and we have created a new algorithm which allows the advertiser to only pay when someone is viewing their ad.

Rather than me sending an ad out into the universe and having no idea what it is doing, I now know much more precisely what it is doing. We are collecting data. That said, if ZillionTV is going to empower consumers like I say, then we had better protect their privacy rights. ZillionTV’s privacy policy is steeped into the company. We allow consumers to opt in. We can then provide information to the advertiser, which will give them tremendous efficiencies that they lack today.

SM: One of your differentiators as an advertising channel is that you are going to be able to do better targeting and deliver better analytics to your advertisers. By doing so you are eliminating the subscription charge and the box charge?

MB: That is correct, that is one of the things we are able to do.

SM: One of the things that is a problem with the current television model is that the consumer gets charged multiple times. Consumers get penalized three different ways, and you are trying to take two of them off and focus on the advertising?

MB: Yes. In the ecosystem we are trying to create, everything we do is about creating win-wins. The viewer gets what he wants. A single guy does not want to watch diaper ads. If you don’t have a pet then you do not want to watch dog food ads. The ability for advertisers and consumers to both win is critical.

SM: What expectation is there that the consumer will participate in the weeding-out process?

MB: When you first register for the ZillionTV service you tell us about your interests. The more you tell us, the more personalized the service will be for you and the happier you will be with it.

SM: Your assumption is that the consumer is willing to give out a lot of information when she signs up.

MB: The more information they provide about their specific interests, the more personalized experience they will enjoy on ZillionTV. We gather that data up front, on an opt-in basis.

SM: How have your focus groups responded?

MB: In a very positive fashion. I don’t know if it was Forrester, but someone just did a study about people who were given an opportunity to view ads with TV shows that they were able to self-select. The results were interesting. Seventy percent said that they would be willing and prefer to do that on TV. This is one of the things that we are testing right now in our Beta rollout. Things like how people are using it, and where they like the ad to be placed within the actual programming.

SM: That is another piece of your thesis. You are really changing the model of the business. Is there anybody else in the industry that has a similar approach?

MB: There are hybrids of it, but nobody else is doing it like we do because of the business intelligence technology we have behind it. TiVo has been trying to do this for some time and they have done a good job of opening the door. ZillionTV is expanding this capability.

SM: TiVp is a box the consumer buys.

MB: Very good! However, they and others do not do data intelligence in near real time. This is another key differentiator for ZillionTV.

SM: TiVo does not stream, and it is not a video on-demand service. They are a DVR.

MB: Exactly. Correct. However, they call themselves a video on-demand service because they are taking shows off linear TV, storing them, and now you are watching it on-demand. In contrast, ZillionTV is on-demand that is not based on linear channel recording.

SM: You are also server-based versus being client-based.

MB: That is the other thing we have. No hard drive in the box or downloading required.

This segment is part 6 in the series : I Want To Change TV: Mitch Berman, CEO of ZillionTV
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