Video is growing quickly at AOL. The company is now streaming around 700 million videos a month and reaching about 42 million unique viewers. “If you think about the scale, these are actually TV numbers,” Tal Simantov, General Manager of AOL On, told us in an interview at the recent Beet.TV executive retreat.
Simantov says, “For the last 6 months we’re ranked the second largest video platform, second only to YouTube.” If you take into consideration the fact that most of YouTube’s traffic comes from user generated content as opposed to premium content, Simantov says, “we’re the largest premium platform out there.”
Not only has AOL’s video content, which includes shows like Little Women Big Cars and Fetching, seen television numbers in terms of views and uniques, but it has also seen interest from television networks. AOL Auto’s Translogicwill make the leap from the web to the television screen this year, airing on FOX Sports Media Group’s SPEED—”another sign of how online video has started to merge with TV content.” Simantov says, “we’re hoping to see more and more shows that are coming from our production studios going live on TV and merging with the other screen.”
In the video interview, Simantov also discusses recent deals that AOL has struck with Discovery and Martha Stewart. He explains that on the curation side, AOL is looking to bring more and more television brands in to join their library, which currently includes content from E, the BBC, the Travel Channel and others.
