PLYmedia’s SubPLY solution impacts audience-viewing habits for online video, particularly amongst non-English speaking audiences.

Daytime video watching increases significantly with ‘in mute’ option and added closed captions, ensuring longer viewing time.

Palo Alto, California - March 23rd, 2009 – PLYmedia, a pioneer in enriching online video, announced today the results from a recent trial where subtitles and captions were overlaid on online video. The trial showed that subtitles on average not only increased the duration of time that users spent watching the video by almost 40% but also significantly impacted viewership of videos in ‘mute’. The information was collected during a trial with a leading international online publisher of PLYmedia’s language accessibility solution, SubPLY, monitoring online video usage across almost 50 countries.

Without subtitles, the videos were watched (on average) 66% to completion, compared with 91% with subtitles. The average improvement in audience viewing was 38%. In addition, where subtitles appeared, 80% more people watched the entire video to completion, which is an important indicator for post-roll video ads and advertisers. The trial also showed that viewers watched the videos in ‘mute’ significantly more where subtitles existed versus when watching without subtitles.

The impact of subtitles was most evident amongst Spanish audiences – increasing the duration spent watching the online video by nearly 50%. PLYmedia’s SubPLY provides subtitles that enable online publishers to attract a wider global audience, and has been proven to be particularly effective for outreach to non-English speakers.

PLYmedia's closed captioning solution converts audio video into text video, opening up additional viewing opportunities for the hearing impaired and enabling office workers to silently watch videos in the workspace. Viewing online video with subtitles in mute is indicative of the growth in popularity of watching videos at the workspace.

“The results from the trial prove that subtitles and closed captioning have a substantial effect on online video viewing”, commented Yoni Silberberg, Co-founder and Director of Business Development. “We’ve proved the opportunity lost for online publishers not using subtitles – particularly for outreach to global audiences as publishers desire to attract a wider viewing audience and in particular, the lucrative non-English speaking market. As online video becomes an increasingly powerful communication channel – PLYmedia remains committed to enabling publishers to maximize its viewer engagement, and our SubPLY service has proved an excellent example of this.”

Press Contact: Rebecca Mandel PR Consultant
Koteret International
Tel. +972 3 575 5778 #110
Mobile +972 54 4297755
Fax +972 3 575 5887
Rebecca_m@koteret.com
www.koteret.com.