The boss of Fairfax Digital’s media sales operation has defended the company’s use of autoplay videos, saying the majority of users prefer them to start automatically and have the option to stop them, rather than the other way round.

Speaking on The Mumbo Report, Pippa Leary, MD – media for Fairfax Digital said: “What’s amazing is 75% of people who come to the site watch those videos to completion. We test it constantly. We ask them those questions – overwhelmingly they come back and say no, we prefer to stop it.”

Autoplay videos are a potential issue for advertisers who pay for pre-roll ads and want to be sure they are being viewed.

Leary also defended the publisher’s use of autorefresh – reloading a page every few minutes, and the ads with it. She said that Fairfax was “in the hunt” to find a new content management system to refresh editorial content without reloading the ads.

ADVERTISEMENT

Today sees Fairfax’s AGM in Melbourne.

In today’s Mumbo Report from Studio 33:

Pippa Leary also talks about Fairfax’s long form video ambitions;

IAB’s Paul Fisher reveals his greatest professional blunder



For those using devices that don’t support Flash, you can also watch this episode on Youtube.

Catch episode 71 and future episodes by subscribing to Mumbrella’s Mumbo Report YouTube channel.

And to The Mumbo Report on iTunes

With the support of: