y mum still sits down with a TV
exclusive TV shows and movies are high on subscribers’ wish lists. Breadth also counts, as we expect a rich mixture of global hits, local content and live events – and we are quite prepared to unsubscribe if we don’t get them. Content doesn’t all have to be of universal appeal, however, as one of the upsides of the drive to digital has been the ability to produce local or niche programming that is both affordable and watchable. “Lower-league sport, local news, civic meetings, education, worship all have a genuine audience, but they never had an affordable route to reach it,” says Roy Hasson, VP of product marketing and SaaS sales at LiveU. “Spedeworth TV is a good illustration: motorsport that would never have justified a full OB truck now gets LiveU-supported, multi- angle, cloud-produced coverage most weekends of the season. The opportunity isn’t defending the mass audience that used to exist; it’s serving 50 smaller ones at a cost that works.” The trap is assuming that more accessible and less expensive can mean shoddy. “Audiences haven’t lowered their standards, and a feed that looks or sounds cheap loses them no matter how local it is,” warns Andrew Starks, director of product marketing at Macnica. “A broadcaster’s edge over an open platform is exactly the trust that comes from quality and curation, so the winners will pair accessibility with real production values.” Even when we all watch the same event, we don’t necessarily want to experience it in the same way.
listings magazine and plans her day’s viewing from what’s on offer. But she is 97 and is one of a vanishing breed. “Today’s viewers are building their own experience
across multiple touchpoints,” says Pierce Kafka, CEO of Kafka Media Group. “Someone might discover a new series from a TikTok clip, watch the full episode on a streaming platform, listen to the cast on a podcast next morning, and then buy tickets to a live event because they feel connected to the story. So viewers are no longer loyal to platforms, they’re loyal to stories, personalities and communities, and they’ll follow the content wherever it lives.” This fragmentation can be a real headache for broadcasters and streaming platforms as they slug it out in the perennial war for eyeballs. But even in this brave new world, some things remain reassuringly familiar, principally the fact that – like my mum – we still want something decent to watch. “Content remains the primary driver of subscriptions and subscriber retention, and new, exclusive content is one of biggest reasons consumers subscribe or return to streaming services,” says Anastasia Budash, lead analyst at Futuresource Consulting. According to Futuresource’s Living With Digital consumer survey, brand- new Hollywood blockbusters and
ON THE RIGHT TRACK Channels such as Spedeworth TV, which broadcasts stock car races, can reach audiences with quality content in an affordable way
Powered by FlippingBook