As in many countries, TV and video viewership in the UK registered a surge during Covid. However, as consumers re-emerged from lockdowns, TV viewing time declined. Ofcom’s fifth annual Media Nations UK 2022 Report offers insight into viewership patterns in the UK and the audience shift to on-demand platforms.
On-demand takes time viewed
Total viewing time for TV and video in 2021 was 5 hours and 16 minutes per person per day, a decline of 25 minutes in 2020 but up from 2019.
Time spent on broadcasters, across live TV, recordings, and on-demand, declined by 9% compared to 2020 and 4% in 2019. As a result, broadcasters’ share of viewing continues to fall from 67% in 2019, to 61% in 2020, to 59% in 2021. Interestingly, broadcast video-on-demand (BVOD) increased by an average of three minutes per person per day compared to 2020, growing its viewership share from 6% to 8% in 2021.
Time viewing SVOD, at 58 minutes per day per person, declined by 6% from 2020. However, SVOD maintained its share of viewing, from 19% in 2020 to 18% in 2021.
SVOD market matures
Subscriptions to SVOD services (at least one service) declined slightly in the UK from 68% to 67%, or19.2 million households, compared to Q1 2022.
However, Ofcom’s analysis confirms a high concentration of multiple SVOD services among UK households. Nearly half of all UK households (46%), which is approximately 13.2 million, access two or more services in Q1 2022. Furthermore, of these households, 5.2 million—or about one in five homes—subscribe to the three most popular services: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+.
Netflix remains the largest SVOD provider in the UK, with 17.1 million households (60%) subscribing. It’s followed by Amazon Prime Video (46%) and Disney+ (23%).
Maintaining subscribers is crucial in a competitive SVOD market. According to Ofcom’s report, 2% of Netflix users, 4% of Amazon Prime Video users, and Disney+ users canceled their subscriptions in the past three months. Ofcom’s Public Service Media (PSM) tracker identified cost as the top reason for cancellation.
Audience attitudes
In addition to time spent, the Ofcom report provides details on viewer satisfaction and offers insight into audience engagement. Eighty-six percent of consumers who used Netflix in the past six months said they were satisfied with the service, while 81% said the same about Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, respectively.
Top Netflix attribute scores:
Provides services that are easy to find my way around (82%);
easy to find something I want to watch (80%);
Appeals to a wide range of different audiences (82%); and
has programs that are relevant to me (75%).
Top Disney+ attribute scores:
Easy to find my way around (78%);
easy to find something I want to watch (74%); and
appeals to a wide range of different audiences (73%).
SVOD market growth
Overall, the SVOD market performed strongly in 2021. It generated approximately $3.2 billion (or about £2.7 billion), an increase of 27% compared to last year. The top three services—Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+—accounted for 89% of the market share.
Ofcom’s analysis highlights the evolving TV and video landscape and the divide between younger and older viewers. Almost nine in ten adults, 18-24, go straight to streaming, on-demand, and social video services when looking for something to watch. In contrast, 59% of adults aged 55-64, and 76% of adults who are 65+, turn to TV channels first.
The report also suggests that streaming services with hybrid business models may become more common among SVOD offerings. Introducing ad-supported tiers (e.g., Netflix and Disney+) subscription opportunities to hard-to-convert viewers may move the dial for new subscribers. As the on-demand market evolves, media companies must consider multiple access points, platforms, and price points to acquire new subscribers to grow their audience share.
Live sports have been the jewel in broadcast companies’ crowns for decades. The allure of a live and hugely engaged audience has proved to be an effective draw for brand advertisers, particularly those with high-value consumer goods to hawk. That allure hasn’t lost its luster.
Sports broadcast rights remain competitive, expensive, and increasingly fragmented. But what has changed is how audiences choose to interact with sports content. The rise of social media and streaming platforms has changed the game, as their inherent interactivity enhance the appeal of live sport.
Combine this with the investment other media companies have placed in their subscription- and advertising-based streaming platforms, and the growing cost of sports content, and you have a space ripe for disruption. And while the details of exactly how disruption is taking place varies by platform, sport and country, it ultimately has the same cause as the tumult across the media world: tech turning passive audiences into active participants.
Social sport
At Twitter’s recent Newfronts appeal to advertisers, the company announced the rolling over of the platform’s partnership with the WNBA. This marks the sixth year of the partnership which grants Twitter the broadcast license for live games. It is no coincidence this is designed to further engage a predominantly women-led audience at a time when bringing in new audiences is key. Following its 2022 regular season, the WNBA announced that the league “set records for engagement with 186 million video views (+36% vs 2021)” across its social media platforms.
Twitter’s rationale for that partnership is its ability to offer real-time reaction to every basket and foul on. The real-time interplay between tech platform and sports content is part and parcel of how many media companies are selling their sports streaming to advertisers.
Theo Luke, senior director of global content partnerships at Twitter, tells me, “A fundamental to the live sport experience is talking about it. Increasingly broadcasters are actively including social media rights in their deal renewals with leagues because they see the value of highlighting clips alongside the live streaming experience to capture larger audiences and other revenue streams.”
“For example, through our recent Twitter Amplify partnerships with ITV and Formula 1, we offer a number of real-time highlights and the opportunity to engage with the moments that matter directly on people’s timelines,” Luke continues. “From an advertiser’s perspective, this not only allows you to align with premium video content, but also position yourself at the heart of the action and fanbases. When sport happens on Twitter, you don’t have a passive viewership, but an engaged, attentive and connected audience.”
Live community interaction has also been Twitch’s core appeal from even before it was Twitch. Since its acquisition by Amazon, the livestreaming platform has been inching ever closer to a destination for premier sports content. That’s been accelerated by Amazon’s investment in the broadcast rights for sports, and the deeper integration of its advertising tech with the Twitch platform.
In 2020, only two years after Amazon acquired some of the rights for Premier League matches, it was already streaming those high-value matches for free on Twitch, as well as NBA content. At the time, Twitch’s content acquisition lead, Eric Brunner, said, “They’re very open to exploring new ways to engage their community, like co-streaming USA Basketball on Twitch.”
Effectively, then, the new streaming platforms are hoping the pre-existing live interaction that formed their core appeal will supercharge interaction around sports coverage. That creates huge opportunities for potential advertising partners, both in terms of activating those audiences in the moment and by providing analytics around the interaction.
Sports clubs reap the benefits of streaming
The transition to sports streaming on new platforms is also being driven by the sports leagues and clubs themselves. Andreas Jung, chief marketing officer for FC Bayern Munich, told me the club’s engagement windows have widened beyond match day: “This is the expectation that the fans have and they want to participate in everything. This means that they consume content everywhere and anytime… 24/7.”
Fans can pay a yearly fee to be club members, and Jung says members, “have the expectation to get more information, to get to be closer with a club and therefore we have to bring them more information, we have to bring them more services and so on and so on.” As a result, Bayern is betting on its multi-year partnership with Adobe to boost its streaming content for users – and to deliver greater advertising revenue.
Opportunities for smaller leagues and networks
And while platforms and the bigger legacy leagues take advantage of the new advertising opportunities afforded by live streaming, smaller clubs and platforms are effectively launching as alternatives. Unbound by the limited amount of airtime on linear channels, new wrestling leagues are vaulting over the lower bar to entry to replicate some of the new opportunities – albeit at a smaller scale.
Guildford Town FC is a regional soccer team in the UK, far removed from the glittering heights of the Premier League. Speaking about the club’s partnership with dedicated sports streaming platform Joymo, its manager Paul Barnes echoed the comments from larger clubs: “I believe this is where the world is going. We’ve talked about the benefits from a playing perspective and staying connected with our fans, but this is also a way for us to make revenues that can help the ongoing development of the club.”
In the U.S., too, smaller leagues are using streaming to grow audiences and revenue. Overtime, a sports media company aimed at Millennials, recently raised over $80 million in a Class C funding round. Much of the confidence around the investment is predicated on Overtime’s strong social media and streaming offering, which includes 65 million followers across all of its 80 social media channels
The strategy was pioneered by esports leagues, which grew from grassroots to huge events through judicious use of live streaming platforms like Twitch. What is especially interesting for wider media companies, though, is that even traditional broadcasters, such as BBC and BT Sport, are now adding esports coverage to their linear offerings.
New audiences, new approaches
“Twitter works alongside broadcasters and rights holders to help make live sporting events even bigger,” explains Luke. “Our platform connects people directly to what’s happening around live events and that conversation provides greater value to our partners.”
He continues, “Most recently, we saw this with the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022, which saw the number of tweets [triple] ahead of the final and nearly 900 million impressions in the UK throughout the tournament. Watching live sport in 2022 isn’t just about consumption, it’s also about engagement.”
James Hartnett, account director for sports-specialist marketing agency The Playbook, told me, “As the topics and ways they are discussed has also evolved, so too have the platforms sports fans turn to. The primary source of 39% of 18-24-year-old ‘social natives’ for sports news – including match highlights, unique moments and opinion commentary – is TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. The stats are much the same for 25-34-year-old, though they tend to prefer Facebook over TikTok.
Streaming has indelibly altered sports viewing. This creates new opportunities across the ecosystem, especially when it comes to engaging new, often younger, audiences – a challenge most publishers can relate to.
You probably have a presence on YouTube, but do you have a specific strategy for the platform? If you don’t, then it’s time to address that.
With close to 2.5 billion monthly active users, YouTube is the second most popular social network in the world. Only Facebook, with 2.9 billion users each month, enjoys greater reach.
Despite this, many publishers’ presence on YouTube can often feel like an afterthought. The popular video-sharing network sometimes seems like an also-ran when compared with the content strategies (and resources!) being deployed across newer, shiner, networks like Instagram or TikTok.
It’s time for that to change. Here are three key reasons why.
1. YouTube is too big to ignore
Originally created way back in 2005, YouTube is not exactly a new kid on the digital block. Yet it’s also far from being an internet dinosaur.
According to Semrush, a software-as-service (SaaS) platform used for keyword research and online ranking data, last month YouTube was the second most visited website in the world with 60.9 billion visits. The average session visit was a whopping 29 mins 42 seconds.
Image: Screenshot(s) via Semrush, 22 August 2022
“YouTube is a seriously undervalued part of most publishers’ audience development plans,” Nic Newman, the lead author of the annual Digital News Report, recently told me during an email conversation about their 2022 study.
The latest findings, which were published in June by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, found that across the 46 countries covered by the report, YouTube “is the second most important network for news after Facebook,” Newman says.
Because this is a global study, there’s considerable variance on a country-by-country basis.
Nonetheless, in the United States, YouTube is the second most popular social channel for news in a typical week (19% of the sample). That puts it behind Facebook (28%) but some way ahead of Twitter (11%).
It enjoys similar popularity when figures are aggregated across 12 major markets. This reflects the universality of its appeal and begs the question of whether publishers are giving the platform the attention it deserves.
2. YouTube is a versatile platform
User habits for news and other content on YouTube might also surprise you. As Micaeli Rourke explained in a feature for Digital Content Next last December, YouTube is something of an audio powerhouse. (Disclaimer: She interviewed me for the article.)
YouTube was the leading platform for podcast consumption in the Ulast year, the 2021 Digital News Report found. They don’t provide comparative data for 2022. However, the latest study does note that YouTube is the second biggest platform for podcast consumption in Germany (19% of listeners) and the top source in Spain (30%).
Video-led podcasts are part of the reason for this popularity, as well as the opportunity to access content on multiple devices. This includes desktop and Smart TV consumption, which allows YouTube to play in the background, as well as more active “lean in” viewing.
The rise of YouTube viewing on TV sets is one reason why mobile increasingly makes up a smaller percentage of overall views in many developed markets. This presents opportunities for content creators to reach audiences in new places and spaces.
Meanwhile, the ease of publication (and lack of a requirement for a broadcast licence) has resulted in the emergence of YouTube TV-style shows and commentary alongside popular formats such as WIRED’s Autocomplete Interview (where celebrities answer the internet’s most searched questions about themselves) and Vogue’s 73 Questions video series. It also creates opportunities for historically text-centric outlets, such as Portland-based newspaper The Oregonian to go deep with long-form investigative stories. And it enables the Guardian (and others) to produce highly effective short explainer videos on issues du jour.
Looking ahead, Podnews revealed in March that YouTube is working to improve promotion, discoverability, and monetization opportunities for podcasters, including audio ads and “new metrics for audio-first creators.” Similarly, YouTube Shorts, its “TikTok clone,” is also a growing priority for the platform and another space that publishers may look to capitalize on.
Collectively, these formats, along with more traditional video content found on the site, present a variety of means for publishers’ to harness YouTube as part of their engagement and revenue strategies.
YouTube generated around $20 million in advertising revenue in 2020, CNBC reports. Arguably, that puts it in competition with publishers for ad dollars. However, creators can join the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) to earn income through mechanisms such as advertising, sponsored content, channel subscriptions and online shopping. YouTube’s revenue share model means that publishers typically take home 55% of the revenue from ads shown against their videos, Digiday stated back in 2020.
That said, some of these returns might be less than publishers hoped for. Digiday notes that “news publishers, in particular, have a harder time attracting ad dollars because advertisers remain wary of their ads appearing next to controversial topics.”
Nevertheless, when it comes to both content and opportunities for revenue, the platform’s versatility means you don’t have to deploy a cookie-cutter model to be successful on it. There’s scope for variety, experimentation and avoiding the “one size fits all” approach, which you sometimes encounter on other platforms.
3. YouTube effectively reaches younger audiences
Reaching a youth audience has long been the Holy Grail for many brands and media companies. For publishers interested in reaching Millennials, Gen Z, and even Generation Alpha (a cohort born in the past decade), YouTube should feature prominently in their plans.
New data from the Pew Research Center demonstrates how YouTube usage is virtually ubiquitous among American teenagers. Teenage boys are more likely to say they use YouTube than teenage girls. However, in terms of those who have tried the service, there’s actually surprisingly little variance across a wide range of different indices.
Moreover, when looking at teens overall, Pew’s “Teens, Social Media and Technology 2022” report discovered that nearly one in five (19%) say they use YouTube almost constantly. That puts it ahead of both TikTok (16%) and Snapchat (15%). Collectively, around three-quarters of U.S. teens (77%) visit YouTube on a daily basis, some way in front of its rivals.
Roll credits
This isn’t a piece extolling another “pivot to video.” We’ve been there. We know how that worked out. Instead, it is a recommendation to take a look at YouTube and whether you are using it as effectively, and comprehensively, as you could.
Of course, the platform is not without its challenges. Its recommendation engine can drive viewers away from your channel to other creators. Publishers might prefer to keep traffic (and its associated ad revenue) on their own properties. And last year The Information argued that programmatic ad sales were also hurting midsize publishers. Companies like BuzzFeed and Vice receive less money via YouTube’s revenue share arrangements than if they sold the spots directly, they said. Nonetheless, despite these real considerations, YouTube’s size, versatility, and reach with younger audiences are all major plus points.
Press Gazette has outlined how the biggest publishers on YouTube—in terms of subscribers and all-time views—are typically broadcasters. Many of these providers will post copies of reports, bulletins and shows, or offer a livestream, on the platform. But that doesn’t mean non-broadcasters can’t punch through. Press Gazette’s research also shows how Vox has broken the paradigm with a distinctive approach to high-quality (and often quite evergreen) video.
Vox, along with Vice News and Insider, have also achieved success on the platform despite publishing considerably fewer videos than many of their more broadcast-led peers. This makes it clear that this isn’t just about volume of content.
In a separate discussion with video leads at UK newspapers, The Sun and The Guardian, they also posited how a clear voice, a willingness to experiment and “building trust with the casual audience,” are all potential ingredients for YouTube success.
Thus far, tapping into YouTube’s potential isn’t something that many non-broadcast publishers have done well. Yet.
But, if publishers are able to look beyond platforms like Twitter, Instagram and TikTok (channels that either fall into the media’s longstanding issue with “shiny object syndrome” or spaces that might also seem more natural hubs for their content), then that might change in the not-too-distant future.
Certainly based on its audience, reach and breadth of content you can post, there’s an argument to be made that YouTube merits more of many publishers’ time and resources than it currently enjoys. If you want to ride the next digital wave, this trusty steed may not be a bad one to back.
2022 already has been a dramatic year for streaming. Even if you’re not trying to keep up with day-to-day industry developments, you’re probably aware that CNN+ launched and died, Netflix announced plans to launch an ad-supported tier, and IMDb TV was renamed “Freevee.” These rapid developments may seem daunting for many potential streaming players, considering that the ground will shift again soon.
But here’s the good news about these rapid changes: While the “Streaming Wars” narrative — referring primarily to competition among media giants’ SVOD strategies — remains the focus of many in the business and trade press, the reality is that there are wide-open opportunities for a variety of players. Whether it’s a paid app, a YouTube channel, or a free channel on a FAST service, streaming is definitely not confined to the players locked in the so-called streaming wars. Streaming is for everyone.
We’re just getting started
SVOD, AVOD, FAST, OTT, and CTV are not only competing, overlapping, and complementary acronyms — they represent multiple potential business models as well as multiple avenues to reach audiences looking for entertainment, news, and sports. Across devices, services, and platforms, there are more opportunities than ever before to develop content, products and business models contributing to the next evolution of the streaming industry.
Media players and startups — large and small — can compete and win the loyalty and trust of consumers. By the end of 2022, we will see new players on the streaming scene — growing, thriving, and innovating to capture audience attention and significant revenue opportunities.
Find your place in streaming
The fact is, it remains early days for streaming viewership, and we need bold players to bring expertise and creativity to the space. So let’s set aside the winners-take-most Streaming Wars narrative and consider these factors:
1. Focus on the right video strategy for your audience.
In the streaming space, many strategies and tactics are still in an experimental stage, so don’t assume that your traditional competitor’s widely-publicized strategy is going to work. And definitely do not copy their strategy without significant research and diligence, because you may find that your competitor doesn’t have a clue — and won’t provide significant competition at all in the streaming space. For instance, it may be that launching a solid AVOD or FAST strategy will give you much of the data you need to make a decision about an SVOD strategy.
2. It’s easier and less expensive than you think to get started.
There are new technologies and new tech companies that can support a variety of streaming strategies. Generally speaking, these options are less expensive, more standardized and faster to implement than many broadcast technologies. Additionally, trusted brands will be in a good place to negotiate with these vendors.
3. Creativity and innovation are badly needed in the streaming space.
Think about how hard it is — still — to navigate streaming interfaces. This space needs to improve the consumer experience, ASAP. With so many major media brands in flux, those who are focused on making streaming a great consumer experience have an incredible chance to jump in and create a successful strategy.
Focus on the consumer to improve what’s ahead
The complexity of the streaming landscape is enough to confound savvy media veterans and newcomers alike. But this complexity should not prevent most media players from crafting or revamping their streaming strategy – now. It’s a wide-open field for trusted brands and innovators, especially those who create content, products and services with viewers at the center. We all have a lot to learn from rapidly shifting consumer habits and preferences, and the timing has never been better to start learning.
About the author
Christy Tanner, President of Tanner Media LLC, is former EVP & GM of CBS Interactive, where she built CBS News Digital/CBSN into the #1 streaming news service, with more than 1 billion streams in 2020 and 2021.
Instagram is hot but YouTube is not. Publishers around the world are shifting focus this year, according to a recent survey of 30 publishers from 17 countries. The Publishing Trends Report 2022 by Echobox offers insight into publisher’s evolving priorities as they move out of pandemic crisis mode into the new normal.
Respondents indicated that they are most focused on increasing web traffic, utilizing new content formats, and embracing automation. They also share a keen interest in capturing the attention of the all-important youth demographic.
The survey included participants from the following countries: Argentina, Bulgaria, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay. This year, the authors of the report concentrated on data received from decision-makers and social media specialists. News outlets comprised over 50% of the sample.
Publishers’ top priorities for 2022:
Increase traffic (73%)
Grow social media followers & engagement (57%)
Improve quality of published content (50%)
The release of free digital information during the pandemic led to a surge in traffic for online publishers, which – perhaps paradoxically – lead to more paid subscribers. The resulting increase in digital subscriptions even helped offset the longtime decline of print subscriptions. Respondents’ strong interest in increasing web traffic reflects reduced reliance on print revenue, while publishers continue to hone an ideal balance between paywalled and unrestricted content.
Which activities are most important to publishers in 2022?
Video content 63%
New social media platforms 43%
Newsletters 43%
Finding new audiences 40%
Authors of the study link the appeal of video to declining costs of production, the popularity of short-form content across social media platforms, and video’s effectiveness in engaging audiences.
Although only 43% of respondents listed newsletters as a top priority in 2022, 64% of respondents indicated plans to either start producing newsletters, or increase the number of newsletters they offer. This reflects the focus on turning general web traffic into subscribers.
The most important platforms for publishers in 2022 are:
Instagram 83%
Facebook 37%
Twitter 23%
TikTok 20%
LinkedIn 13%
YouTube 3%
The surge of publishers’ interest in Instagram also points to their desire to expand their audience in the 18-24 range, as they look to the future. Pew Research Center data indicates that 76% of 18–24-year-olds use Instagram, and it remains among the most downloaded apps. Another draw is that Instagram is less publisher-saturated than Facebook.
Why the lukewarm interest in TikTok if younger audiences are so crucial? Survey authors attribute this to the relative newness of the platform. They found that publishers have not had time to refine their strategy to generate traffic via TikTok. Also, fewer young people use TikTok for news content than Instagram, which makes the platform less of a priority for news organizations.
A big change between the 2021 and 2022 survey results was declining interest in YouTube. In 2021, 52% of respondents believed YouTube to be of increased importance. However, in 2022 that percentage fell to just 3%. This would seem to contradict publisher’s strong stated interest in video this year. However, authors suggest that the drop may be due to publishers tailoring video content towards Instagram and other platforms which require formats and dimensions that don’t transfer easily to YouTube. Those interested in producing longer, larger format videos may be using third party vendors or in-house production, bypassing YouTube.
While Instagram is attracting a surge of attention from publishers in 2022, due in part to being less saturated with publisher content than Facebook, Facebook remains a mainstay platform for publishers. In 2021, 40% of publishers surveyed by Echobox stated that “staying ahead of Facebook algorithm changes” was a priority. This points to publishers’ awareness of the continued importance of Facebook referral traffic.
The growing Importance of AI
74% consider AI important or very important in 2022
67% believe AI will be more significant to their organization in 2022 than in 2021
Use and implementation of AI is increasing in emerging markets, not just large-scale publishers
Emerging markets are focusing AI efforts on automation of paywalls and subscriptions
In the 2021 survey, 1 in 3 companies cited lack of time as a major concern. The potential for AI to alleviate pressure and free up time can help publishers focus on a top priority cited in 2022 survey results: creating quality content.
Netflix’s earnings report last week sent a chill across nearly every company with a business model tied to a direct-to-consumer relationship. There are real concerns about the global economy and speculation about whether the massive increase in streaming viewing habits seen during the pandemic will prove to be enduring. However, I wonder whether the insights gleaned from the Netflix situation are unique to Netflix and not a strong indicator for other media companies, most of which are just starting their streaming ventures.
First, let’s acknowledge the macroeconomy. Inflation registering over 8% will impact nearly every consumer market; this is especially true if inflation leads to higher interest rates and the dreaded “R” word. Unfortunately, this will be an ever-intensifying concern.
There has been a great awakening around the globe after two years of Covid, during which we had requirements and excuses to stay home and avoid socializing. There were countless stories in the trade and mainstream press as we witnessed streaming viewership’s outsized growth about isolation’s impact on our insatiable appetite for entertainment – escape. And binge-watching – which was already a trend after Netflix tossed a hand grenade into the linear schedule – only escalated during this period.
Certainly, Netflix finds itself with real competition for digital share of wallet for the first time in its history. Storied media companies have rolled out exclusive offerings that feature everything from hit television programs to blockbuster movie franchises: Batman, Star Trek, Yellowstone, Avengers from HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Disney+, respectively. Many have regained rights to classic television hits that are endlessly bingeworthy. Meanwhile, Netflix has increased its price, nearly doubling its monthly cost ($15.49 from $7.99 when it first launched) while cracking down on password-sharing as it, impressively, has saturated the market.
But while Netflix may have led the way in streaming, it may not be the best proxy for the subscription market opportunity. The company faces its own issues with stagnating growth and should not be mistaken for marketplace indicators.
What is really happening
DCN’s 2021 research into the value of direct, trusted consumer relationships, brands as proxies for this trust, the needs and behaviors of Gen Z vs Gen Y, and the subscription market point to this lesson: Ignore Netflix and stay the course.
Most important are the lessons coming from studying the “next” generation. Consumer behavior is radically different in a world where payment and immediate gratification are merely a double tap of the thumb and face scan away on a mobile device. Paying for access to your favorite news or entertainment product, whether podcast, app or website, is no longer a foreign concept after hitting a “paywall.” Rather, it is little more than a friendly nudge along the way associating value with the products you love.
The number of people willing to pay for access to news and entertainment is increasing. In fact, Netflix’s greatest legacy for the market as a whole may have been leading the horse to the water. Netflix also worked with premium providers and helped build an appetite for great content and normalized paying for it.
What publishers seek
Now, distribution platforms from Apple to Google to Facebook are being pushed to finally act as true partners in driving subscription revenues and monetization for premium publishers. At times this nudge has had to come from regulatory threats in an effort to create more balanced bargaining power.
But what are publishers seeking? Publishers expect traffic to their owned and operated platforms and true ownership over the customer journey including the underlying transaction and customer data.
Publishers also want to take back control over the pricing, bundling, and messaging for their services from the distribution platforms. This allows a trusted publisher to extract and retain more subscription revenues by controlling their highly-valued brands and, importantly, the customer data from before, during, and after their subscription relationship.
Putting things in perspective
For decades, the vast majority of digital content was available for free.
Meanwhile, Netflix built its business on spending (many would say excessively) on licensing and creating content. It helped rebuild the consumer appetite for quality content and experiences worth paying for. However, when we consider the implications of the company’s recent subscriber losses, we should not be so quick to predict a ripple effect across subscription-based businesses as a whole.
While a couple of news publishers, and a handful of other streamers count their subscribers in the tens of millions, the reality is that most publishers count theirs in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Thus, the basis for comparison with Netflix’s 220 million subscribers is specious at best. That’s like comparing a slowdown in Coca-Cola’s beverage sales to my kids’ driveway lemonade stand.
And the behavior of younger consumers points to a healthy appetite for great content and a willingness to pay for it. Now is not the time to panic, pivot, or radically shift your subscription strategy in Netflix’s wake. Instead, trust in the value of quality content well-delivered in trustworthy settings and know that audiences will be right there with you.
Streaming is popular but competition is fierce. It seems like every major network and media company has launched a streaming service.
Last week, Netflix released its 4Q 2021 earnings. The company closed the year with 221.8 million subscribers. However, Netflix fell short of its Q4 new subscriber forecast. Pivotal Research Group analyst Jeff Wlodarczak comments that streaming services are adjusting to the new norm of subscription growth compared to the accelerated sign-ups witnessed during 2020’s lockdown. Wlodarczak believes, “Streaming is not over; it is the future.”
A number of industry analysts have identified strategies and offer insight into the streaming marketplace’s next steps.
International growth
MarketWatch points to global programming investment as a top priority for streaming services. And the investment in content only bears this out.
Netflix’s hit series from South Korea, Squid Game, is one of many international success stories and a clear winner for the platform. Expect more foreign-language series to be developed as Netflix turns international growth, especially in Asia, India and Latin America.
Amazon’s Prime Video will offer more programming in India’s Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu languages. It’s India service registered tripled its viewing hours over the past two years there.
Apple TV+ will debut its first Russian-language show, the thriller “Container,” in the spring.
Disney+ plans 50 Asian originals by 2023, as it expands to South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
HBO Max debuts in Europe in early 2022.
Paramount+ also debuts in South Korea and Western Europe.
Peacock expanded to Europe (on Sky platforms), with more than 50 Spanish-language projects with Telemundo.
Mix and matching viewing strategies
While Linear TV marathons introduced us to binge viewing, Netflix’s flexible nature made it an everyday behavior. TheRinger identifies the different episode distribution strategies to keep viewers engaged and coming back to view more. As noted with Netflix, flexibility is essential and a reminder that different approaches offer different results. A buzz-worthy binge (all episodes released at once) can be great PR for a new series release. Additionally, a scheduled infusion of new episodes can draws viewers back week after week.
Apple TV+ offers a “demi-binge” strategy, debuting with a batch of three episodes, then airing the remaining seven one at a time.
WarnerMedia’s HBO Max uses a hybrid approach, breaking up seasons into packs of two or three episodes released over several weeks.
Interestingly, Peacock’s promotes binging but at higher pricing for specific series. Seasons 1 and 2 of The Office are available at the lowest-priced monthly subscription price of $4.99 a month. To unlock every episode, extended cuts, never-before-seen-footage, and watch commercial-free, consumers pay $9.99 — the highest tier.
Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will switch from releasing all eight episodes at once to two a week for four weeks. Fear not, the binging release strategy is far from over. Rather, this is simply different viewing models in play. And they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Merger, acquisitions, and differentiation
As Netflix invests in gaming, Amazon looks to its NFL and Thursday Night Football. Both are clear points of differentiation. Other services look to corporate and sibling-studio deals to offer HBO Max, Peacock, and Paramount+ access to new movies releases 45 days after they open in theaters.
CNBC Tech Reporter Alex Sherman points to the significance of mergers. He believes that Paramount+ and Peacock won’t last as standalone streaming services, and a merger is likely in their future.
Discovery Inc.’s acquisition of WarnerMedia (expected to be complete in mid-2022) will combine the streaming platform of Discovery+ and HBO Max. Combined, they will have approximately 100 million subscribers.
Streaming platforms are making significant investments in new and innovative content and unique deal-making to differentiate themselves from competitors. They need to keep their customers consistently engaged, especially as consumers begin to reevaluate their multiple subscriptions to access the content they want to watch.
Video is the hottest thing in audio right now. Don’t worry, this is not another “pivot to video.” However, an interesting fact emerged as Reuters Institute was formulating the 2021 Digital News Report: YouTube is currently the number one podcasting platform in the United States. According to the report, the video platform is responsible for 26% of podcast consumption in U.S. markets, compared to Apple Podcast’s 22% of listenership, and Spotify’s 17%.
So, why is a platform pretty much synonymous with video dominating the podcast market? We spoke with Damian Radcliffe, digital media analyst and Professor of Practice and Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism at the University of Oregon, to better understand how publishers can tap into “platform agnosticism” and capitalize on the momentum of this video podcasting trend.
At stake: the ability to deepen audience relationships and build subscriber numbers. Oh, and let’s not forget the $1 billion dollars in ad revenue predicted for the podcasting industry this year ($2 billion by 2023).
Ease of podcast discoverability
Discovery has always been a huge challenge for podcasters. As Radcliffe points out in the report, if you aren’t on the iTunes top 10 or not in the ‘top picks’ on a homepage, it can be really hard to reach audiences.
However, by diversifying away from audio-only products, and incorporating audio into supplemental forms of media, publishers can address that discoverability issue, simply by being in more places. Video platforms like YouTube not only make podcasts easier to discover, they also make them easier to share and to share on social feeds.
“Word of mouth has always been the most powerful marketing tool,” explained Radcliffe. “Being able to tap into the power of peer recommendations is potentially a really powerful and potent tool that podcasting could be doing more with.”
If a dedicated listener is learns from their favorite podcasting platform that they are in the top one percent of This American Life listeners, for example, they may want to let their social network know. When shareability and discoverability are predicated on distinctions or superlatives, as Spotify’s “Wrapped” feature has so deftly demonstrated December after December, the potential reach of the program within that individual’s network is exponentially expanded.
“People are sharing podcasting recommendations with their friends. But that kind of conversation is happening off-platform and podcasters don’t know where those referrals or audiences are coming from,” Radcliffe points out. He thinks that if podcasters can “find a way to close that loop and reward people for spreading the word around their podcasts, I think that could be a really interesting development.”
Widening your distribution strategy
Despite YouTube’s unexpected dominance of podcast distribution, most podcasters aren’t sharing their programs on video platforms exclusively. Rather, they use sites like YouTube as a secondary distribution channel. As a platform with an existing audience base of over two billion users and robust content discoverability, YouTube offers an attractive means for individual podcasters and established media players to reach new audiences.
“Think about this in terms of being a part of the wider distribution strategy for your podcasts and trying to find as many different ways for audiences to find you,” Radcliffe explained. For example he suggests that publishers use RSS feeds to distribute content to as wide a variety of places as possible. And that “video podcasting is just a part of that mix.”
When watching a video podcast that audiences would otherwise only consume through audio, audiences may also feel they are privy to certain “behind the scenes” elements, particularly when watching video versions of their favorite interview podcasts. As an example, Radcliffe cited a 2019 episode of Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson, featuring Tyson Fury.
“It was a video podcast, and you could absolutely just listen to it. But there was something quite intimate about being able to watch it and see the interaction and pick up on some of the body language nuances that you can’t necessarily get just through audio alone.”
Leading interview podcasts like Crooked Media’s Pod Save America, the Black Girl Podcast, SmartLess, and others have leveraged video to make audiences feel almost as if they are in the room or ‘part of the gang’ as the interview transpires. Given the increased isolation of audiences at the start of the pandemic, that inclusion has become a value proposition for podcasters.
The advantages of micro-content
As print and online media continue to distill content into easily digestible micro-formats, the same appetite for bite-sized content abounds in video podcasting. (This may be credited, in part, to platforms like TikTok that amplify short video clips across the internet.) This shift in format is something many podcasters have learned to use to their advantage.
“There are opportunities to atomize content to produce clips. [Podcasters] can take an hour-long video podcast and break it up into a series of smaller clips. And those smaller clips may well yield larger audiences than the entire full piece,” Radcliffe explained. “That’s going to help in terms of SEO and search results.” It also helps “in terms of content potentially being shared or reaching different audiences.”
By “atomizing” content and creating shorter, standalone clip videos of key moments from full episodes podcasters are more likely to go viral and gain wider audiences who will then go through and relisten to their archive of episodes. (A great example is this clip from Glennon Doyle’s We Can Do Hard Things podcast.)
“Creators have figured out how to make podcasts work on a platform that wasn’t designed for them, leveraging YouTube’s search algorithm to meet new audiences, make more money, and expand into a medium that’s expected to grow rapidly in the coming years,” The Verge’s Julia Alexander wrote back in 2019. “Creating a separate channel for clips lets podcasters take advantage of YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, which surfaces content on specific subjects a viewer is already interested in.”
Bonus: It’s free!
Another big draw for audiences to consume podcasts on YouTube is a simple one… it’s free. According to Edison Research, the number of Americans paying for audio subscriptions has doubled since 2015. With more and more podcasts and platforms going behind paywalls, and more and more consumers encountering subscription fatigue, YouTube is a (seemingly) egalitarian platform where podcast audiences can consume as much content from shows as they desire, regardless of any paywalls the full-length podcasts may be behind.
Lights, camera, action!
If you don’t have video as a part of your podcast offering, don’t panic. “The thing I would advise against is thinking that you 100% need to do this right now,” cautioned Radcliffe. “You can still have a successful podcasting strategy that doesn’t include video. But increasingly, we will see video as a part of that mix because it enables [podcasters] to reach audiences in different places. It also opens up further opportunities for engagement and interaction.”
Podcasting in the digital age is more than simply audio content, just as written stories are much more than text-only these days. As our digital appetites shift towards brief, shareable video, other media products are certainly not destined for obsolescence. But multimedia is irrefutably the name of the digital game. So it’s only natural that, as podcasting matures, it is branching out of our headphones and onto our screens.
Make it short. Show real stuff. This may seem obvious, but these are best practices in video length and content authenticity for Gen Z audiences.
Gen Z, born between 1998 and 2016, spends a lot of time watching videos on social media. And last year, Gen Z’s video consumption increased: Snapchat reported that Gen Z watched over an hour each day of video content on social media apps alone. They value video more than any other media platform, by a margin of roughly 2-to-1 over social, gaming, music or Google search, according to a recent study by DCN. They prefer video, specifically user-generated content, due to its relatability and personability.
Understanding that Gen Z viewers and consumers have different behaviors, values, and attitudes when it comes to video is important because it can impact your audience of the future, your strategy, and your revenue. It will also help you withstand shifts in viewer tastes and larger shifts in the media landscape. Building relationships with this generation of viewers, readers, consumers, starts now.
Video length on TikTok
Video length varies by platform, and there are a lot of platforms to choose from. Gen Z favors Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, according to a Pew survey in 2021.
Video content on TikTok must be extremely short. In fact, 50 seconds is long, according to Erin Weaver, Group Nine Media’s Senior Director of Audience Development. For Gen Z-favored platforms Snapchat and TikTok, video length needs to be short and videos need to be fast-paced, according to Weaver. “On TikTok, I consider anything between 30 and 60 seconds to be almost the default. And then slightly longer is over one minute up to three minutes. We’ve seen some success with longer videos, as long as they’re really engaging and interesting.”
#DCYoungFly hitting the #CrankThat at the #HipHopAwards [https://www.tiktok.com/@bet]
Brittiany Cierra Taylor, director of audience development at BET, says she sees similar results. “Our audience development team has been trying out shorts and they’ve seen that they were amazing in getting new views, new viewers and from an ad perspective, we see more ads, more earned views. That shortness really is the key because we noticed that the sweet spot on TikTok is seven seconds where you see that jump that engagement,” she said.
“Our TikTok partners always encourage us to create shorter and more succinct videos, as they do tend to perform well on the platform,” says Kelsey Alpaio, an editor and producer with Harvard Business Review’s Ascend brand for young professionals, “But, that doesn’t mean long videos are off limits. The majority of our top-viewed videos are more than 50 seconds long. If people are interested in the content, they will stick around.”
Video length on YouTube
On YouTube, videos that are 2-4 minutes long work well for Harvard Business Review, but they also see success with videos that are longer, about 10-14 minutes each.
Scott LaPierre, Harvard Business Review’s senior editor for multimedia, says that for YouTube, trends around length are similar. Length is less important than topic and storytelling. LaPierre says HBR’s more authentic and honest videos on YouTube, which are casual, host- and personality-driven, perform about as well in the long run as their more traditional content. “Both have about an even number of breakout successes, and comparable average performers,” he says. “The video’s topic, and how compellingly it delivers on that topic are still the primary factors in the number of views and how long people watch, whether traditional or authentic in style.”
Short and medium-length videos at about two to nine minutes each work best on YouTube, for a broad reach. And longer (10-15 minutes) seems to work to deepen engagement with established fans, LaPierre said. “Shorter videos seem to have broader reach while longer videos seem to have deeper engagement. Long for us is around 10-15 minutes. Short is two to four. Most of our current video lineup is in the middle: six-to-nine-minute range. Anything over about 15 minutes does not perform great on our channel.” (Live video is a different conversation where lengths over 15 are more the norm.)
Optimize for story
“It really depends on the goal of the story and whatever length makes the storytelling complete,” says Zainab Khan, associate director of audience, video at The New York Times. “We might do a months-long investigation that merits a 12-minute video. What we see, because we edit our videos for pacing and storytelling, if a video is longer, we get more overall watch time. But we’re really rigorous about thinking about length so it fits the needs of the story. And in some cases, that means the best way to share a story means to do a quick 30-second snippet, showing viewers what’s happening on the ground.”
All of the digital content companies we spoke to said that storytelling trumps minutes and seconds. Video content should be as long as it needs to be, to tell an engaging story. LaPierre says, “Topic and storytelling generally trump length or style. So, my rule of thumb is: make it as short as possible, but no shorter.”
Content authenticity
Best practices for user-generated content are that video content must be low lit, not super polished, and not have a high production quality.Often, it is a selfie-style cell phone footage. It’s casual, host- and personality-driven. It is concise, engaging, and easy to produce. It shows people talking about what they care passionately about.
Harvard Business Review aims to make some of their videos in that user-generated style, LaPierre says. “For me, the best way to get authentic-feeling video is to have people talk about what they care passionately about,” he says.
Production values
Ascend Multimedia Producer Andy Robinson explains they try to find a sweet spot between having a polished feel and showing the real world. “My rule is, show the real stuff whenever possible. We’ve been leaning heavily on less-overly produced elements in our video content. Audiences can smell something that is highly produced, over scripted, over thought.”
Group Nine makes a point of putting people as the focal point of their UGC content, explains Weaver. “For PopSugar, a tutorial on applying makeup does a lot better than a product review or something that’s mostly focused on beauty products or a workout. You should see people doing the workouts, not so much like a description of the movements.”
At The New York Times, best practice for finding authenticity in a creator’s work is to have a deep understanding of the company’s values and to find common ground with their audience, Khan says. “It’s really important for us, when we want to build trust with our audience, we show our authentic selves. We literally put our reporters on screen in a way that helps the audience understand who is doing the reporting,” Khan says.
Gen Z has a bullshit detector
Gen Z’s desire for authenticity has been well documented. They want brands to be transparent, authentic and trustworthy. Gen Z audiences have spent their lives surrounded by digital technology. They’re incredibly discerning and know how to filter content that lacks the right tone, language, relevance or value. “What I love about Gen Z is that they hold companies more accountable,” Taylor says. “They’re doing the fact-checking, they’re doing the homework, they’re seeing if your staff resembles the world, if your content resembles the world year round. Is your message consistent and congruent in the content that you showed me? That’s actually one thing I love about them because it forces brands to be authentic.”
Authenticity is the way to grow audiences, Taylor explains. “I think that if you want to stay around, that is the basic component that audiences are resonating with. So, if you’re not going to be authentic, you’re not going to meet the KPIs you want, you’re not going to grow your audience, you’re not going to hit your revenue… So, from an audience perspective, a revenue perspective, authenticity is just the way to move forward.”
Be real, not trendy
“In the long term, if your identity and authenticity are dependent on a trend, you only last as long as that trend,” Khan says. “On the other hand, if your company has a handle on its core values, and what sets you apart from your peers and competitors, you can choose which trends to follow. And it means you can withstand shifts in the media and shifts in viewer taste.”
LaPierre says content authenticity connotes honesty, vulnerability, transparency, and relatability, which may not always have been top priorities for publishers. “And, we’ve seen some of the distrust in media that can result,” he says. “Show your flaws, show that your content is made by real people with real concerns that overlap with your audience’s, and show your work–it’s about building a trusting relationship over time.”
For their audience of the future, digital content companies need to put real intention behind the content they create and innovate constantly. As one expert put it, you need to think about who you’re talking to, and create content that is meaningful to them. It’s a lot of effort trying to please Gen Z, but if you’re not putting in the effort, you’re not going to get the results. This is your future audience, after all.
As the publishing industry seeks stability in the wake of the pandemic, Meredith Corp is making video an increasingly important part of its long-term content strategy.
Meredith’s newly-appointed Chief Digital Content Officer Amanda Dameron is leading an expansion of the publisher’s video portfolio. The most recent launch is a new Food & Wine show, “Pastries with Paola”.
The series, which stars celebrated pastry chef Paola Velez, debuts with 13 episodes. The videos focus on how to make easy desserts like empanadas and chocolate cake. They also celebrate Paola’s Dominican heritage and culinary traditions.
Collaborating with diverse talent is a vital part of Dameron’s vision for video at Meredith, “as represented by Paola’s show, and every show that we have in development. We are interested in telling stories that are uplifting, that are optimistic…and are told in an inclusive way, in a multicultural way, in a way that truly embraces the world as it is,” she said. “We take tremendous responsibility in that.”
Video as a vehicle for expansion
Long gone are the days of a simple printable recipe card. Increasingly, audiences turn to their social media feeds for food inspiration and helpful information.
Dameron believes that video as a format is more important than ever before. “Rising generations are looking for content that shows them how to do something correctly, how to break down the steps,” she explained. More than that, she sees video as a conversation between content creators and the audience. At Meredith, the tone is informal and intimate, and allows for feedback, especially when distributed via social media.
“When you couple that with a platform in which it’s easy for the audience to share their insight, their questions, and to be able to use that insight to refine the series itself, there is no format better made for that than video,” she emphasized.
However, Food & Wine’s video strategy is not limited to short-form on social media platforms. The video team is experimenting with producing content in a range of styles and lengths, from short how-to’s to longer, documentary-style pieces.
In fact, the brand was recently nominated for an ASME award for “Tasting Home”. The three-part video series follows Chef Kwame Onwuachi who traces his culinary roots by travelling to Trinidad, Jamaica, Louisiana, and Texas.
“We’ve been really gratified to see that our audience responds very passionately to the series that we present, no matter what the format,” Dameron said.
It’s not just video length that varies. In response to evolving viewing habits, many of Meredith’s videos are now produced for both traditional landscape viewing and portrait mobile phone viewing. This means that video content has to be carefully planned for both orientations from the outset.
“We have a lot of different versions of a hero asset or video, and we have to apply a high level of rigor to the way that shots are composed,” Dameron outlined. “You have to be mindful of it every moment of shooting the video itself. Having both landscape and vertical perspectives gives the ability to create the best possible viewing experience, no matter where the audience chooses to find us.”
Active engagement for success
For Dameron, the key success metric for Meredith’s videos are views. However, she also takes a close interest in watch time and active engagement. In particular, she uses these as a way to improve programming.
“I’m really interested in a deeper engagement that shows when we are circulating stories and series. What is the audience saying to us? And more importantly, what is the audience asking us?” she explained. This can often be quite a time-consuming, manual process, but Dameron believes it pays off in terms of quality.
“Comments, questions, those active points of engagement, these are things I’m always looking for. When that symbiotic relationship that exists between audience and content creator happens, you start to see content become better.”
“You must be in the plumbing of it all if you are to understand how to really harness your opportunities in the best way possible and to be able to do so with a quickness and a confidence.”
It’s clear that a multiplatform approach is key to the future of Meredith’s content strategy. Dameron’s role sits centrally at Meredith, and she is planning further video expansion across other brands in Meredith’s portfolio. However, although her position working across brands allows her to apply a framework and resources across titles, she is also keen to emphasize that each video strategy has to be as unique as the brand.
“That centralized approach allows us to have a framework that is strong, but flexible. But that being said, it’s really important to emphasize that each particular brand is at the helm of its own creative manifestation in video.”
A flexible, evergreen future
As Dameron gets her feet under the table at Meredith, she is planning to expand the company’s pool of evergreen video content. The goal is to realize longer-term value. “We’re also very interested in developing a long-form video strategy; one which really focuses on the lifetime value of the video library,” she said.
Crucially, this will involve building flexibility into the process, and anticipating how the videos will be used in the future. From being able to shoot for multiple orientations to distributing across social and OTT, careful planning from the outset is essential.
“We want to give ourselves the flexibility to create content and programming across every distribution channel and every screen that exists here today, or is yet to be built tomorrow,” she explained. “If you have a rigor and a framework for assembling the strongest video library you can, then you’re unfettered in the future from distributing it however you wish.”
Diversity of on-screen talent is firmly on Meredith’s agenda. But to ensure it makes the most of that investment for the future, it is also firmly focused on building a diversified video portfolio that is future-proofed both in format and content.
It doesn’t seem so long ago that premium video was the great hope for publishers. Newspapers including The Daily Telegraph were investing heavily in building up their video teams, only to have the ground fall away from underneath them when platforms changed the terms of agreements. The result? Newspapers cut their losses and jettisoned the teams around which they had so recently built their strategies.
Premium video now finds itself in a bit of a limbo. It is no longer the star of most publishers’ offerings (save for a few examples). And it has taken a back seat when it comes to the marketing of news paywalls. Instead, insight and access are the new tentpoles of subscriptions. That’s never been more clear than when the Telegraph, fresh from abandoning its video unit, launched an out of home ad campaign heralding its unfettered access to Westminster.
The Athletic has taken a similar approach. The sports analysis site, which has outperformed during Covid, has emphasized the access its journalists have with athletes (and the access its subscribers get with the journalists). Crucially, The Athletic has eschewed video for the most part. The company does create or licensing video. However, it does not view it as central to its value proposition, as this interview with its president and cofounder Adam Hansmann demonstrates:
“According to Hansmann, the industry’s sense of news, often based on daily newspaper deadlines rather than what readers will pay for, is outdated. ‘The modern fan already knows what happened in a game, whether it be from Twitter or Instagram or Facebook. They’ve seen the highlights a million times on the internet’”.
Short and social
Hansmann’s nod tothe popularity social video is telling. Mobile video is still far and away the largest growth market for the medium. That’s especially true in markets like China, where short-form video dominates any growth charts. Users spent a total of nearly 600 million hours per day watching short-form videos on mobile in April 2019. That’s more than in any other category.
Additionally, premium video is expensive to produce and the ROI is less clear-cut than for the mass-produced videos on YouTube. As Vanita Kohli-Khandekar explains: “Because [ad-supported] video is free, platforms will do anything to get eyeballs. But subscription-supported programming (usually) is well-researched, written and produced – whether in entertainment or news.”
So, the bottom has dropped out of the video advertising market on platforms. Short-form video is the new normal. And even sports-based digital publications don’t feel the need to make premium video part-and-parcel of their offering. Is it now time to call “cut” on the concept of premium news video at newspapers?
Not news
News publishers do license footage and social video to accompany breaking news. However, the reality is that, unless premium video is a newspaper’s key focus, it just doesn’t make sense for them to invest in strictly news-centric video. For one thing, news video has a shorter tail than other types of video. For another, given that individual papers have a far smaller footprint than other platforms, it’s unlikely that they can attract enough eyeballs to compete with viewers on, say, YouTube.
That is, in part, why publishers like Joe (and its current affairs-based YouTube spinoff PoliticsJOE) choose to produce vox-pops and simple interviews. Frankly, they suit the ad-based platforms better. Even The Financial Times, which does produce longer form videos, typically hews close to the interview-led format on its in-house videos. This format entails a relatively low investment in terms of time and editing, despite looking extremely professional. However, they don’t match the level of production quality of traditional broadcasters or OTT entertainment services.
Head of audio and video for The Evening Standard Chris Stone said: “When a breaking news event happens there is obviously massive spikes in traffic, and everybody’s very interested in this one thing that’s happening. And so, it’s actually quite easy to serve video to that audience, because there’s people out there that are looking for that right then. But it tends to be a shorter tail. And that spike will disappear very quickly. And then you’ll be on to the next thing.”
The lifestyle lifecycle
Instead, he argues that lifestyle video content is the way forward for newspapers. It has a longer lifespan and greater opportunity for commercial partnerships.
Paul Newman is brand director for Future Plc’s home interest titles. Speaking about its own “pivot to video” with the Real Homes Show, he notes that: “Real Homes Show… has been a huge success since we launched it last April. We generated hundreds of thousands of views of the show. It’s proved incredibly popular with commercial partners.”
“I think the important thing is just to start with a good solid business plan, and to understand why you’re creating video, rather than just creating video because you think you should, or because somebody in senior management thinks, ‘Oh we haven’t gotten the video content, maybe we should get on with creating some.’”
The success of lifestyle content in attracting users to sign up for a subscription has already been clearly demonstrated by The New York Times, whose Cooking app is frequently cited as a reason for paying. It is, unsurprisingly, heavily based around video.
Similarly, major lifestyle publications have made their archive of health and fitness videos available as part and parcel of their memberships. The reality, then, is that while video is still a good investment for newspapers for driving subscriptions, oftentimes news video is not.
Marketing medium
So, does that mean that there is no opportunity for newspapers around news video? Not at all. Just look at the success of Vox’s Explained series on Netflix. It delivers an awful lot of value to the parent brand in other ways that aren’t primarily monetary. At the time of Explained’s launch, Vox’s editor-at-large Ezra Klein stated that “… the Vox team did think about the overall Netflix audience, which is much bigger than Vox’s. But not as much about whether those people were watching on phones or tablets or other devices.”
Newspapers also recognize that video consumption habits are different among their key demographics. Consumption is growing across the board. However, it is effectively the primary means of media consumption among younger audiences. The Guardian, which hit one million subscribers on its YouTube channel last year, is keenly aware that those younger audiences are the key to its future.
One million subscribers may not sound like a lot on YouTube. It is considerably smaller than many individual’s channels, and any ad revenue it generates is likely to barely cover production costs, if at all. That, after all, is why many larger (non-media) YouTube channels operate Patreon or donation models as well.
The longer-form explainer news videos that The Guardian produces and makes available for free is effectively the best form of brand marketing possible. It hits audiences where they typically spend their time and can be used as a lure to drive interest back to the paper’s own membership scheme. More than that, as audiences shift to seeing YouTube as a primary source of news, it helps demonstrate that the brand can be trusted above all the conspiracy and polarized videos that typify the platform.
News publishers are serious about the quality of their journalism, no matter the medium. As younger people’s consumption habits lean further towards video, then investment in news video is a way to communicate that quality. It just requires publishers to recognize that the return on that investment is unlikely to come quickly or easily. Rather, it will come from a deeper overall relationship with the audience segment on which they will soon depend.
The TikTok app has now been downloaded nearly two billion times. And a recent surge in new users is being attributed, at least in part, to people escaping the boredom and worry of coronavirus self-isolation and lockdowns. At some point, the pandemic’s tempest will subside, so what long-term strategies can publishers and journalists put in place to get the most from the platform into the future?
In January I wrote a lengthy Medium Post linking to best practice examples and tutorials. In this piece, three very different media outlets share what’s worked, what hasn’t, and their advice to publishers joining TikTok for the first time.
The extraordinary success of The Washington Post’s account piqued Early’s interest in TikTok early on. But he hung back for a while before signing Guardian Australia up. “I couldn’t make a commitment to a personality-driven approach like the Post,” he says. “After noticing a few other media outlets posting straight news videos, I decided to get started that way in August last year.”
Guardian Australia’s account has two aims. The first is to build brand
awareness with young audiences. The second, says Earley, is to “reach young
people who share a deep interest with some of our key coverage areas, like the
environment.”
Successful early posts paired news clips with popular sounds. More recently, hits have focused on national challenges like the recent floods and bushfires. “Our bushfires explainer did quite well, taking inspiration from a NowThis Politics impeachment explainer on TikTok that went viral,” Earley says.
However, their strongest performing video has been a surprise. Nancy Pelosi’s reaction to an apparent handshake snub by Donald Trump has had 2.2 million views since it was uploaded in February. Earley attributes these numbers to the fact that TikTok showed the video to Indian users as well as Australians.
Guardian Australia’s news differs from the approach many publishers are taking to focus on timeless content, given that TikTok doesn’t display the date a piece of content was posted.
TikTok’s metrics are
also quite limited. However, Earley says that’s fine while Guardian Australia
continues to find its best voice on the platform. “Our use of the platform is still experimental and
not a top priority for maintaining a regular posting schedule,” he says.
“I’m looking at topline
followers and likes, not so much as a measure of success, but more to keep an
eye on overall growth. I also look at the individual video play counts and
number of comments to see what gained traction.”
Wales Online’s
account also launched in August last year, targeting people under 24 living in
Wales.
“For us, the
aim isn’t just to grow a large TikTok following. It’s also to learn more about
how we serve Generation Z and get a better understanding of the way they express themselves
and consume news and media,” Rinaldi says.
“When we
started, we were the only UK regional publisher [on TikTok] so we didn’t have
anyone to compare to or look up to for good practice.”
Every publisher I spoke to, including Rinaldi, has mentioned The Washington Post as an example of best practice. However, it’s not one they necessarily want or need to duplicate. “I didn’t think emulating [the Post] would achieve what we set out to do, so we’ve just experimented a lot to see what worked for us,” she says.
That has meant actively seeking the right tone and
approach for content, and developing new production skills. “Our newsroom is
quite confident in producing social videos but we quickly realized that we
needed a completely new approach on TikTok, from our ideas process to how we
shoot and edit,” Rinaldi says.
Repurposing user-generated content has been “a mixed bag” in terms of response, Rinaldi says. “We’ve found food, comedy, and climate change content has performed well,” she says. “But we’ve also had videos that bombed, like people singing and a dog that can say hello. It’s [also] a lot harder to get traction for videos that don’t fit with a challenge, like our videos of the South Wales floods.”
Following seven months of trying different things, Wales
Online has begun formulating a clear strategy to engage its TikTok followers
with more serious news content. And this is a goal Rinaldi says will be challenging
given that on-platform metrics consist primarily of video views, follower
numbers, and likes on individual posts.
“So far, we’ve found TikTok to be a really receptive and
encouraging platform to work with,” she says. “Our audience is very open,
provides us with regular updates and they’re happy to answer our questions, which
is refreshing!”
New York-based
publisher Futurism is using TikTok to connect with young science and tech
enthusiasts all over the world. “We began by implementing a video strategy
we’ve run with on most other platforms – posting our most popular short clips
and well-known viral memes to attract attention,” Banas says.
Futurism’s best performing videos have combined educational clips with popular sounds, like this explainer on how astronauts take a bath in space.
Later on, The Washington Post’s runaway success inspired Futurism to expand its uploads to include videos featuring its staff and newsroom more candidly. However, doing this well has turned out to be harder than it looks. “While everyone wants to be Dave Jorgenson, it’s incredibly difficult to do,” he says.
“Most
newsrooms don’t have a dedicated TikTok team. The biggest challenge is simply
the amount of time it can take to produce quality content, but the good thing
is that – unlike traditional video – TikTok has made it easy for many people to
utilize powerful video editing tools to create posts for a mobile-first
audience.”
Banas says Futurism is learning
what it can from TikTok’s limited metrics and whimsical algorithm to achieve
specific goals, such as engaging with young women interested in science and
technology.
For now, Futurism has “pulled back” from regular posts to focus on other priorities. But Banas says timeless clips posted weeks or months ago still attract fresh audiences – another example of the evident irrelevance of time to the TikTok algorithm.
Thinking of joining TikTok in 2020? Here are some pro tips:
Earley, Rinaldi, and Banas have these tips for newcomers to the platform:
Spend time as a user and watch plenty of content before diving in head-first.
Think about what you want to achieve on the platform
Ask yourself how you’d explain a big story, or what it’s like to be a journalist, to a teenager.
Try some or all of these genres: explainers, vlogs, text on screen to music, lip syncing.
Decide whether you can commit to putting staff on camera and let them do “fun stuff.”
Use the ‘drafts’ function to learn the basics like adding and timing captions.
Read the comments to better understand who you are reaching on the platform.
Don’t feel under pressure to post often.
The ethos of TikTok is authenticity, so embrace it and get the whole newsroom involved.
Be prepared to relax your brand guidelines for an entirely different platform.
Interact with your audience. Creator comments and replies mean a lot to viewers.
