Opinion: Powering digital linear channel creation in the FAST era

Rick Young, SVP head of global products at LTN, explains the importance of innovation in driving audience growth strategies

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Published: July 17, 2024 Updated: July 19, 2024

Rick Young, SVP head of global products at LTN, explains the importance of innovation in driving audience growth strategies

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A major challenge for media companies is discovering ways to efficiently and affordably deliver new channels or new versions of existing channels without significantly increasing headcount or investing in new technology.

Major broadcasters, sports networks, and streaming platforms understand the need to scale their live channel offering to engage new audiences amid intense competition and growing consumer choice. The difficulty is trying to rightsize the cost of creating a new digital linear channel against the expected revenue returns from highly segmented audiences. Simply experimenting in the digital arena doesn't cut it anymore. Ambitious players need to see genuine revenue generation across all traditional linear and digital products to meet profitability targets and achieve sustainable business growth.

Media companies know that live is the most compelling and valuable flavour of content. Live content draws viewers onto new platforms - recent Kantar research showed that soccer drove 51 per cent of SVoD sign-ups in Europe in Q3 2023. Traditional media organisations and digital-native players seek ways to make digital and FAST platforms the home for their live events and linear channel experiences. One reality remains clear: Media organisations need their new digital-first channels to engage the widest audience possible with fresh, live content. Robust IP-based technology, global reach, and the power of automation enable them to do that cost-efficiently and at scale.

Staying ahead to ensure success on FAST platforms Viewer expectations are constantly shifting. Today's audiences, particularly digital-native viewers, are looking for fresh, live, and relevant content experiences on new platforms and devices, including FAST platforms. We need to move past the long-held perception of FAST as a secondary viewing option best-suited to archived content and niche programming - times have changed. Media companies need to create more compelling content propositions to attract the scale of audiences required on FAST platforms to increase revenue. Beyond integrating more live and high-value programming to increase viewer engagement, content owners also need more cost-effective ways of iterating, experimenting, and doubling down on winning formulas. That could mean launching a new digital linear channel tomorrow and replacing it with several different iterations in a matter of weeks.

Meanwhile, keeping up with a complex and rapidly expanding digital distribution landscape takes a lot of work. While facilitating seamless distribution to all of the most well-established FAST platforms, such as Samsung TV Plus, Pluto TV, and Tubi, is vital, content providers also need the toolkit to deliver their digital linear channels to various downstream traditional platforms, including MVPDs, vMVPDs, and broadcast stations where significant viewership remains. Media businesses and platform operators are looking for connective tissue to help bring channels originally destined for FAST to broader horizons and more traditional endpoints. We're also seeing channels initially designed for more traditional platforms evolving their business model toward a targeted FAST approach. Using automated playout and IP-based distribution technologies simplifies these processes and makes them more cost efficient, helping media companies manage ecosystem complexity and scale without high costs.

Taking your live linear channel to new levels Broadcasters can champion intelligent, reliable, digital-first playout systems with built-in automation to seamlessly create new digital linear channels, increasing speed-to-market, integrating high-value live sports and news programming, and supporting custom ad triggering for multi-platform monetisation.

We all know that live sports, news, and events draw in viewers at scale and attract advertisers. Localised content experiences are also fundamental ingredients for building a compelling FAST offering. Regionally tailored news coverage, local sports, weather, and entertainment programming deepen audience engagement and reduce platform churn. The good news is that cost efficiently bringing high-value live and local content to FAST platforms isn't as complicated as you may think. Powered by advances in automation and intelligent IP distribution, broadcasters can take a primary linear channel and seamlessly spin up secondary and tertiary tracks for FAST distribution - engaging audiences with live and local news, sports, or other high-value live content while sidestepping the typical costs and headcount increases associated with scaling your channel offering.

Automation drives digital revenue growth Automation is essential to driving operational efficiencies and achieving cost optimisation for media businesses. Reducing the time and human effort spent on non-value-added tasks opens up resources to invest in creativity and audience experiences. Incorporating an integrated IP ecosystem approach that harnesses automation to fuel powerful channel creation, customisation, and monetisation capabilities gives broadcasters a robust foundation to deliver unique and targeted content that delivers for consumers and ad buyers alike.

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LINK:	https://www.tvbeurope.com/features/opinion-powering-digital-linear-cha...
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