Keep calm, your audience is everywhere

By Gareth Capon, CEO, Grabyo

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By Gareth Capon, CEO, Grabyo

target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin> By Gareth Capon, CEO, Grabyo

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Tell me: where has the audience gone?

The current media market is fragmented. Broadcasters, publishers and media rights holders need to understand complex patterns of consumer behaviour, with consumption habits changing fast and business models struggling to keep up with the demands of an internet generation.

For those looking for guidance, fans of Spanish football may soon provide some valuable insight.

Earlier this month, OTT platform Premier Sports and major British broadcaster ITV acquired the UK media rights to La Liga, Spain's popular top-flight football league.

The result of the deal, which broke the previous exclusivity held by Eleven Sports, was hailed as the potential future of sports consumption .

In essence, the deal shifts the structure from a pureplay digital streaming (OTT) service with Eleven Sports to a hybrid model that combines digital distribution with traditional broadcasting. Many in the industry have argued that this is unsustainable and that this simply highlights the folly of online streaming for major rights properties indicating that traditional pay-TV subscription bundles are the only model that works. What has transpired, even if this was not the original strategic plan, may be the complete opposite.

Why should anyone outside of sports media care about this deal?

Sports video audiences have long been ahead of the curve when it comes to adopting new media and technology, consuming and paying for services whilst everybody else catches up.

Publishers in sport quickly discovered real-time conversations on social platforms generated demand for in-play highlights and live streaming. This engages viewers across a variety of platforms, building fanbases and loyalty beyond headline events'.

The combination of amplified, real-time distribution and new forms of sports storytelling has created powerful new brands such as DAZN, Copa 90 and Bleacher Report.

The sports industry has paved the way for digital transformation in live video as Netflix has for on-demand streaming. The industry is ahead of the game when it comes to capturing and monetising viewers, either through premium content, advertising or sponsor partnerships.

The growth of athletes and teams as media properties has accelerated this trend, taking sports broadcasting beyond the purview of television to a plethora of digital platforms with content for every type of fan. This transformation has happened whilst rights holders are leveraging this brand value to drive viewers towards, you guessed it, TV broadcasts.

How La Liga performs across ITV, Premier Sports and Eleven Sports in the UK could act as a litmus test. Is TV actually dying, or has La Liga emerged with an optimum multi-channel distribution deal, reflecting the state of the here-and-now?

TV is dead, long live TV

Much like TV, video audiences have moved beyond looking at things in black and white. Those reporting on the rapid growth of digital media platforms tend to assume they are stealing TV audiences, but the truth is they are not.

TV has retained enormous reach. In the past 10 years, the average UK citizen has reduced its TV watching by about an hour per day from 4.5 hours in 2010 to 3 hours 23 minutes today. A 25 per cent drop in 10 years is significant, and the trend continues downwards, but this means TV remains the most important single media platform by some distance.

Older' demographics watch TV. There has been growth in TV viewing for the over-65s in the last 10 years, primarily due to people living longer and watching more TV in later stages of life. Younger people and millennials' (if that is a segment anymore) watch TV too. Those cord-cutters' or cord-nevers' who don't subscribe to a pay-TV provider still like watching OTT content, or using ad-supported platforms such as YouTube, on television screens.

Television screens are the fastest-growing platform for YouTube with 70 per cent growth last year. In fact, viewers in the US spent twice as much time watching traditional' TV channels on YouTube in 2018 than they did two years ago.

We can safely say predicting the death of TV has been premature. Media organisations that combine the power and flexibility of digital distribution with linear broadcasting benefit from the massive reach of both channels. When approaching foreign markets, like La Liga in the UK, this symbiotic relationship builds more meaningful value for the rights owner despite the challenges with non-exclusive distribution.

This model is not new. The NFL has a similar distribution model which has led to huge audience growth in the UK and other overseas territories. This builds on the domestic model for the NFL in the US where games are distributed by free-to-air broadcasters (NBC), a pay-TV network (NFL Network), a digital platform (Amazon), and mobile and social players (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Verizon).

The same is true for the Australian Open which was available to watch live in the US on ESPN, Amazon Prime and its own website for the 2018 tournament. Tennis Australia also bulked up its social video strategy to further increase its reach and drive video audiences to Australian Open broadcasts.

Please, think of the advertisers!

The tug of war for ad budgets is well documented. On the one hand, TV's mass market reach remains prominent, aligned to a media planning and buying market which understands how to buy TV audiences at scale. But digital media comes back with an upper-cut featuring targeting, rapid audience growth, engagement and measurability.

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