Social TV growing, still lacks audience, monetization: experts

While singing competition reality shows have been a mainstay on network television for the past decade, their newest iteration could offer an indication of the direction in which social-TV strategies are heading. Rising Star, which premiered on Sunday night and airs in Canada on BCE Inc.’s CTV network, allows viewers to vote — in real time — on which singers will stay in the competition, while contestants perform in front of a giant screen made up of viewers’ social media profiles. The interactive elements of the show are the next step in the evolution of social TV, Andy Batkin, the California-based CEO of Social Summits LLC, which organizes the Social TV Summit conference, said in a phone interview. “Rising Star is a perfect example of that, where the audience is fully engaged in and a part of and can affect the outcome of what they’re watching, or be a part of the story of what they’re watching,” he said. Thus far, social-TV strategies have fallen into two general categories; those dealing directly with social media, such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. networks, and stand-alone apps and products, he noted. The former is often referred to as "social television," while stand-alone apps are called "second screen" products, but they are considered part of the same phenomenon and the terms have been used interchangeably. Independent broadcast consultant Kelly Lynne Ashton said in a phone interview that social TV started because the audience was on social media anyway, talking to each other about television. Content creators began participating in these discussions, “and then slowly the broadcasters started to realize that this is a way to keep the audience, keep them engaged,” Ashton said. Participating in social TV by tweeting quizzes or photos with lines of dialogue based on content that just aired is a “simple, low-cost” way of participating in social TV, she said, adding that it’s also “something that has led to a resurgence, I think, to some extent, of scheduled television.” The next stage of social TV involved bigger budgets, and the creation of synced experiences, like an iPad app for The Walking Dead that has pop-ups of additional information, such as interviews, come up on the screen while people are watching the show. Overall, it’s a phenomenon with which the U.S. television industry has now fully jumped on board, Guy Finley, conference chairman of the 2nd Screen Summit NYC conference, said in a phone interview. “I don’t think there’s anybody that is missing this boat, or who is sitting back with folded arms saying, 'Hmm, I’m going to wait and see on that,' ” he said, speaking about the U.S. market. “That was about two years ago.” There is still a lot of room to grow, Finley added. “I look at this as a marathon ... so we haven’t even seen the second part of the race,” he said. Finley said the second-screen initiatives that haven’t been successful are those that “came out and tried to invent something out of nothing,” like products with unnecessary game-like features. More successful models have been those that reward users for watching content, he added, such as the app produced by Viggle Inc. that allows users to earn points that can then be redeemed for products, gift cards and other rewards. “We think that’s a very successful model. That will go forward and just continue to be gangbusters,” he said. “It kind of comes down to scarcity and abundance. There is so much going on, so much content, that you have to kind of cut through the clutter, make a great user experience and tie it to your engaged fan,” Finley added. In Canada, broadcasters “are only just figuring out the social TV,” Ashton said. She noted that Bell Media's Space network “is doing quite a bit of it, because that audience is very much online." In reference to experiments with social TV involving shows such as CTV's Flashpoint and the Listener, Ashton said, “I think they’re starting to understand better how to interact with that audience.” “You can’t force it. You have to encourage it rather than trying to control it, and this is something that the creators who have organically developed in this space understand, but producers and broadcasters tend to come into it with an attitude of, 'Well, we need to control and own the experience,' ” she said. Ashton added that Canadian second-screen, synced products have mostly been focused on children’s TV, as opposed to adult dramas. She noted that before social-TV strategies moved into apps, “online games were all the rage,” and they didn’t always work. The online game for The Border, for example, didn’t work because it didn’t fit with the demographics of the show’s audience, Ashton said. “You can’t just create cool stuff; you have to understand your audience and what they’re looking for,” she said. “We’re all getting better at it,” she added. Batkin said social TV still faces two major challenges — a small audience and a lack of monetization. “I hate to be callous about this, but without the monetization, without advertising support, there is no social TV,” he said. For the average TV show, less than one per cent of the audience will participate in social TV, he said. In Canada, a 2013 report by CBC/Radio-Canada's Media Technology Monitor (MTM) found that social TV is still in its infancy, with six per cent of Canadians talking about a show on Facebook while the show is airing, and three per cent turning to Twitter. That report was based on data collected in 2012, the same year that a report co-published by the Canada Media Fund (CMF) urged broadcasters to develop second-screen apps. Also in 2012, Montreal-based social TV audience measurement company Seevibes released a service that ranks top-rated Canadian TV shows by their reviews on social media, and has since expanded to France. In a report earlier this month, Seevibes said the number of Twitter and Facebook “interactions” about television increased 12 per cent in the past year. One way to monetize social TV is to integrate advertising, such as banner ads and coupons, into the product. Yet, to monetize them successfully, broadcasters have to promote those products and spend airtime to do so, Batkin said. The size of the audience on social TV is important since “advertisers will go where the eyeballs are,” he said, noting that online advertising gained traction as Internet use increased. “So if there are millions of people who are looking at their second screen or their mobile phone while they’re watching television,” noted Batkin, “then we, as an industry, have to figure out how to take advantage of that.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

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Social TV growing, still lacks audience, monetization: experts

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