Early, authentic engagement key for young audiences, public broadcasters hear

MONTREAL — The key to reaching young viewers is to have content made by them, not just for them, panellists at the Public Broadcasters International conference said Friday. “The conversation must be young people to young people,” Thomas Sessner, chief digital officer of Germany’s BR, said in response to a question about interacting on social media and authenticity — a word that came up repeatedly at the two-day event focused on reaching millennial audiences. “And that’s a problem we have, because we can’t hire young people as we need. So what we do is we look to enable young people or make co-productions or … do social media forums because they can tweet better than we do.” Damian Kavanagh, controller of the U.K.’s BBC Three, echoed those comments. “It’s just interesting, the word authenticity. I think in the past, people have been guilty about not using young people to make programs for young people,” he said. “So what you had, and one of the things we will make sure never to do on BBC Three is, we don’t want to have people on our shows talking about young people who aren’t young about how young people live their lives.” Various public broadcasters talked about such initiatives at the conference, where CBC/Radio-Canada also announced a new project in which a group of millennials will develop “new ways of enhancing and sharing news and public affairs content for digital natives.” Young people are open-minded, “incredibly engaged and they care the idea of social justice and all those kinds of things,” said Kavanagh. “I just think it needs somebody, somewhere—and I think this is where public service broadcasting is really brilliant and where it can be really powerful—is to kind of explain the world to them,” he said. Public broadcasters need to be “talking about these issues,” he said, noting that BBC Three’s programming on issues like discrimination draws viewers and engaged audiences. “I think it’s just about tapping into those things that matter to young people and explaining them or exploring them in a really intelligent way,” Kavanagh added. But reaching young audiences doesn’t mean broadcasters should abandon their identity or what makes them unique, the audience heard. Maxime St-Pierre, Radio-Canada’s executive director of digital media, said in a presentation on Thursday that “there’s … strong evidence that suggests legacy is not a barrier for affinity or engagement,” citing the popularity of U.S. senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders with millennials, which he said is due to “transparency and authenticity.” “The no-B.S. approach, the no-filter approach, the sentiment of proximity and reciprocity is something that’s a part of values,” he said. That means public broadcasters need to “be true to ourselves,” he said. “We don’t need to change who we are to be relevant to younger generations.” St-Pierre also brought up the idea that the physical and digital are merging, with new services that allow anyone to live-stream video and the emergence of virtual reality. Will Cathart, vice-president of product management at Facebook Inc. said in a separate session Thursday Facebook Live is more of a communal experience than traditional television. Viewers can see who else is watching at the same time, and view others’ reactions to Facebook Live as emoticons shared by viewers float across the screen in real time. “You can actually feel as a viewer, how is rest of the community reacting to this,” he said. “It almost feels more like going to a live stadium and watching a sporting event as a group than watching something yourself.” Without engaging young audiences now, public service broadcasters can’t count on them becoming viewers in the future, the audience heard. “We absolutely need to engage them now,” said Michelle Guthrie, the managing director of Australia’s ABC. “If we don’t engage with 14 and 20 year olds… it’s not like when they turn 35, they’re going to turn to us and say ‘this public broadcaster thing, I need to start watching that.’ They’re gone forever.” That means engaging young people where they are — on social media and streaming services — and not expecting them to “come and find us, on our TV platforms, radio platforms, on our digital platforms,” she said. “I think as long as we are the source of amazing Australian conversations, culture and stories, then I don’t think we lose anything by reaching audiences where they’re spending their time.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca

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Early, authentic engagement key for young audiences, public broadcasters hear

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