Nearly 15 million years. Roughly 5 billion days. Or 1.3 x 1011 hours.
That’s the amount of leisure programming People collectively watched on streaming companies in 2021, in line with Nielsen. Pushed by broad curiosity in drama, actuality and child’s programming, streaming viewing hours prolonged to the eleventh energy throughout our final journey across the solar.
What’s behind this mind-boggling quantity? For one, an ongoing shift in how individuals repeatedly entry programming. In the course of the last week of 2021, customers spent 33% of complete TV viewing minutes on streaming platforms. Per Nielsen measurement, this was the best share of viewing so far captured by streaming in comparison with broadcast and cable TV. And fairly presumably, the tipping level at which on-demand streaming began to overhaul linear TV viewing as customers’ most popular leisure consumption technique. In February 2022 alone, for instance, People streamed 169.4 billion minutes of video content material.
The large time spent viewing streaming content material has been fueled by the continued proliferation of latest streaming companies. New entrants from one-stop leisure content material storefronts to extra niche-driven gamers launched to compete with incumbent streaming stalwarts. Because the variety of accessible companies has expanded, particular person gamers are discovering themselves in an ongoing quest to ship compelling content material to draw new viewers whereas retaining current ones.
Including, pausing or dropping a streaming service is a comparatively frictionless expertise for the consumer, and the rising variety of service choices is now overwhelming for audiences, which makes content material a key differentiator. What programming to develop, whom to forged, the place to position it and find out how to make it accessible to viewers all develop into prime questions that studios and distributors must reply. As streaming-first methods develop into the norm, content material metrics and the superior analytics they gasoline develop into essential.
To assist inform content material methods and techniques, enterprises all through the media and leisure ecosystem are leveraging a wealth of information from totally different sources to attain success within the face of competitors. This holds very true for content material creators and distributors who’re attempting to maneuver previous reliance on tentpole content material releases in favor of partaking in steady optimization designed to deliver resonant programming to market regularly. For these gamers, data-driven content material analytics play a essential function within the iterative course of behind sensible programming creation and distribution.
Reality might be present in content material knowledge and analytics. However quite a lot of components are inclined to blur the image. For one, knowledge accessible to the leisure ecosystem can run the gamut by way of sources and nature. What’s extra, it’s typically inconsistent by way of protection and scale. Knowledge can run from first-party owned to third-party licensed metadata, from very uncooked to extremely normalized, from editorially curated to AI-created.
The abundance and number of knowledge raises an necessary query for the {industry}: Are media and leisure enterprises contemplating the most effective knowledge?
Gamers want a lens of readability and consistency on the content material ecosystem, the programming panorama, distribution patterns and content material reputation. Normalized and editorially curated program metadata is the first element offering executives and analysts visibility into every little thing from macro-level {industry} tendencies right down to micro-level traits of particular person applications. Viewers knowledge offers one other essential element, including an necessary sign on content material consumption that helps to light up how broadly programming is capturing viewers and who they really are.
By trying via a content material analytics lens, creators and homeowners could make knowledgeable selections about what to create and the place to position it to maximise monetization via licensing. On the distribution aspect, streaming companies, networks and platforms could make data-informed selections on find out how to put that programming in entrance of the best audiences so as to optimize engagement and loyalty for his or her companies.
Gracenote, the content material options pillar of Nielsen, is uniquely positioned to offer the lens to the {industry}’s content material analytics. Based mostly on the breadth and depth of Gracenote metadata on leisure content material and the connectivity between programming property offered by the Gracenote ID, the corporate already helps the most important and most revolutionary TV suppliers ship superior content material search and discovery capabilities. By combining industry-standard metadata and IDs with trusted Nielsen viewers measurement knowledge and long-running knowledge experience, Gracenote is powering a brand new technology of content material analytics choices.
As a result of Gracenote already tracks programming distribution throughout all platforms, each streaming and linear, the corporate has unparalleled perception into the content material market and the 26,847 distinctive TV exhibits and 620,896 particular person episodes accessible now to U.S. viewers throughout all main streaming companies. Evaluation of the information reveals that the predominant drop technique utilized by these companies final yr was releasing all the exhibits episodes on the identical day versus rolling out particular person episodes on a weekly foundation. This identical day launch method was used for 9 occasions extra episodes than the weekly launch method.
Wanting even nearer, the common streaming program engaged viewers for 1.85 episodes per viewing day. As compared, among the many prime 10% of binge-worthy exhibits, viewers had been engaged for two.45 episodes. Honing in on the highest 5%, the quantity went as much as 2.89 episodes, one extra episode per day in comparison with the common program.
So, what’s the important thing take-away right here? For equal hour-long applications, a present within the prime 5% by way of binge-worthiness can deliver an incremental hour of watch time per day to a streaming platform in comparison with a present that’s extra common by way of its binge-ability. Within the heated competitors to maximise engagement and time spent, that is invaluable perception that may really transfer the needle on a essential enterprise KPI.
With content material analytics, a creator can determine the place to focus content material acquisition and consciousness in massive, siloed catalogs. They will see what alternatives there are to advertise or advocate content material to sure audiences. Programmers can decide the probability of viewers to binge watch a sure present to assist determine on the optimum drop technique. And so they can look forward into the following six months to see what the aggressive content material pipeline appears like to assist drive launch planning.
The media and leisure ecosystem has undoubtedly been working in hyperdrive of late. All of it begins with creating compelling programming that captures the eye of viewers and displays their various identities and pursuits. Efforts prolong to creating the consumer experiences that current that programming to the audiences who crave it. All of that is in service of maximizing return on funding for creating and delivering persistently excellent leisure.
Knowledge and analytics are key to success for the M&E {industry} gamers engaged within the ongoing strategy of assessing {the marketplace}, figuring out alternatives, making selections and analyzing outcomes. After which doing it once more. Based mostly on the trusted nature of its knowledge and the highly effective analytics capabilities this knowledge allows, Gracenote is uniquely positioned to ship the options that allow content material creators, homeowners and distributors to maximise viewer engagement – and push complete streaming hours as much as but a better energy.
This text initially appeared in M&E Journal.
