Social TV Year-in-Review: VH1 Vice President of On-Air + Multi-Platform Creative Dave Perry

By Adam Flomenbaum 

mob-wivesThe below post is part of our 2014 Social TV Year-in-Review guest post series and is written by VH1 Vice President of On-Air + Multi-Platform Creative Dave Perry

Beware Social TV: Time-Shifting Has Arrived

The prevailing strategy for social TV, for many years, has been to focus on engaging audiences during the broadcast premiere. This is logical, as it’s where the eyeballs are and more importantly, theoretically helps achieve the paramount goal of a strong premiere rating. Win win: eyeballs + engagement = stronger ratings. However, viewer consumption behavior is evolving rapidly, challenging the very nature of social TV as we know it. In fact, HBO just announced that it won’t be releasing overnight ratings any longer. Instead, they’re going to publish them two weeks after a premiere. HBO’s message is loud and clear – our viewers are watching their favorite content when they please. Ladies and Gentlemen, 2014 is the year that “time-shifting” officially arrived – and it’s hitting on your girlfriend.

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Time-shifting, and all the freedom it has afforded loyal viewers, has liberated precious eyeballs from the traditional confines of broadcast schedules. Consequently, a new challenge to those of us who strive to engage viewers while watching TV has arisen, forcing us to address this question: how do you engage an audience that is not in the same place, time, or medium?

As recently as a few years ago, the biggest problem a broadcaster faced when creating a social TV experience was overcoming the fact that there was no choice but to ignore the West Coast (Sorry LA friends, love ya, mean it). But now, time-shifting even by 10 minutes can ruin a show if you’re co-viewing on social, let alone if you decide to watch the show later that very night. For me, a father of two small kids, the amount of live viewing I do is few and far between, unless of course it’s for “work,” and even then I get a sideways glare from my wife. (#loveyouRachel)

But this is the reality we live in now. From inconsiderate spoilers by fans, to even the occasional snafu by a network’s social team (#RIPBeth), it’s harder and harder to engage with social TV in a time-shifted universe.

So, how do we contend with this real and growing “space-time” problem? As I see it, here are our options…

#IgnorthernExposure

We could ignore the problem, and continue to consider the “live audience” (the Livelys) as the more premium set; separate, distinct, from the less valuable “time-shifted” (the Shifters). What we’re basically saying is, “forget those pesky Shifters and their resistance to arranging their lives around our broadcast schedules. I’m only going to cater to the Livelys.” But as the Shifter audience continues to grow (which is a challenge the industry asked for), this proposition will eventually yield diminishing returns, becoming more than the mere annoyance that it is now. So, feel free to ignore this for now, but at your own peril…

#NewRulesofEngagement

When you can have an actual conversation with your mother about “time-shifting” and she absolutely knows what you’re talking about, you know this thing is here to stay.

To that end, broadcasters must devise new ways to engage their broader audiences, no matter when and where this audience consumes content. Employing what we at VH1 call “DVR-Proof” concepts, it’s more crucial than ever to interact and engage with not only those watching live-live, but also the larger swath of audiences watching on their own timeline. But, how do you do that?

Our team at VH1 took on this challenge when we learned that a significant portion of our ‘Mob Wives’ audience watched last season time-shifted. So, we decided to partner with Shazam to create an Audio Content Recognition (ACR) activated second screen experience that enabled fans to play along with the drama of the show wherever and whenever they were watching; on VH1, DVR, VOD, and VH1.com (you can read about it here). So far, we’re seeing promising results. Engagement has continued throughout the L+3 window, adding an incremental 62% of interactions to the Live/Same Day stats over the first two weeks.  This is exactly what we’d hoped to see – people engaging when they watch.

That being said, would I apply a “DVR Proof” strategy to every show on our Network? Probably not. When Obi-Wan asked Yoda if there were only two ways to engage viewers in today’s social TV landscape, Yoda replied, “No, there is another…”

#HowtoGetAwaywithSocialTV

IMHO, it’s not an either/or proposition, nor is there a “one-size fits all” solution to social TV in today’s climate. We know people are still tuning in and engaging with premieres in record numbers; just ask ‘The Walking Dead,’ ‘Scandal,’ ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ and ‘Love & Hip Hop,’ to name a few. You should speak to that audience. But, more and more shows have a long tail that requires more elastic engagement strategies.  HBO’s new ratings strategy confirms it; viewing habits have diversified, therefore so must our social TV strategies.

Our approach should be to find the best solution for the show. Look at all of your assets, all of your data, all of your research, all of your resources and decide what’s the best way to engage the greatest number of people in the most meaningful way. At VH1, we’ve only just begun to think in this way. For ‘Mob Wives,’ Shazam was our answer – but not every show is created equal, and the same is true of the show’s audience. To optimize results, it’s going to take that much more work to find the ideal solution.

So as I look toward 2015, I’m excited by the challenges and opportunities time-shifting presents. And to all the social TV creators of 2015, please do me a favor; be creative, be innovative, be daring, adapt, and always, always quote Yoda whenever possible. (#thereisnotry)

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