“We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched ’round and ’round ’til half-past down
There was fifty-seven channels and notin’ on”
Bruce Springsteen released the song “57 Channels (And Nothin’On)” back in 1992, appearing on his album Human Touch. I wonder how Bruce is coping today with the explosion of content on offer, no doubt he pines for the days when he only had 57 channels to contend with.
Today with over 200 cable channels, video on demand and a plethora of new OTT services available to watch. Viewers increasingly want the following:
- Combined Search: the ability to carry out one seach for content that combines all video services.
- Better Recommendations: viewers want to recieve recommendations that are relevant and helpful
- Next Generation TV Guide: they’re also looking for a guide that will provide one view of everything available to watch in their market, the ulitimate TV / Video guide.
Ericsson’s recent consumer survey highlights these three customer requirements. In their latest set of survey findings, more than four fifths of respondents (85%) report either always or sometimes not being able to find something to watch at least weekly. The Digitalsmiths’ 2015 Video Trends Report states that “of those who viewers that plan to cut or change video services or switch TV provider, nearly (46%) say they would stay put if their current provider found a way to improve the content discovery process.” In short if video providers can improve their content discovery service, viewers would be able to better appreciate the value of the cotent they already have.
Vennetics advocates 3 Steps to Improving Video Content Discovery:
1. Provide an Advanced Search & Discovery Feature
Content discovery is critical. Quality content is a necessity, but it’s not enough. Programming is destined to fail if audiences don’t know about it or can’t easily access it. With a huge and growing number of choices available, mastering content discovery becomes even more critical. Smarter discovery interfaces should be a key innovation area for content providers.
Vennetics Mobile Video Platform enables viewers to search and discover all their favourite web based video services all from one place. Vennetics Mobile Video Platform is integrated with the leading online video and TV providers. It uniquely curates the video content across multiple service providers into one app based storefront. This means that viewers don’t have to jump from one video provider’s app to another to discover who has the latest movie or TV show, as they can find them all in one place on our easy to use whitelabel app.
See short explainer video here: Vennetics Mobile Video Platform
2. Provide Social Recommendations
Netflix, which has championed video discovery services, reports that more than (75%) of what its subscribers watch comes from some sort of recommendation. Netflix believes it has just a one to two minute window to convince viewers to watch something before they give up go to another service.
In this context research carried out by Ericsson provides some interesting food for thought. According to Ericsson TV & Media Guide 2015 Recommendation engines are not perceived as smart enough, and often recommend titles that have already being watched, are irrelevant, completely weird and fail to surprise and inspire. According to Ericsson Social Recommendations from friends and family are perceived by viewers as the most useful and reliable.
Capitalising on this information the Vennetics Mobile Video Platform comes with a “Movie Night” feature which enables viewers to invite their friends to watch a movie or TV show or recommend a movie or TV show to them.
3. Provide One View – Next Generation TV & Video Guide
I don’t know about you but when I was a kid the TV Guide provided what seemed like a secret look into the future of my favorite TV shows for that week. Today viewers are looking for an online guide that will inform them and get them to the shows / movies they want to watch quickly and cost effectively.
Research from from Altman Vilandrie & Company – 2015 Annual Survey on Consumer Viewing Habits show that viewers want one single App for all their video and TV watching.
“Nearly 9 out of 10 US TV and VoD subscribers (86 per cent) want a single app for all of their video watching”
This makes complete sense, viewers don’t want ten different apps that they have to navigate to see what’s worth watching tonight. Viewers want a single app that will allow them to search across all content providers.
At Vennetics we’ve designed our Mobile Video Platform to encorporate all three of the customer driven requirements listed above. For more information please go to: http://www.vennetics.com/products/mobile-video-platform/