How Broadcasters Can (Will) Get With the Social Program

NAB

If broadcasters are going to grow their audiences — attracting younger generations — they can learn from leading content creators. NAB Show brings the worlds of TV and social together for networking and conference sessions designed to spark ideas and partnerships.

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“Part of the problem that linear television is suffering from is that it has got stuck in a rut of moribund thinking,” explains Michael Depp, chief content officer and editor at NewsCheckMedia and curator of the Programming Everywhere track at NAB Show. “The premise of Programming Everywhere — now in its second year — is to convene a varied group of people across the media industry to talk about content production in a holistic way,” Depp says.

“Typically people in media and in television particularly stay in their lanes,” he continues. “Those lanes could be syndicated programming, sports, news, or they could be distribution on platforms like streaming, FAST channels, social media or digital.

“The industry’s problems may have been greatly accelerated by the fragmentation of media and the proliferation of streaming channels but broadcast execs need to begin to think about their programming needs in a more expansive way.”

Instead of revisiting “the same peer group sitting on the same panels across a typical conference day,” he says, “what we wanted to do was expose different constituencies to each other, to mix these people up and try to spur some new thinking about how to fill the many, many hours of daily programming that they now need to attend to.”

Broadcaster programming needs have expanded because their distribution channels have now expanded. Aside from linear channels, broadcasters all have streaming services such as digital catch-up or free ad-supported versions of linear stations.

Last year, Programming Everywhere convened executive decisionmakers from pretty much every US broadcasting company and layered onto that a good number of content creators, show runners, producers, talent and technologists.

This year at NAB Show, these an additional layer of content creators who are native to social media and who have built huge audiences and successful businesses.

“They’ve made an end-run around the whole gatekeeper process of television and brought their video content directly to audiences via platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. These are mostly very young people who are simply passionate about something that they want to share,” says Depp.

“I thought it was very important to bring people who come from that mindset and generation and put them in the same room as the people who work in conventional television. The idea is to shake things up and put front and center the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that creators are practicing and broadcaster claim they want to embrace.”

Technologists are an important part of the conversation, too. They can share insight into how to boosting efficiencies in the production process since everyone needs to make more programming with less money.

The “Social Media/Streaming Stars on Growing Niches Into Audiences” panel Depp is moderating showcases four extremely diverse talents from very different subject areas and different backgrounds. They will share insights into why they gravitated to their particular niche; how they developed a content creation regimen that they stick to; how they continually calibrate that based on metrics about audiences; and then how they maintain that relationship with their audiences.

“Whether they represent national companies or local stations TV executives will find something to learn from the people making media in this way. Now is the time that they need to lean in and pay attention to this mindset and this way of producing content,” says Depp.

“No one expects broadcasters to lift a content creator and just plonk them into TV. It’s been tried and failed too many times. But there could well be new ideas to be mined and if you don’t at least have an open mind you will never find out.”

The speakers on this panel include Jacklyn Dallas, who, like many content creators, began producing content as a teenager. Just finishing her undergraduate degree, Dallas creates how-to tech videos to energize and educate her Gen-Z audience on how technology impacts their daily lives and the most important trends to watch. Dallas does so with such success that she was invited to Google HQ to interview CEO Sundar Pichai.

“Jacklyn is very clear, very well-informed with remarkable access to major tech leaders,” says Depp. “Her content is accessible to a broad audience and she’s an extremely enthusiastic personality.”

Representing another side of the popular tech subject on social is Quinn Nelson. He presents consumer tech reviews on his channel Snazzy Media. Like all of the panelists, he’s a smart, articulate person with a strong social following. Quinn will speak to the ongoing process of calibrating content around the very granular metrics that you get from platforms like YouTube.

Travel is a major subject area on social and obvious broadcast programming overlap. You can hear best practices for the “video hustle” from professional content creator Juliana “TravelingJules” Broste. The winner of 12 Heartland Emmys, Broste can speak with experience about how to create content that cuts through in the competitive lifestyle/travel space.

Last but by no means least, the fourth panelist on this session is Sean Sotaridona, popularly known as Sean Does Magic. The Dutch-American magician and TikTok star is famous for posting magic-related videos. “With an incredible 33 million followers, Sean is a rock star creator who performs street magic with the global fanbase of David Copperfield. And he’s only 21,” says Depp.

While those in TV should listen to the content creators, it is not as if this is a one-way street. “The thing is that the content creators are also interested in television,” he explains. “In many cases — and this is a kind of a key point to get across here — because the NAB Show is trying to evolve and get outside of broadcast parameters and become more of a content creation space. Broadcast and social are media for content creators (or producers, writers and directors in traditional broadcast parlance) and NAB is an ideal place for them both to mix.”

Depp says, “Content creators should think of seriously about coming to NAB to get in the same room with the decision makers in television because those people who make programming decisions are looking for something new that they haven’t seen before.”

If that wasn’t incentive enough then the axe hanging over TikTok is a warning that no distribution platform is forever.

“It points to the precariousness of the creator’s position where they’re dependent on a few prime distribution platforms,” Depp says. “Anytime there’s an algorithmic tweak that has implications for their reach and now there’s something more existential like TikTok being forced to cease of sell.
“If a creator’s aim is to be distributed as widely as possible then why shouldn’t television and TV’s digital channels be part of that mix?”