Why Are We Betting on Wide Releases for Films Like “Belfast” and “Spencer”?

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Recent gung-ho wide release strategies for indie titles don’t appear to be working, despite stella critical reviews. What’s going wrong?

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/why-are-we-still-wanting-wide-release-strategies-for-films-like-belfast-and-spencer/

The release formula for lower budget, arthouse or indie films used to entail a slow build to generate publicity including festival plays, critical reviews before limited release on half a dozen screens, expanding it to 50 screens, then 300 screens, then (if it did well enough) 1,000 screens.

Even the most popular and celebrated independent films were treated to such a platform release schedule

“They were seen as requiring special nurturing,” says Variety.

“What we once called the mass audience needed to be enticed into seeing them. But with the right amount of teasing, that audience would go and fall in love with these movies too.”

However, recent indie titles including Zola (release over the July 4 weekend), Spencer and Belfast have been opened wide: Belfast in 580 theaters domestically; Spencer in 1000 theaters and The French Dispatch in 780.

And it’s not working – at least according to Owen Gleiberman. Variety suggests that Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, a drama about Princess Diana, is “limping its way toward $10 million,” and that neither it nor Kenneth Branagh’s nostalgic look back at his home town Belfast “aren’t exactly setting the box office on fire.”

It’s not universal. Variety points out that many art films and documentaries still open on just a few screens, like The Rescue and Camerimage Golden Frog winning C’mon C’mon.

It also rates Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, the season’s “bona fide breakthrough indie hit” on account of mustering $13 million on 800 screens.) despite receiving some of the most dyspeptic reviews of the director’s career.

“This instant wide-release pattern may be linked to the pandemic (the perception that a movie now has to grab your attention or be consigned to oblivion),” offers Gleiberman. “It may also be considered a kind of loss leader for streaming (a way to advertise a film for home viewing, and the box-office tally be damned). But it reflects a throw-it-out-there strategic crudity that is not doing these films any favors.”

The critic’s chagrin is mostly about explaining the disappointing box office return for Spencer which features a performance by Kristen Stewart widely considered the Oscar frontrunner “but the heat around that movie has not been allowed to build.”

The strategy behind the wide release seems to be to open big so as not to be perceived as arthouse but a genuine must-see at the cinema.

Distributors want to maximize their own success, and if the new wide-release strategy is perceived to be floundering, who’s to say that the old strategy won’t become new again?

Of course, the key factor behind all this may simply be the demon of streaming — the voice in viewers’ heads that now says, “If it’s not Bond or Godzilla or Ghostbusters or Marvel, why bother to go out to see it?” As Variety sees it, there’s no platform in the world that can support audience indifference.

 

 

George Steel BSC on Pierre Aïm AFC / La Haine

British Cinematographer

Set in the aftermath of a riot, La Haine was a sensation in 1995. Director Mathieu Kassovitz’s exuberant waking dream of friendship and social discontent was linked to riots in the Parisian suburbs shortly after its release and still hits like a visceral wrecking ball. George Steel BSC revisits the cinematography of Pierre Aïm AFC. 

https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/pierre-aim-afc-la-haine/

Director Mathieu Kassovitz won the prestigious best director prize at Cannes, but the explosives detonated by La Haine’s visuals share credit with cinematographer Pierre Aïm AFC.  

Hate chronicles twenty-four hours of aimless meandering in les banlieus by three young men – an Arab, an African and a Jew – before an inevitable but shocking confrontation with the police. 

It marries the French New Wave with American classics like Mean Streets and invites comparisons to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.  

It’s the pick of George Steel BSC (The Aeronauts) who says he has viewed it a hundred times. “It’s mesmeric. Rebellious. I never tire of watching it and always see new things. Every time I press play, I am transported.” 

In part, he is transported back to 1995 when he was working in Paris as a bus boy in a restaurant. “It was the first film I ever went to see twice in the cinema. I walked out of one screening and straight into the next.” The story attracted him first. Told from the point of view of three inseparable friends, Hubert, Saïd and Vinz (Hubert Kounde, Saïd Taghmaoui and Vincent Cassel), “it’s a film about friendship and joy and youth,” Steel says. “It doesn’t dwell on being miserabilist. A lot of what they do is naughty, some is downright illegal, but the point is that they feel alive.” 

It was also the first time Steel had cause to check who the camera operator was [Georges Diane]. “It was the first time I’d ever thought about what the camera is giving you as a viewer. For me, the cinematographer’s job is most rewarding when it is a genuine collaboration with the director, grip, lighting and all the departments coming together.” 

The film’s striking black-and-white cinematography (filmed in colour as a condition of the production’s insurance bond) “instantly gives you a poetry and evokes an otherness,” says Steel.  

“The whole film is dreamlike, or a nightmare, for this group who are trapped by their surroundings. In truth, the decision to shoot black-and-white made sense, given that the cladding of housing estates in France are quite garish. Monochrome eliminates that clashing distraction. It also gives the film a prison-like quality.” 

Black-and-white also links the film’s realism with the news footage shown in the opening credits. Kassovitz was inspired to write the film following outrage at the killing of a Zairian immigrant. For Steel, who grew up in Algeria, the film’s depiction of racist tension, especially between the police and Arab community, continues to resonate. 

Aïm makes extensive use of long Steadicam shots, such as one which follows the trio walking through the banlieu riffing about the sound of a motorbike. 

“I love that these fluid shots are contrasted with a scene that is totally static or that is very simply shot,” Steel says. “There’s this shift from total freedom to real control.”  

The film’s energy comes from the acting and its stylistic verve. For example, the use of a contra zoom transitions the lads’ arrival from the suburbs, a short train ride away, to the centre of cosmopolitan Paris.  

“The first part of the film is shot with shorter and wider lenses and with quite formal composition,” Steel says. “The contra zoom is the gateway to using longer lenses and more fragmented composition. The characters are less comfortable in this environment.”  

Another instance is when Vinz performs a Travis Bickle impersonation in front of a mirror. The camera starts out nearly directly behind him with his face seemingly reflected in the mirror, then, as he bends over the sink, moves into a close-up of his reflected face. There is in fact no mirror. A body double is used to mimic Cassell’s body movements. 

“The props are all flipped backwards,” Steel observes. “Although they had a decent budget [$2.6 million] these are tricks and techniques that are available to anyone.” 

In the most celebrated sequence, Aïm floats the camera over the estate to the sound of DJ Cut Killer playing a mash-up of NTM’s ‘F**k the police’ and Edith Piaf’s ‘Je ne regretted rien.’ It could represent an angel or something more sinister, or simply the freedom of hip hop music. 

“The camera was carried underneath a remote controlled mini-heli,” Steel says. “Its shadow was painted out in post.” 

Steel is just as enamoured of the less flashy sequences. “The scene I love the most is set in a public bathroom in which an old man relays a shaggy dog story about Grunwalski. It’s a weirdly moralistic tale but it’s deliciously ambiguous. There’s nothing fancy about the shot – but it’s so perfectly weighted.” 

During the making of BBC One mini-series War & Peace, Steel had the fortune of working with Kassovitz who played Napoleon Bonaparte, but he has yet to meet Pierre Aïm. 

“I would ask him, cinematographer to cinematographer, if he would tell me the truth behind certain scenes,” he says. “For example, when the characters are on a rooftop looking at the Eiffel Tower way in the distance, one of them clicks their fingers to switch off the lights but is told that it only works in the movies. Then, when they turn their backs, the Eiffel Tower’s lights do switch off. I mean, how was that done?”

 

Paul Cameron ASC / Reminiscence

British Cinematographer

https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/paul-cameron-asc-reminiscence/

Hugh Jackman plays private eye Nick Bannister in a noir-infused murder mystery romance which hinges on the filmmaker’s ability to show us several layers of reality. 

In 2050, Nick Bannister (played by Hugh Jackman) is a PI of the mind, navigating the past by helping his clients access lost memories. Living on the fringes of the sunken Miami coast, his life takes a turn when he meets new client, Mae (Rebecca Ferguson). 

Directed and written by Lisa Joy, the Warner Bros. film is produced by Jonathan Nolan, Joy’s husband and brother to Chris for whom he wrote memory warping Memento and time-hopping sci-fi Interstellar.  

Half of the movie takes place in Bannister’s office, the location of his Nostalgia machine. This is a tank in which people are immersed while their memories appear vividly on a large circular canvas surrounding them. Translating this illusion was the biggest challenge for Paul Cameron ASC (Collateral, 21 Bridges) who worked with Joy and Nolan on HBO’s Westworld. 

Cameron explains, “Bannister falls in love with Mae, or actually with her 3D memory of herself, so it was very important for me to have Hugh respond to imagery that was real. In this case the projection of Mae singing in a club.” 

Ruling out the possibility of using a cylindrical green screen as lacking the required analogue texture, Cameron tested Hologauze, a holographic effect material, and had a 280-degree screen built of it. Onto this he projected footage of the memory sequences whilst filming scenes set in Bannister’s office. 

“I remember the day Hugh walked on set for the first day shooting on the stage with the projection of Rebecca singing in front him and seeing his response. I knew I had done my job by providing the illusion and emotional experience.” 

The solution was far from simple. For a start, all the projected material needed to be shot first which entailed intricate planning of camera position and blocking, composed in part on a 3D CAD. 

“It was going to take time to figure out how to gather three to six projection shots in each location. We might know we need to be 36ft back, 4ft high and 3 degrees tipped down on a 32mm but then when you’re scouting you realise you have to knock down two walls to achieve it.” 

To complicate matters, a third editorial element is taken from the viewpoint of the person in the tank. “You have live action and projection intercut with these reminiscences,” Cameron says. “Explaining to the ADs and producers that we need to allocate the time to do this was one challenge.” 

The budget wouldn’t stretch to Joy’s first choice of film. Nor to using five projectors to map the images and maximise light levels on stage. Instead, three 4K projectors were used which tipped Cameron’s decision toward the 2500 ASA of Sony Venice. 

“We wanted to be able to see windows and other background through the projection. We wanted it to feel 3D as if projected on beads or string. I knew I’d have to reach in there with such extreme low light levels.” 

Cameron had the idea of establishing the parameters of this 3D environment in the opening sequence.  “Let’s show people four to five angles of the projection and once we do that, we can get away with showing a couple of angles later.” 

He seems satisfied with the results. “Half of it was math and half probably from gut. Fortunately, VFX had very few problems with the frustrum of projection and there were no reshoots or inserts either, which is pretty rare.” 

Cameron shot mostly with Cooke 2x Anamorphic /i T2.3 lenses, differentiating the reminiscence sequences by shooting handheld with TODD AO 38mm anamorphics “which have an intrinsic halation and flare characteristic that, for me, is very unique and emotional.”  

While German expressionist cinema (the foundation of the noir look) and classic noir films were base tonal keys, Joy felt direct references would jar in a futuristic story. 

Instead, Cameron, Joy and production designer Howard Cummings drew on Body Heat – the 1981 Florida-set noir photographed by Richard Kline ASC. “We wanted the feeling of sweat and burning sun and discomfort. Out of that I developed a LUT with Dave Cole at FotoKem which focussed on warm skin tones, warm faces – far warmer than I would normally choose to go. It was based on Kodak’s reversal stock Ektachrome, maybe more like Kodachrome in some ways.” 

Production finished under the wire of COVID-19 in February 2020 after photography began in New Orleans in Summer 2019. The DI was finished with Shane Harris at Picture Shop with Cameron able to attend the LA facility separated 20-ft apart from the colourist. 

Locations included an amusement park abandoned since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 “overgrown and filled with alligators and wild boars,” he observes. “We took a section and built a small South Beach, Miami and flooded it so it looked like buildings were two stories underwater.” 

A fight scene in an abandoned school which ends underwater was part filmed there and part sound stage with the Venice in underwater housing. Cameron captured aerials with an Inspire II Drone and a Zenmuse X5 Camera. 

He has just directed an episode of Westworld season 4, his second following ‘The Mother of Exiles’ in S3, DPed by John Grillo.

 

“I cannot think of storytelling in anything other than in angles and light, but I know how important it is to give my DP the room they need to come up with their take on the material,” Cameron says. “When you’re working for TV schedules you have to work so fast, and I feel I can learn something from the DPs I work with for sure.” 

 

2022 Will Be a Hybrid Return to Normalcy for Telecom, Media and Technology

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Theatrical will bounce back and commercial TV gets a midterm boost but pay-TV continues to decline in 2022’s year of “hybrid return to normalcy,” credit ratings and market analyst S&P Global predicts in a new report, “The Big Picture: 2022 Technology, Media and Telecommunications Outlook.”

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/2022-will-be-a-hybrid-return-to-normalcy-for-telecom-media-and-technology/

The pandemic’s aftermath looms large in 2022, altering consumer habits and charting a revised course for entertainment distributors, according to its agenda setting overview of the year ahead.

Taking these areas in turn:

Broadband Divide Closing — Slowly

It became apparent during the last couple of years just how reliant society is on connectivity for a whole range of activities from education to work — and how much of a gap there is in large swathes of the United States. S&P estimates that more than 18 million occupied US households do not subscribe to broadband as of mid-year 2021.

Strategically, bridging the digital gap is imperative to keep the US competitive in the global digital economy. With this in mind some $20.4 billion of Federal budget is being spent on deploying broadband across unserved and underserved areas in two phases over10 years.

“The demand for speed and capacity, which continuously prompts upgrades to faster, more expensive broadband tiers, will combine with the expanding subscriber pool to maintain strong revenue growth momentum,” says S&P senior research analyst Tony Lenoir.

It projects $112.67 billion in US broadband revenues in 2022, up 25.2% over 2019 levels, when the idea of broadband connectivity as an economic lifeline had yet to permeate every social stratum.

Broadcasters Look To Gambling and Midterms

A deluge of ads from expanded legalized sports betting and the return of midterm political ad spending in 2022 are expected to aid US broadcasters’ rebound from the pandemic.

Based on Kagan’s projections, the US broadcast station industry is expected to reach $40.05 billion in 2022 total advertising revenue, up 13.2% from $35.39 billion in 2021, and would surpass the $39.66 billion posted pre-pandemic in 2019.

According to Justin Nielson, Senior Research Analyst, “Core ad categories have mostly recovered from the COVID-19-induced advertising pullback of 2020, and broadcasters are feeling optimistic in the back half of 2021 with an expanded schedule of NFL games and new scripted content.”

Despite the sharp decline in broadcast network ratings, TV station ratings were boosted by local news viewership during the pandemic in 2020 and should remain stable even after a slight dip in the first half of 2021.

Telcos Bank on 5G

As fiber adoption accelerates globally and consumers increasingly turn to alternative forms of entertainment online, multichannel operators, particularly telcos, are beginning to reconsider their video strategies. Multichannel households are expected to continue growing globally in 2022, up 0.7% to reach a total of 1.11 billion, as subscriber gains in emerging markets make up for accelerated cord cutting in North America, Western Europe and advanced Asian markets. However, a growing number of operators are choosing to shut down traditional services and migrate customers to own- or third-party virtual multichannel or other streaming services.

The global multichannel economy is forecast to generate $370 billion in video service revenues in 2022, equating to a 3.1% year-over-year decline, largely due to rapid subscriber losses in North America.

“This is part of a larger trend by telcos to reduce costs and focus exclusively on connectivity and fixed-mobile convergence, particularly high revenue fiber and 5G services, and launching or partnering with OTT services to bundle with their broadband and mobile offers,” says S&P principal analyst Mohammed Hamza.

SVOD Steady But Slower

Marked by rapid growth during the last decade and major streamer launches in the preceding couple of years, the US SVOD market is expected to hold some of its pandemic progression, but subscriber expansion could slow in 2022.

Although no major SVOD launches are expected from the domestic market in 2022, S&P expects the SVOD pie to rise 12.5% to $33.9 billion through the year.

“Pandemic behavior appeared to mostly stick, while the launch of other streamers like Discovery+, Peacock and a rebranded Paramount+ helped increase both subscription online video homes and services per home,” suggests S&P research director Deana Myers.

One big question for 2022 is what will happen to HBO Max and Discovery+ once Warner Media and Discovery Inc. merge into a single company.

“Combining the services may be awkward and possibly alienate either audience as the two have little overlap in terms of interest,” Myers says. “Another option would be to offer them as a bundle with reduced pricing, similar to the path that both Walt Disney and ViacomCBS have taken for their SVOD services.”

High demand for exclusive and original programming has pumped up costs to a level that means most streaming services will not be profitable for several years. Even Disney+ is not expecting to be profitable until fiscal year 2024, says S&P.

To that end, expect to see more SVODs rolling out ad-supported tiers, as HBO Max did last June.

Return To the Big Screen

After a challenging 2020 and 2021, S&P expects recovery to ramp up in 2022 as markets will be fully opened and studios are intending to release films that had been delayed as well as new films shot in 2020 and 2021.

That major studios are committing to an exclusive theatrical window, albeit a shorter one, should also help in boosting 2022 box office. Walt Disney has moved away from a day-and-date release on Disney+ at a premium price and opted for a 45-day theatrical window. The 206.2 million in domestic box office gross through October of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings at the seems to support this move.

All in, S&P estimates $10.1 billion in 2022 box office revenue with 1.06 billion admissions. A full box office recovery is expected by 2023 with an estimated $11.52 billion and 1.19 billion admissions. That’s in contrast to just $2.18 billion of domestic box office in 2020, and an estimated total of $3.29 billion in 2021.

 

Cross-Platform Measurement Continues to Impede CTV Ad Growth

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From an advertiser’s point of view, the current state of converged TV shows there is still a ton of opportunity to leverage streaming to build additional reach, but linear is and will remain a key part of the media mix.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/cross-platform-measurement-continues-to-impede-ctv-ad-growth/

According to a report compiled by TVSquared, the biggest factors in driving forward the adoption of converged TV rely heavily on accurate measurement and attribution across platforms, as well as arming marketers with the right set of metrics that prove the value and reach of both linear and streaming.

“The State of Converged TV: A Look at Global Trends & Adoption” found that 75% of marketers across the US, UK, Germany and Australia agree that TV is now defined as linear and streaming platforms. TVSquared surveyed 1,000 TV ad buyers and analyzed billions of ad impressions across 20 converged TV campaigns active on TVSquared’s ADvantage platform.

Just as the definition of television has changed, so too has the way in which advertisers approach traditional TV practices. Marketers are now treating linear and streaming in more similar ways than originally believed when it comes to campaign management for performance and optimization.

The report found a third of buy-side respondents ranked attribution and outcomes (both online and offline activities directly linked to TV) as a top KPI for converged TV campaigns, marking a big difference for linear, which has traditionally been a tool used primarily for reach.

Reach and frequency (50%) still ranked high; both were equally as important for digital TV buys as linear. However, to achieve a reasonable amount of incremental reach, advertisers need to allocate at least 10% of their total TV impressions to streaming, the report advises.

The limitations and rigidity of the traditional TV advertising industry, and its legacy approaches to currencies and measurement, are the impetus to the top barriers to entry for converged TV.

All markets shared the same concerns about the accuracy of converged TV measurement and attribution as one of the greatest barriers for adoption.

Forty-three per cent of marketers in the US cited “lack of accurate and scalable ad occurrence and viewership data” as a significant challenge. They also ranked issues regarding cross-platform targeting capabilities, shortcomings around standardization and a lack of transparency highly.

Close to half of all respondents from Australia, Germany and the UK also identified “accuracy of cross-platform TV measurement and attribution” as the top barrier to entry for converged TV. Another top challenge across the regions was “growing concerns around privacy and security”.

According to TVSquared, the report’s findings support the need to move past legacy models where digital and TV budgets and planning were siloed and “toward a more holistic, transparent converged TV marketplace.” More than 90% of respondents said transparency of metrics across linear and streaming was important in order to devote ad spend to converged TV.

“At the end of the day, TV now encompasses both linear and streaming,” the report’s authors conclude. “Balancing converged TV strategies requires consistent metrics across both linear and streaming campaigns. Only then can advertisers accurately achieve identity-enabled TV measurement and attribution and understand the incremental reach across channels.”

Why Streamers Keep Viewing Numbers a Mystery

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The major SVODs are black boxes when it comes to sharing ratings information but, while it’s frustrating for pundits and analysts on the outside, Hollywood insiders seem sanguine about the lack of transparency.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/why-streamers-continue-to-keep-viewing-numbers-secret/

Unlike traditional box office and ratings numbers from bodies like Nielsen, streaming data from the likes of Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+, Amazon’s Prime Video and Hulu lives behind an opaque wall. It’s remains nearly impossible for dealmakers, let alone viewers, to define what is a hit and what is a bomb.

It’s unlikely to change soon — but the feeling is that change in the form of a cross-platform set of viewing metric is inevitable.

Streamers collect huge amounts of granular data from their subscribers — and that’s one chief reason why they keep it under lock and key. Why give a competitor an advantage when you aren’t obligated to?

“The advantages of being direct-to-consumer is we get an immense amount of data,” WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar tells The Hollywood Reporter in a sharply written and well researched article by Tatiana Siegel and Rick Porter.

“You don’t just see the viewing numbers, you see how they view it,” says Kilar. “What order do they view things in? How much do they watch? How much do they finish? How do they respond to various prompts to help us get better at helping them find something they love? I wouldn’t expect us or other players to put numbers out just because it’s really hard for people to understand apples-to-apples comparisons. So we labor over it. We know exactly how well these shows are doing.”

Instead, SVODs release occasional snippets of data only when it suits them. For example, a recent AppleTV+ press release said: “Over the Ted Lasso season two premiere weekend, Apple TV+ expanded its new viewers by a record-breaking 50 percent week-over-week…. The second season of Ted Lasso increased its viewership by 6x over season one.”

Per THR, that news release didn’t state any baseline figures with which to compare the 50% week-to-week jump or the sixfold increase for Ted Lasso, and is typical of public-facing comments from most streamers.

In another example, in December 2018 Netflix tweeted, “45,037,125 Netflix accounts have already watched [Sandra Bullock-starring feature] Bird Box.” At the time, “watched” meant 70% of a movie (or 70% of one episode of a series). Notes THR, “With no way to verify the data, the claim is little more than spin.”

It can also backfire. Disney, for example, issued a press release about the streaming numbers on Disney+ Premier Access and the opening theatrical weekend of Black Widow, only to have exhibitor group NATO on its back blaming day-and-date streaming on a disastrous second week box office drop-off, a damaging public battle with star Scarlet Johansson for recompense pegged to its streaming performance, and analysts attacking the studio’s whole strategy.

THR sent questions to four other major streaming outlets — Apple TV+, Hulu, Netflix and Amazon — asking what and how much data they share with producers, actors and other above-the-line talent on their projects and whether a shared currency for SVOD is important. Apple TV+ and Hulu declined to comment, and the other two didn’t reply by press time.

Yet according to some in the know, this status quo is tolerated and expected to change over time.

“Streamers are going to have to release more data to those who are creating shows on their platforms,” UTA co-president Jay Sures told THR. “Whether it’s next week, next month, next year or sometime soon after, it is inevitable. Eventually, there will be a new technology that can give the interested parties accurate data.”

Also in the article, talent lawyer Joel McKuin says the world was ever thus. “They don’t seem to be straight with you even when you have the goods,” he says. “It’s a bit of a dance. But it always was, even pre-streaming. They [studios/streamers] would find a way to undermine something’s value. So we’ve become used to not knowing. I’ve become more sanguine about it.”

Another reason why streamers remain reluctant to release data and a reason why this may change is that the data itself may be misleading if paired up. Once up on a time box office figures or peak time viewing indicated to the industry what particular programming or dayparts or audiences were worth. Now the way a piece of content is streamed means its value is more subjective to the individual streamer.

For example, which metric is most important? Subscription acquisitions? Engagement? Or something else entirely?

“[With] TV and the way it used to report, your monetization of a show was how many people watched because the advertisers were buying that,” WarnerMedia Studios and Networks Group chair and CEO Ann Sarnoff says. “That [was] a much more contained ecosystem than streaming. It’s not just your initial view. It’s the behavior of that new sub that comes in the door and what else they watch, and do you keep them?”

Sarnoff adds, “I appreciate the desire for data, but I think the data has changed, and it’s not yet been fully vetted in terms of what is the right data for the digital world because it’s not that instantaneous advertiser fulfilment. It’s a much bigger ecosystem and a longer life of the consumer behavior.”

Two conditions may make cross-platform VOD metrics likely in future. One is that measurement bodies like Nielsen or Comscore (or Barb in the UK) will become more accurate in their ability to count streaming views. The second is that when the big streamers plateau their subs numbers then comparisons with competitors would be more relevant.

Kilar predicts, “There’s going to be a short list of folks that get to scale, and then I think you’ll probably see a bit more transparency because we all know what we’re dealing with, and you can build businesses and frameworks and other things on top of it. Right now… whether you’re talking about Peacock or Paramount+ or Disney+ or Hulu, it’s not the same foundation. So that’s part of why you’re seeing kind of a ‘less than’ [when it comes to sharing data]. If I were in your shoes, I’d want it to distil down to one simple thing — and you get the email in the morning on Saturday and, boom, things are done.”

 

Building Worlds Around Worlds: New Shows Need New Thinking

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Marketing for shows often appears to come to a head around the event’s premiere on the streaming platform or cable channel, but the real challenge is in retaining engagement in the days and weeks that follow.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/building-worlds-around-worlds-how-new-shows-need-a-new-strategy/

“Audiences are three times more receptive the day after a show drops than the day before so much of our work shifts to continuity of the show at that point,” said Scott Donaton, senior vice president and head of marketing at Hulu, during a roundtable discussion convened by Variety and sponsored by Facebook.

The most insightful speaker there was Michael Engelman, chief marketing officer at Showtime. He said, “We are in a knowledge and connection business. The deeper the knowledge of customer and content the better we are as matchmakers, putting audiences with titles. Season 1 we are in hypothesis mode.”

He contrasts the campaigns for Dexter and Yellowjackets — both intended to be “muscular and multiplatform,” but with the crucial difference that Dexter is a reprisal of a popular show.

“We have a lot of data and we know that audience,” Engelman said, “But for Yellowjackets we have a lot of the tool that we use on social platforms that will allow us to test hypothesis. We have a window to learn how precise we’ve been in messaging efficacy and audience assumptions.”

With so many platforms and outlets on which to reach audiences, studio marketers explain how they begin from the core intent of the content creator and build a world around that show in order to get viewers excited months in advance.

“When we talk to a show creator or showrunners, it’s really important that from the earliest possible point, we understand what story they want to tell in the world,” Donaton said. “Our job becomes: ‘How do we take the story they’re telling, and tell a story about that story in a way that will pull people around our campfire?’”

Donaton explained further: “It’s really about, ‘What is the idea at the center of what we’re doing? And then, what are all the ways that that idea can come to life and connect with our audiences?’ So, of course, key art and trailers are always going to be important assets. But it’s really putting an idea at the center of what we do, and then having it come to life in as many meaningful ways as possible.”

Underscoring the importance of connecting with fandoms, Ellen Stone, executive vice president of entertainment brand strategy and consumer engagement for NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, said, “What we’re digging deep into is, ‘How are we talking to [fan] communities?’

“We have the [Real] Housewives, but all the Housewives are not the same — and yet, there is a thread and a through line that you can find. Data is definitely important to what we’re doing, but it’s also really heavy listening on who our fans are and what their engagement points are,” she said.

Engelman believes the job of the marketer is partly being an entertainer, creating a sense of occasion and cultural events to cut through noise and create demand.

“Obviously, competition is so grueling for attention that even the most compelling advertising and promotion can be a bit of rain in the ocean if our methodological foundation isn’t rock solid.”

The roundtable didn’t reveal many deep insights. It could have used an actual case study of a show’s promotion strategy to really nail some detail beyond what seemed to be the bland points of gathering data about audiences and trying to engage them in a story’s worlds and characters.

Facebook spokesperson James Smith, head of industry, entertainment and global marketing solutions, was on hand to spread the gospel of social media. He was also asked about the metaverse and how this fit in with current marketing plans for entertainment.

“You’ll probably hear a lot of conversation around the metaverse coming out of our camp right now, which as we define it, is a set of digital spaces that are all interconnected, allowing you to move between them. That is a heady thought that is in our vision, but it’s not going to happen overnight,” Smith said.

“So when we think about how to work with entertainment, it’s, ‘What can we do now? And what can we do for the next year? And what tools and platforms do we have that can intersect with entertainment in different ways?’” he continued. “So when we think about this ‘worlds’ narrative, we think about it as that first step towards the metaverse.”

Smith seems to be suggesting that promotions of a show’s worlds and IP can be carried out not just on Facebook, but on other (future) Meta-owned platforms, such as VR worlds, and presumably seamlessly converted across other platforms, too. It’s all too woolly to my mind. Everything remains in silos and arguably, Meta is the chief gatekeeper of the walled garden.