November 12, 2013

Disney Channel and Viacom’s MTV have both embraced airing television shows via mobile before they hit the airwaves. However, the long-term sustainability of this strategy with other broadcasters is unlikely.

Disney and MTV are both using their branded video applications to provide consumers the primary observe new full-length TV shows. While these initiatives can be helpful in driving app downloads, mobile video measurement and scale will hold back other broadcasters from doing the identical. 

“For mobile to become a universal first screen option, the industry as an entire – both broadcasters and advertisers – might want to more concretely recognize shifting viewing habits and evolve with them,” said Jack Macleod, general manager of MXM Social, Manhattan.

“Until marketing and advertising dollars are more equitably dispersed between on-air and digital platforms that come with mobile, it’s unlikely that a mobile-first strategy can be universally adopted by broadcasters,” he said.

Mobile-first audiences
Both MTV and Disney Channel are pushing mobile-first television series.

Disney will launch the animated 24-episode series “Sherrif Callie Wild West” throughout the Watch Disney Junior app on Nov. 24. The show will then roll out to the Disney Channel and Disney Junior TV stations next year.

Since launching in June 2012, the corporate claims that its Watch Disney Junior app have been downloaded greater than five million times and has raked in 650 million video views.

The Disney app

With tablet ownership particularly high with families, the goal of the series is to offer cable subscribers yet another mobile-only incentive to stay with their TV packages while also catering to a generation of preschoolers that don’t know a global without digital devices.

The decision to head mobile-first highlights the aggressive moves that childrens’ broadcasters are taking to get a grip on online streaming services which includes Hulu, Netflix and Amazon that still desire to control video content aimed toward children.

There also are some interesting behavior differences with children that make mobile primed for younger viewers.

For instance, children wish to rewatch episodes continuously to memorize every aspect in their favorite TV shows.

According to Darcy Bow, vice chairman and media director at Starcom USA, Chicago, the financing and work in getting an animated series to air is so significant that Disney’s show will likely air on TV without reference to going the mobile-first route. Therefore, the emblem would not have much to lose with pushing the content out first through an app.

MTV however recently used mobile to premiere its 12-episode documentary-style drama “Wait ‘Til Next Year.” The corporate pushed out all the episodes before the series hit the air on Nov. 1.

MTV has install the series for binge-watching not to only drive app downloads, but in addition better know the way the teenager-driven audience responds to content before it airs.

MTV’s video app

Advertisers are slowly shifting to multi-screen advertising campaigns as more consumers move faraway from solely counting on one screen to observe TV content.

Unlike most of the discussion happening within the internet advertising industry, what’s interesting concerning the Disney and MTV examples is that mobile takes on a primary-screen approach in place of being the second one or third screen that customers are experiencing a TV show on.

In fact, Disney’s app was purely developed for video rather than other apps from broadcasters that serve up both video and extra show-related content.

Although this does generate some advertising interest from brands which are first-movers within the space, the mobile-first content from both broadcasters just isn’t scalable yet since it only applies to singular shows and lives within an app.

The model is dependent upon consumers not just downloading an app, but additionally opening it to locate the content.

“I think another consideration in all of this watching it on mobile-first can also be contemplating what’s the cost of production for these series,” Ms. Bow said.

“Certainly once you study an animated series versus a live action series versus a reality series for networks to take one of these big gamble on something to potentially amass a scale of an audience – i feel that’s where loads of networks are going to be in danger because loads money needs to be invested inside the front end of a TV show that they should get the word accessible and feature people see it directly,” she said.

“I think that’s something that definitely plays into one of these strategy and what sort of risk a more broad swath of networks will look to in deploying this strategy simply because they have got much money sunk into it that they truly must be ready to again, repay what they’ve already put into it.”

Mobile-first still a push
While younger consumers are increasingly untethered from TV sets, other broadcasters with bigger footprints is probably not ready for a mobile-first approach yet, largely because of measurement.

According to MXM Social’s Mr. Macleod, there’s more and more talk among broadcasters about C3 ratings, which takes under consideration the ratings from the typical length of commercials on-air plus an extra three days worth of digital video recorder playback.

Despite Nielsen’s recent announcement to incorporate mobile viewing into TV and digital ratings, deeper insight into what and when a client is watching TV content continues to be some distance off (see story). 

While TV marketers benefit from a roughly eight-minute chunk of advertising time during a 30-minute show, pre-roll ads dominate the mobile video advertising opportunity for marketers.

Monetization remains central to broadcasters’ success with mobile and digital video. However, some experts say that it’s better for broadcasters to no less than get long-form content out first after which worry about monetization later.

“Consumers have embraced long-form content on mobile, and as they achieve this, it must be regarded as a primary screen,” said Gabe Misarti, chief strategy officer at Tris3ct, Chicago.

“Broadcasters will give you the chance to make it work because that may be how the viewers should want to see it,” he said. “It would be critical for broadcasters to preserve viewership levels because the paradigm changes. They are able to work out profitability later.”

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York