Tech That Extends Interaction with Characters and Enables Viewer Expression Will Make More Engaged TV Watchers
Many have called today the new golden generation of television shows. While the movie industry has hit tough times finding blockbusters, more highly rated shows than ever before are playing on televisions in households across the country.
Yet as television viewers welcome Larry David back to HBO, tune into Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Halloween heist and prepare for another binge-able season of Stranger Things, traditional television is under assault from cable cutters and unbundled providers.
On its latest earnings call Comcast delivered news that it suffered its largest quarterly loss of cable subscribers in three years as hundreds of millions of viewers now opt for over-the-top (OTT), unbundled content from the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Sling, Hulu and HBO.
Sports, one of the few types of programming long immune to viewership declines, and a strategic asset of many television executives looking to put a moat around subscribers, are now also under the gun. ESPN recently laid off more than 100 people as subscribers continue to decline and even the untouchable NFL has found itself fighting viewership declines.
So what are network heads and showrunners to do? While technology continues to disrupt where we watch the best content and networks invest in their own streaming offerings, not enough time or innovation is being spent on technology to improve the show watching experience — the biggest ingredient that keeps viewers coming back.
Love of Great Characters Makes Loyal Show Watchers
While the bifurcation of distribution and watching means that the most watched shows of all time were all from more than a decade ago — one thing still rings true of TV’s yesteryear: television viewers tune-in for “must watch” characters. Think of some of the most critically acclaimed and watched programmed from the current generation of “always available TV” and at center of them are great characters.
From Tony Soprano to Liz Lemon to Walter White to Sheldon Cooper. These characters pull in viewers as much of the show itself. To examine this phenomenon closer, We Are TV recently commissioned a Google Survey entitled “How We Watch” of more than 500 U.S. respondents aged 18+ and weighted for the U.S. population by age, region, and gender.
When asked to choose all the aspects of a TV show that makes them loyal watchers of it, over 40% of all answers were “The Characters.” This was followed by The Script (32%), The Dialogue (18%), and The Set (7%).
Innovation That Extends our Interaction with TV Characters and Others
Now that we’ve established how vital characters are to programming and attracting loyal viewership, it’s time to look at the technology that can make viewers interaction with characters even more authentic and engaging.
The latest breakthrough in this department will take place in November of this year with Steven Soderbergh releasing Mosaic. Most interestingly, Mosaic isn’t even best described as a new show, it’s really an HBO show within an interactive gaming app.
Rather than simply delivering a show’s storyline to viewers in a one-way, linear fashion, viewers watch this murder mystery in a choose your own adventure type of way. More importantly, rather than taking in one scene after another, viewers will choose what character they want to follow through the storyline. Not to be outdone, Netflix is also experimenting with interactive storytelling with Puss in Book and Buddy Thunderstruck.
This type of nonlinear storytelling can also make expressing feelings about a show with friends and family more enticing. If you are following one character around and your friend is following another character through the storyline on a different path, your viewpoints on the show and story will be vastly different. Making the conversation around a show all the more interesting.
This desire to share an opinion about a show, while watching it, is also something that a good portion of current television viewers share. When asked within our “How We Watch” survey if they sometimes feel like expressing their opinion to others while watching TV shows, around 40% of respondents noted they do.
Of course many social TV apps have tried in the past to take advantage of this desire to connect with others while watching and failed. However, while apps like GetGlue were largely one-dimensional and check-in focused, Mosaic and future mobile innovations (some of which we’re working on here at We Are TV!) will connect viewers within interactive, multidimensional environments.
How Smart Speakers, AR and Other New Tech Platforms Can Entice New TV Viewers
Mobile apps aren’t the only technology innovation for extending interaction with characters outside of the legacy on-screen experience. In releasing season 2 of Stranger Things Netflix has thought outside the box on how to create new experiences for viewers with characters. Through a collaboration with Google Home fans of the show can talk to characters such as Eleven and Dustin by mentioning their name and the show.
Netflix’s use of new technology for launching latest season of Stranger Things doesn’t end with extending interaction with characters. It is also using Augmented Reality (AR) through a Snapchat lens to draw new viewers into an augmented reality experience via their phone. With 90% of viewers turning into their favorite shows with their mobile device and 79% distracted by them, this use of AR could be a conduit for bringing new TV content to mobile devices while unifying the two-screen experience.
However, with the median age of the traditional television now at 54, those that want to capture the attention of the broad spectrum of viewers through the use of smart speaker, AR and mobile technology need to make use easy for all, while focusing on education and awareness of new innovations.
Surprisingly, in our recent survey only 23% of the American population noted they had heard of augmented reality before! While that number was considerably higher for millennials (33%), only 18% of those in the close-to-median age range of traditional television watchers (55+) said they had heard of AR before.
That’s one reason we’ve focused on building the We Are TV AR platform in a way where any type of viewer can use with any show on television. Still, despite the growing buzz around AR in Silicon Valley and Hollywood, there is a lot of work to be done with mainstream America in introducing them to AR.
In many respects, content is still king when it comes to television watching. For those of us trying to create more engaged television viewers, we’re blessed with some of the best television content we’ve ever had to work with. The trick now is harnessing that IP and finding creative technological solutions that lets viewers engage with that content and the characters behind the content in striking new ways.
