FAST fix

Paramount’s 50 FAST channels are pulling younger audiences back to free to TV – and sales chief Rod Prosser said the network will launch “a tonne more across this year and into next.”

While admitting FAST has been “overhyped”, he said Paramount’s channels are pulling in younger audiences that have been leaking into streaming – so far with zero marketing effort.

“40 per cent of our audience on those fast channels are under 40. We haven't even promoted those channels – no marketing, [it's been more] discovery. As we promote those channels, that will bring back those audiences, we're confident of that.”

Along with quality shows, Prosser said the network is “acutely aware” that keeping younger audiences requires better viewer experience, hence Paramount planning ad load experiments within it FAST channels – which currently run similar ad volumes to its BVOD channels.

He told the Future of TV Advertising conference that overall audience losses to streamers had all but stopped. “Total TV – free-to-air linear plus BVOD – has remained flat since the start of the year,” said Prosser.

That view was backed by OMD National head of Strategic Investment and Partnerships, Jane Combes.

“The audience declines have started to taper off. If you look at the over 40s, in 2023 I think we saw those audiences decline at around minus 15 per cent,” said Combes, with younger audiences declining by “around minus 6 per cent … and that has started to flatten out”.

Beyond BVOD

Economic conditions may have played a role in that plateauing for SVOD growth, Prosser accepted, hence networks were continuing to diversify. “We simply cannot rely on linear and our BVOD platforms [alone],” he said.

On that front, Prosser indicated the launch of an ad tier on Paramount+ could come within the next three months. “Our ambition is this half”, he said. Paramount's global EVP for SVOD, Marco Nobili lands in Australia next week, a likely indication ad tier launch plans are heating up.

Meanwhile, Prosser said a shoppable TV proof of concept with Survivor locally had “just gone gangbusters”. As a result, he said Paramount will now roll it out globally. “It’s exciting – because it works.”

Kinesso CEO Jess White said diversification into platforms and experiences that align with young people’s digital habits “is probably the only way they are going to see growth”. But she underlined the challenge they face.

“YouTube and TikTok are very powerful platforms … with [creator] talent that is building trust [with younger audiences] and they are selling product … so that is what broadcasters are competing with,” said White. “If it diversifies, I genuinely hope it does grow. I just think we have a bit of work to do.”

Magnite MD Yael Milbank, however, wasn’t convinced commerce is TV’s best big bet. “Shoppable? I think there is something there,” said Milbank. He thinks its main role is to prime future demand than attempt to convert existing demand.

“TikTok does an amazing job of talking to the 5 per cent of people who actually want to buy something at that point in time. I think the power of the big screen and the TV allows you can talk to the other 95 per cent of people who are considering a product or they're thinking about what they want to do. It's really important to do that.”

But others argue the second screen - mobile devices - are the way in which broadcasters can compete in commerce, performance marketing and wider viewer engagement without interrupting the lean-back experience. 

In the meantime, Milbank said BVOD volumes moving through Magnite’s sell-side platform (SSP) are powering – and backed the long-anticipated cross-network, OzTam ID-powered trading play, expected later this year, to drive further growth.

“We saw massive growth through last year. Live linear streaming was up 70 per cent, BVOD was up 60 per cent,” said Milbank. “So the users are there, the audiences are there – and I think things like VOZ Streaming give us a really good opportunity to grow that BVOD audience as well through trading, acknowledging co-viewing.”

Now the three networks need to bring Voz Streaming to market.

Prosser acknowledged that TV has a chequered history when it comes to collaboration – from the failed Buy Ten platform in the late nineties, to aborted discussions a decade later to license Hulu for a unified viewing platform and an MFA-TV network play to launch a single trading platform called the Electronic Transaction Hub, to the quiet quitting of rival networks on Nine’s Galaxy platform.

All of which have not helped TV’s cause now that competition from global streaming platforms hungry for ad dollars is “coming thick and fast”, creating “huge” pressure on Australia’s commercial broadcasters.

“I know my job is to sit here and defend linear," said Prosser. "The reality is we, certainly Paramount Australia, do not have our head in the sand. We know audiences are shifting, and they're shifting rapidly. Are we capturing them all on the board? No, we're not.” Hence looking beyond BVOD to make up the numbers.

Attribution > currency

Despite ongoing challenges for linear TV, Ben Tatta, New York-based Chief Commercial Officer at ad order management system Operative and former president of Standard Media Index, told the conference it remains “way undervalued” given its mass reach capability.

Tatta, who co-founded an alternative video currency called 605 acquired late last year by US Nielsen rival iSpot, said better targeting, measurement, attribution – and selling – could enable networks to get fairer value for their inventory.

“Having spent some time on the attribution side, I can tell you, when measured properly, nothing compares to television. It drives every other media – it drives search, it drives display.”

He said the US was further ahead than Australia on measurement – though suggested “arm wrestling over what's going to be the dominant currency” is perhaps overblown.

“I almost couldn’t care less about the basis by which media is bought and sold. Using data to figure out which media to buy and how to optimise reach across platforms to me is more important than the actual currency,” said Tatta. While “having a common currency is really important” over reliance on one single factor “is like measuring the weather by temperature alone – without humidity and barometric pressure”, he suggested.

“It’s the same thing with campaigns. We can use impressions or gross rating points as the basis for buying and selling, but using the data to really understand which units and which impressions to buy, or which audiences.  To me, those kinds of insights are essential, and it doesn't compete with the currency. The two can live harmoniously together using a single standard like OzTam for the base currency, and then alternative data to do more advanced measurement of impact and or attribution.”

Tatta backed initiatives to bring more targeting to TV to drive-up value – as well as things like the cross-network Voz Streaming initiative.

“I think making TV and linear operate more like digital will enable it to drive premiums and that is what's happening in the States. Probably the best practice that I've seen is pulling all kinds of digital streaming and even some linear inventory that's addressable-enabled into an addressable pool and selling it at a premium based on its targetability and the ability to run attribution against it,” said Tatta. “Closed loop attribution.”

Kinesso’s Jess White wasn’t entirely convinced.

“If we are able to get some more attribution, we might be able to give it some more attention … Is [linear] grossly undervalued? I think it depends on the age [of the audience].”