Month: April 2022

To get a better sense of how regular consumers are approaching the metaverse, Digiday has pulled key insights from five data reports and surveys regarding consumer sentiments and activity in the space. 

Most people still don’t know what the metaverse is

A January survey by market research firm Ipsos revealed that 38 percent of Americans state that they are very or somewhat familiar with the metaverse — though this figure varies drastically depending on consumers’ age and the presence of children in their households. Over 50 percent of respondents from households containing children were familiar with the metaverse, while only 20 percent of respondents aged 55 or older said they knew the term.

As shown by the chart above, the respondents who claimed to know about the metaverse differed greatly in their explanations of what exactly it was, with some associating the term with social media and others with virtual worlds. As brands continue to activate within metaverse platforms, it could be wise for them to use these activations to educate consumers rather than assuming they have prior knowledge of the metaverse.

Most brands don’t know about the metaverse, either

If consumers are still unsure about the metaverse, some brands might be even more cautious about dipping their toes into the virtual water. A December survey by social analytics company ListenFirst revealed that only 18 percent of brand marketing and analytics executives stated that they understood the metaverse and how it would impact their brand, as reported by MediaPost. That said, this figure could increase as metaverse activations become more mainstream, as 49.5 percent of survey respondents said they “somewhat” understood the metaverse.

Regardless, this data shows that, despite the presence of flashy activations such as the VR-powered AT&T Station, not all brands are ready to follow these big names into the metaverse, given the relatively untested nature of metaverse platforms and the lack of clarity about exactly what a more fully realized metaverse might look like.

People are willing to spend money in the metaverse

While only some consumers are familiar with the metaverse, those who are comfortable operating in virtual spaces find virtual commerce to be an appealing prospect. A quarter of consumers have shopped online in a three-dimensional virtual store, per a January study by the experiential e-commerce platform Obsess. Among that cohort, virtual commerce activity was highest among millennials, with 77 percent of millennial respondents saying they had made a purchase in a virtual store. 

It’s worth noting that the language around virtual commerce has not caught up with the metaverse concept. Though commerce in a three-dimensional virtual environment certainly fits into most definitions of the metaverse, only 38 percent of respondents said they would like to be able to shop in the metaverse.

Gamers are the first residents of the metaverse

Using data from its November 2021 Consumer Energy Index and Retail Pulse Survey, research company Forrester divided online adult consumers in the United States and United Kingdom into four segments: digital immersives, digital socialites, digital commoners and the digitally disconnected. 

The first two groups, comprising 47 percent of all online adult consumers, are the ones best accustomed to immersive experiences and multiplayer online games, per Forrester’s recent State of the Metaverse report — and it’s the 22 percent that is digitally immersed that is most likely to adapt to the metaverse early on. 49 percent of this cohort — 11 percent of respondents overall — uses a virtual reality headset often, one indicator that Meta’s VR-focused vision for the metaverse could line up with future consumption habits. 

Gamers are accustomed to virtual spaces, but still wary of web3 technologies

Companies from the Web3 and gaming sectors are vying to become the builders of the metaverse, with some game developers combining the two to create play-to-earn games that hinge on blockchain and NFT technologies. But the majority of gamers are uncomfortable with the presence of NFTs in games — 69 percent, according to a March survey by online community platform FandomSpot. Of the 69 percent of respondents who stated they hated NFTs, only 12 percent said they fully knew what NFTs were, so sentiments are likely to change as knowledge of these technologies becomes more widespread.

At the moment, though, it is undeniable that many gamers have reacted with vehement negativity whenever large game developers such as Ubisoft have indicated an interest in NFTs. Given the wrathful sentiment surrounding NFTs in the gaming space, brands interested in getting involved in virtual space might be able to avoid bad press by leaning into the gaming origins of the metaverse rather than its web3 potential.

All you can reach

The key hits:

• Agency executives expect more TV network owners to lean on advertisers to expand audience age ranges in this year’s upfront market.
• The networks may charge an additional premium for demo-based buys.
• The shift to total audience deals could provide greater flexibility and efficiency for both buyers and sellers.

A major question heading into each annual TV advertising upfront cycle in recent years has been how much traditional TV ad prices will increase as advertiser demand remains high despite dropping viewership. That question remains outstanding at this point, but one factor that will impact pricing has become apparent.

More TV networks are preparing to follow A+E Networks’ example from a year ago and push advertisers to buy against their total audiences as opposed to cherry-picking prized demographic groups like people between the ages of 18 and 49 years old. And advertisers unwilling to expand their age range to run the full gamut of adults tuning into traditional TV will be pressed to pay a premium.

“Right now we’re speculating that the rate of change is going to be double digits. That’s without any premium placed on it. And then you might be looking at a double-digit increase premium on keeping a demo,” said one agency executive.

The total audience push is not entirely new to the upfront, given that A+E Networks introduced this approach ahead of last year’s negotiations. But this year multiple agency executives said they are expecting broadcast TV network owners including Disney, NBCUniversal and Paramount to follow suit to the point where a total audience pitch becomes table stakes on the sellers’ side.

The sellers’ rationale is pretty straightforward. Linear TV audiences continue to age, and they don’t want to be leaving money on the table as viewers mature into the 55-and-over demographic or losing money as the volume of younger viewers falls short of audience guarantees made to advertisers. But the push also plays into two other shifts taking place: the rise of streaming and the overhaul of TV advertising’s measurement system.

With respect to streaming, the demographic expansion of linear TV puts TV network owners in a better position to use their streaming inventory to make up for any audience shortfalls. Effectively, a TV network would be able to deliver an advertiser however many people 18 years old and older — or even as broad as the “P2+” age group of anyone two years old and older — as it can on its linear TV networks and fill in any gaps on streaming without the limitation of those gaps being specific to certain age groups. 

“If those advertisers, those agencies and those media companies are looking to solve for something like fluidity across all and that total audience approach — they’re just trying to aggregate impressions across linear [and] nonlinear and just looking for a larger media buy, there has to be a certain level of consistency. So if that’s going to be the case, a P2+, an 18+ or a household impression across all is probably going to be easier to manage,” said Fernando Romero, head of ad sales at Fuse, which has adopted a total audience approach for its upfront deals.

The transition to total audience buying on traditional TV also can make the transition to a new measurement system easier to manage. While reach-and-frequency measurement will continue to be an important component for brand advertisers, TV ad buyers and sellers have been hoping to make outcome-based measurement more of a standard option. However, clinging to specific age groups can slow that shift.

“If you take off all of these shackles around demos and even delineating linear and digital, we can get into more of an outcomes-based conversation where the client’s like ‘Put [the ad] anywhere that’s going to drive our business.’ That’s a better dialogue than the old construct around I just got to deliver on some artificial proxy,” said a TV network executive.

So the total audience transition’s benefits to TV network owners appear to be pretty clear. But some agency executives also see advantages in this approach. The pros from the buyers’ perspective go beyond avoiding any demo-based premiums to providing advertisers with more flexibility and mitigating the FOMO that has pushed clients to overcommit in the upfronts for fear of missing out on opportunities to reach large concurrent audiences.

“There’s an overestimation going on on the agency side or on the client [side]. The clients are really like, ‘Just put [the upfront commitment] in, and if I don’t need it, maybe I won’t convert on order or will pull back on order.’ There was a lot of that happening last year,” said a second agency executive.

Of course, a major con for buyers in accepting TV networks’ total audience pitch is that it would give the networks a new baseline from which to increase ad prices over time. But it could also create a cross-platform baseline that would provide the pricing parity that ad buyers have been seeking between networks’ TV inventory and more expensive streaming inventory.

I know. It doesn’t make sense that broadening an audience would make advertisers’ upfront dollars more efficient. But the first agency executive made a fairly convincing argument. It goes like this: On traditional TV, advertisers have historically bought against a specific age group like 18- to 49-year-olds but their ads air in front of everyone watching a given show, regardless of their age. In streaming, however, the ads are only delivered to 18- to 49-year-olds. “We actually make it inefficient immediately in what it delivers compared to TV,” said the first agency executive.

In other words, to make TV and streaming ad deals more efficient for buyers and sellers requires making those deals less efficient in some respects. Welcome to the TV ad market in 2022.

What we’ve heard

“There needs to be a sliding scale for the value of a view. If you’re getting someone to watch something for three minutes on YouTube, that’s not the same as two-and-a-half seconds on TikTok.”

— Agency executive

Stay tuned: What now for Warner Bros. Discovery?

Well, it’s finally happened. WarnerMedia and Discovery have completed their merger. The new Warner Bros. Discovery has already answered some major post-merger questions, though those answers beget new questions.

A major question since the merger’s announcement last May was whether WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and Discovery’s Discovery+ would remain standalone streaming services or be combined. The company’s CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels addressed this in March by saying that the streamers would initially be bundled and eventually consolidated. Now the questions are what subscription prices will Warner Bros. Discovery charge for the all-in-one streamer and how many subscription tiers may it offer?

Warner Bros. Discovery answered another question on April 11 by announcing the combined company will hold a unified upfront presentation next month. Coming in the wake of last week’s announcement that Discovery ad sales head Jon Steinlauf would oversee U.S. ad sales for the combined company, a unified upfront approach will give Warner Bros. Discovery a lot of leverage at the negotiating table. The combination of Turner’s live sports inventory with Discovery’s CPG- and retailer-friendly food-and-home programming into a single ad sales package — in addition to the aforementioned streamers’ ad inventory — raises the question of how high will Warner Bros. Discovery raise ad prices and commitment thresholds in this year’s upfront market.

Numbers to know

$11 billion: How much ad revenue TikTok is projected to rake in this year.

>817,000: Number of unique program titles being carried across TV networks and streaming services.

18%: Percentage increase year over year in the amount of time people spent streaming shows and movies in February 2022.

What we’ve covered

Connected TV advertising’s major misperceptions:

• For as much as CTV advertising has matured, the emerging medium maintains myths that must be dispelled.
• The myths include CTV’s cookie problem and ad viewability issue.

Read more about CTV ad myths here.

How YouTube stars Colin and Samir went from nearly quitting to creating their own media company:

• Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry cover the creator economy across their YouTube channel, podcast and newsletter.
• The creator duo kick off the Digiday Podcast’s new limited series on creators.

Listen to the latest Digiday Podcast episode here.

How esports organization Gen.G’s cross-market strategy helps attract new brand partnerships:

• The Korean esports team has established presences in Korea, North America and China.
• Roughly a third of Gen.G’s followers are located in the United States.

Read more about Gen.G here.

L’Oréal eyes impulse sales on TikTok:

• L’Oréal -owned brands are selling curated gift boxes directly through TikTok’s Shop marketplace in the U.K.
• TikTok’s transience poses a challenge for brands looking to push sales through the app.

Read more about L’Oréal here.

What we’re reading

TV measurement’s diversity deficiencies:
Nielsen and its rival measurement providers are coming up short when it comes to accurately tracking TV viewership among multicultural audiences, according to Ad Age.

CNN+’s slow start:
Less than 10,000 people have been streaming CNN+ per day since its launch in late March, according to CNBC.

Beauty YouTubers lose their luster:
Beauty-focused YouTube stars have shed some of their influence over audiences’ purchases as people turn to TikTok’s less produced cosmetic clips, according to Business of Fashion.

Cricket as streaming’s crown jewel:
Amazon is among the companies vying to seize the streaming rights to the Indian Premier League, which are opening up for the first time and expected to cost at least $7 billion, according to Vice.

Roku’s upfront programming pitch:
After peddled the original programs acquired from Quibi in last year’s upfront market, Roku will be pitching a slate of entirely original shows during this year’s negotiations, according to Marketing Brew.

No surprise then that so many newspaper groups are dusting off long-gestating plans for diversified revenues.

Le Figaro is no different. In fact, its own long-haul plans go as far back as 2017. Back then it made the decision to build its business on four commercial pillars: advertising, subscriptions, commerce and licensing. 

It took a minute, but the plan is starting to come good. And it couldn’t have happened at a more pivotal period. Groupe Figaro’s business was battered during the pandemic — so much so that owner Le Figaro newspaper owner, which has 1,850 employees across 47 other France-based titles like Le Figaro Magazine and Le Figro Voyage, had a €7 million ($7.6 million) deficit in 2020. Fast forward a year to 2021 and the same business made record cash flow of almost €50 million ($54.3 million) EBITDA. 

Not that this should be a surprise. Media conglomerates have been talking about diversification for as long as the tech companies have insisted they’re not media conglomerates. The much-vaunted pivot to subscriptions circa 2017 is a testament to this. The challenge for publishers, however, is moving beyond charging people to read content to make money. Few of them have been able to do it. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible. It just takes a lot of trial and error, said Bertrand Gié, head of digital at Groupe Figaro. As with any bet, though, it’s still a gamble. Gié discussed the payoffs to date. 

Pragmatic about advertising

Gié is loath to get too excited about advertising even if the outlook is looking positive for a change. The €500 million ($460 million) Groupe Figaro raked in last year was driven by a big upturn in ad revenue, up 15% on the previous year. Dig deeper and there’s even more reason to be cheerful: a lot of the 2021 rebound came from digital advertising, which rose 14% in the period — encouraging signs for any media exec, right? Well, not quite: More than half (55%) of those digital sales come from programmatic — the future of which is shrouded in uncertainty. 

“We’ve tried to develop our understanding of how programmatic auctions work over the last few years because it’s not something we’ve been historically good at,” said Gie.

Unsurprisingly, he is cautious. He won’t even say whether he thinks the loss of third-party cookies will help or hinder publishers. He is, however, clear on one thing: the industry is headed toward a world where identity won’t be tied to a single tool like a cookie, but spread across several factors.

In turn, Groupe Figaro is testing different ways to share its data easily and securely with advertisers searching for alternatives to third-party cookies. This could be through a private marketplace, a direct data-sharing relationship or a fusion of the two. If they don’t pique advertisers’ interests then the media group is also looking at contextual solutions. 

None of this guarantees much. Ultimately, it’s advertisers that decide whether their money is better off with media owners like Groupe Figaro or Google et al. The truth is most advertisers are ok with the largest platforms. Yes, they grade their own homework but they’re doing so accurately, goes the thinking — rightly or wrongly. 

“Advertisers always say that newspaper brands are really important, but there’s a disconnect between what they say about supporting our business and what they actually do with their money,” said Gie. “Maybe we’re not good enough at explaining our value. Or maybe it’s the way the industry is set up to spend money a certain way. I don’t know if any of this changes when third-party cookies go away.”

Subscriptions. Grinding on

To say Gie is happy with newspaper Le Figaro’s subscriber count would be an understatement. It now has 400,000 subscribers, 250,000 of which are digital only. It’s not a massive haul — The New York Times added 375,000 digital subscribers in the final three months of 2021 alone — but it’s a vast improvement on where the business was in 2016 when it had around 60,000. Not least because building any sizable subscriptions is a slog — a consistent, cultural struggle to keep execs focused on the goal, said Gie. 

“Ideally, we’d like to have between 250,000 and 400,000 digital subscribers, but the number we have now is a start,” he continued. “It’s a number that’s 100% margin — it’s a fixed cost activity. This can help us make big steps when it comes to turnover and profit.”

It’s hardly a surprise that growing subscriptions is so attritional; Le Figaro’s own account of this in 2019 made that abundantly clear. Still, it might be natural to assume that the publishing industry has devised tried and tested shortcuts. This assumption belies the harsh truth about subscriptions: publishers can’t hack their way to lasting growth. Take Le Figaro, for instance. Its subscription success is less about discounts and promotions, more about how it curbed churn. 

“Retaining a subscriber is just as important as getting them in the first place,” said Gie. Getting the balance right is tricky at the best times — but especially so when the type of content that convinces someone to start a subscription isn’t necessarily the same as what convinces them to keep it. Lifestyle articles are a main reason why people take out a subscription, for example, but they’re also a reason they cite for canceling them. All these little details count, said Gie. 

“Even the platform someone started a subscription on can reveal a lot,” he continues. “So on our app people tend to subscribe for a month and then they unsubscribe. That’s something we’re watching closely because 50% of our subscribers come through the app. Eight in 10 of those people do so through an iPhone.”

Chasing the e-commerce dream

Every media company says they’re a commerce business these days. Saying it and doing it, however, are two very different things as Groupe Figaro execs can attest.

The pandemic made sure of that. Before 2020, the media group was well on its way to building a healthy e-commerce business around online travel and lifestyle. Turnover from selling things like theater tickets and wine was €120 million ($130.4 million). Then the pandemic happened and everything went sideways. Even now, the business hasn’t fully recovered. March 2022 was the best month for ticket sales for two years, said Gie. That’s still 20% less than what the group sold in March 2019. 

No wonder Gie seems more enthused by its nascent — albeit daunting — attempts to sell wine. In a nutshell, it wants to create a side business in wine recommendations. People would come to the dedicated Le Figaro Vin site to read up and potentially buy bottles of wine. Encouraging as the site’s potential is, it’s nowhere near ready to be a lifeline for the media conglomerate. Ongoing investments hope to change that. It has already hired a wine journalist to produce more content for the site and has tested selling wine tasting events. Eventually, it wants to create a wine club that people would pay to be part of. 

“I’m not sure our bet on e-commerce will work, but we will try given that we have the audience,” said Gie. 

In some cases this means innovating and moving spaces, such as licensing which many publishers have previously been uncomfortable with. 

Licensing. Yes, there are platforms that actually pay publishers

Just like broadcasters, Le Figaro leases the right to publish articles and images to multiple publishers.

It’s a small but steady business for the publisher — around €4 million ($4.4 million) to be precise. Small as those numbers are, they represent something far bigger: the idea that the big online platforms will pay publishers for the right to display their content. In February, Google struck a deal with French publishers including Le Figaro. A similar deal was struck with Facebook in October last year. It’s essentially a new income stream for Le Figaro, said Gie. Call it a pyrrhic victory. 

“We’ve been fighting for this arrangement for a decade,” continued Gie. “We’ve had to go through the European Parliament as well as in the French courts in order to get the platforms to accept this situation.”

It was a time in which agencies moved to publish stats around actively diversifying staff makeup, and released statements of support and pledges of action. However, in the push for DE&I, one advertising veteran now says senior professionals have been left out of the equation, causing him to question the industry’s sincerity in its DE&I efforts and reigniting the conversation of how ageism at agencies affects older employees.

In this edition of our Confessions series, in which we exchange anonymity for honesty, a senior creative director with more than 20 years of experience talks about the job hunt at nearly 60 years old, age discrimination and why the DE&I conversation should include age.

​​This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

You’re nearly 60 and at the beginning of pandemic lockdown, you start applying for jobs where you can work remotely. What was that experience like?

My breadth of work spans over 20 industries, from casinos to healthcare. There’s no way any agency could not look at this breath of work, and go, “We would love to have this guy on our team.” So I filled out my resume, built a portfolio site and basically started applying to agencies online. There were tons of jobs available for creative people. The only thing that I did get back was, “Hey, thanks. But no, thanks.” I was just surprised. I was literally shocked at the sheer amount of rejection that I was getting because I’m an award-winner. I have 20 years of experience that I can lend to some agency.  

I [applied] to about 50 agencies. And I got about 50, “Thank you. No, thank you’s.”

How did you end up feeling about that?

It was really disappointing. I found out that through this process, I had more experience than the person that was reading my resume. So I lied about my experience. I took basically everything off and just listed three agencies that I worked for. I lied about how many years I spent at this agency. And lo and behold, I started getting responses back from head hunters and large agencies. 

What happened to valuing the elders of our village? If you’re a creative person, and you get on the other side of 50, you’re expendable. Age was valued in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Now, it’s not valued anymore. 

Agencies made a lot of promises on the topic of diversity in early 2020. What do you make of ageism in light of those promises?

It’s a shell game, especially with the large agencies. In my experience, and what I’ve known from other peers in the industry, is that there’s a salary issue. Agencies don’t want to spend money on senior creative people. You can hire two kids out of college out of the art school for one senior creative person and they’ll work 40-80 [hours] a week. They feel, “That’s where we can make our money. We’ll pay these kids very little salary and we’ll get a sheer volume instead of quality.” That’s the trade-off of advertising agency executives. It’s a trade-off of quality versus quantity.

Inclusion also means people with disabilities, people that are 50 years and older, [people] who need to work from home.

How would you like advertising agencies — and the industry as a whole — to be thinking about senior creatives and hiring senior people?

They need to start thinking of them as the tribal elders. The sheer amount of wisdom and experience that they have can actually teach everyone in the agency.

Almost a year after it hamstrung the industry with the implementation of its App Tracking Transparency solution — a move that arguably made Cook one of the most powerful people in the ad industry — he took to the stage to clarify key Apple policy stances.

Apple favors privacy regulation

As arguably the biggest of Big Tech players, this may come across as something of a surprise statement, especially from the CEO of a company that confronted federal authorities over the encryption of its devices.

Although, speaking to IAPP delegates, Cook backed the notion of a U.S. federal privacy law, noting that Apple is also an advocate of GDPR. “To be clear, Apple is in favor of privacy regulation,” he said. “We also continue to call for a strong comprehensive privacy law in the United States.”

Many in the industry view the internet’s major platform providers such as Apple with its control of iOS and Safari ecosystems as the de facto global privacy regulators. And with the biggest names in the sector all calling for a U.S. national privacy law – interestingly, this is something that Last Week Tonight’s Oliver also called for – some believe such laws will be drafted within years.

Competition is great but users still need protection

However, that said, Cook warned that Apple must also be afforded the ability to effectively police its own ecosystem, a topic that has seen his company come under fire in recent years, especially from app developers and their advertising partners.

“We are deeply concerned about regulations that will undermine privacy and security in service of some other aim,” he told IAPP delegates. “Policymakers are taking steps in the name of competition that would force Apple to let apps on the iPhone that circumvent the App Store through a process called sideloading.”

Cook’s warning referenced some of the regulatory pressure brought to bear on Apple over its rigorous demands that companies looking to sell their wares through its App Store must strictly adhere to its stipulations over consented user tracking.

French internet players complained to regulatory authorities there over just this practice, not to mention legal challenges mounted by Epic Games over payment terms and conditions within the virtual outlet, but Cook was resolute in his defense.

He maintained that “sideloading” — a process whereby software such as an app could be installed on an iPhone via channels other than the App Store — is innate with risk with a statement that could also be considered as a swipe at Google’s preference for a more open architecture.

“That means that data-hungry companies would be able to avoid our privacy rules and once again track our users against their will. It would also potentially give bad actors away around the comprehensive security protections we put in place, putting them in direct contact with our users,” said Cook. “And we have already seen the vulnerability that creates on other companies’ devices.

Data protection drives innovation

As mentioned, Big Tech players regularly face criticism from antitrust authorities where key arguments for those engaging in such arguments are consumer harm and the promotion/hindrance of innovation.

Cook used his address to argue that his company’s industry critics — i.e. ad tech companies or “data brokers” to use Oliver’s parlance — simply don’t take user opinion into consideration when devising their targeting and tracking services.

“They don’t believe we should have a real choice in the matter. They don’t believe that they should need our permission to appear so deeply into our personal lives,” he argued. “So we’ve given our users the features they need to have more control over their private information.”

Of course, Apple’s aforementioned critics are often quick to point out that Apple’s stance gives it permission to effectively make decisions on behalf of third-party businesses when it comes to monetizing their audiences on iOS and Safari devices.

Although, in his address, Cook moved to counter such notions, with many Apple advocates often keen to highlight that many companies attempted to undermine its early attempts to encourage much explicitly consented user-tracking with tactics such as fingerprinting. “A world without privacy is less imaginative less empathetic, less innovative, less human,” said Cook. “At Apple that is not the world we want to live in. We believe that privacy is a fundamental human right.”

Observers on the lookout for hints to any future plans to roll back data signals on Apple devices will have been left disappointed. Although with the iPhone maker’s grasp over its iOS and Safari ecosystems closing ever-tighter some in the online media ecosystem will look towards its Worldwide Developers Conference in early June (this is where it typically unveils policies such as ATT) with trepidation.

The show will air live exclusively on Twitch, with clips from the show distributed on other platforms like YouTube. The Recount will make money from the show through pre-roll and mid-roll advertising and from direct consumer revenue via Twitch’s subscription tiers, as part of the platform’s affiliate program. 

The Recount said Twitch takes a 50% cut of ad revenue generated from the live show, but declined to share how much Twitch is paying The Recount for hosting the show on the platform.

Twitch might seem like an unusual choice for a news show, given that the platform’s audience and “streamers” are mostly dedicated to gaming. However, Battelle said The Recount team chose Twitch as a platform to launch their live streaming show because it’s “the most evolved platform for community and audience interaction” — with a mix of revenue streams that allows for streamers to make money directly from their community as well as via advertising.

Twitch has other publishers streaming on the platform, such as Rolling Stone and The Washington Post, though the former has primarily focused on entertainment content on Twitch, while the latter has only streamed nine times on Twitch this year.

Doing it live

Originally delayed by the wave of omicron COVID-19 cases earlier this year, The Recount team of about 80 employees were able to gather in the office in February to work on producing and rehearsing the new show. However, piloting a live show can’t really be done until it’s live. The first month on air will be a way to test out the live format for “Recount Live.” 

At the heart of the show will be audience interaction, and the hosts are no strangers to the two-way conversations on social media platforms. Oinounou has over 240,000 followers on Instagram and Plank over 325,000. And both journalists often go live on Instagram — Oinounou has a weekly live news show and Plank often interviews notable figures on timely subjects. 

Grace Weinstein, The Recount’s community producer and host, will also be a part of the conversations with the hosts and its audience. Producers will flag comments for the broadcast, while Oinounou and Plank respond in real time. Hosts will call out people from the chat to answer questions and have a dialogue with viewers, Battelle said. The Recount will weave audience interaction throughout the duration of the show. 

In a few months’ time, The Recount plans to extend the length of “Recount Live” to add an additional three hours to the show, which may get broken up into multiple streams throughout the day. The publisher is developing other franchises on the Twitch platform as well, including a game show called “Chatterbrain” where hosts compete against the audience.

Twitchy advertisers

Down the line, Battelle wants to secure deals with brands to sponsor the show, such as in “an open” before the live conversations or for product placement in the live streams. He also sees opportunities to co-create branded segments around “Recount Live.” 

Marketing for the show will kick up next month when the team heads to the IAB NewFronts next month — a forum for media companies to present their video programming to advertisers — Battelle said. 

At media agency MMI, brand clients are primarily running ads within Twitch livestreams, according to group director Dana Busick. UM, another media agency, is additionally integrating its clients’ products into live streams, such as a streamer eating a food item sponsored by a brand partner.

For advertisers, the draw of the live stream format is it is engaging by nature, “so we know we are capturing attention,” said Molly Schultz, svp, integrated investment at UM, who declined to name any clients involved.

But advertisers still have to be careful in a live environment. “There’s always a risk when it comes to live streaming, so we still have to be vigilant,” Busick said.

Schultz agreed: “With live and chats, you just don’t know what humans are going to do.”

However, both Busick and Schultz noted Twitch’s keyword blocking and targeting can alleviate most of these concerns. And while some brands might be adverse to appearing next to news, Twitch’s reputation of being more brand safe than other platforms “can open that door a little bit” to advertisers, Busick said.

Busick noted Twitch’s adherence to removing ads from creators’ streams if they violate the platform’s brand safety policy. “We feel very comfortable on the platform. [Twitch] is very brand safe focused… It’s heavily monitored,” she said.

While both Busick and Schultz said that Twitch is doing more to draw a broader audience (such as streaming Thursday Night Football and the NCAA basketball tournament), the main audience of young viewers on the platform remains focused on gaming. Nearly 75% of Twitch’s viewers are between the ages of 16 and 34, according to its website.

The challenge for “Recount Live” might be that the hosts are not gamers or Twitch creators, so there may be a “disconnect with the audience” at first, Schultz said.

But these challenges are welcomed by Battelle and his plans to experiment with television news formats.

“April is the sandbox month,” he said, adding, “We are going to learn from the audience. If 25% drops off after topic x, we will have to figure out how to talk about topic x in a different way, or move on to topic y. [Twitch’s analytics] can tell us what people are interested in.”