Gamified FAST
Laura Florence from Fremantle joins me to talk about Beat the BUZZR
Welcome back to Streaming Made Easy (SME). I’m Marion & this is your 5-min read to get a European take on the Global Streaming Video Business.
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Enjoy today’s read.
NAB 2024 (National Association of Broadcasters) took place this week.
Think of it as the American IBC (International Broadcasting Convention) but trade Amsterdam for Las Vegas. You know to which city my loyalty goes to but let me take you to Vegas for the next 5 minutes.
Here’s how NAB pitches itself:
“NAB Show is designed for those striving to drive listeners and engage viewers in larger numbers for greater reach. And it’s imagined for those seeking to create uncommon audio and visual experiences”
This sums up nicely the challenges and opportunities faced by Media & Entertainment companies today:
→ Scale and reach
→ Engagement i.e. time spent: the golden metric of the attention economy
→ Innovation
Question is: does the M&E industry still innovate? Can it?
The event focuses on the how “Content comes to life” (the NABShow tagline) rather than the what meaning it’s a technology driven conference.
I’m a Content gal so I won’t attempt to comment the latest innovations in codecs or else ☺️ Keep an eye on LinkedIn for that. Fantastic folks will be sharing their recaps.
Now Content and Technology are intrinsically linked, one cannot innovate without the other and so I went looking for the perfect marriage between the two.
One announcement caught my attention: Beat the BUZZR.
So I went digging.
Today at a glance:
What is BUZZR?
What is Beat the BUZZR? Who’s behind it?
Why this move? with Laura Florence - SVP Global Channels at Fremantle, to find out more.
What is BUZZR?
BUZZR is a digital multicast television network (Diginet) / Free to air channel and a FAST channel owned by Fremantle (RTL Group) which needs no introduction (if it does, then know that it’s a global entertainment powerhouse which produces 12,000+ hours of original programming, roll out more than 60 formats and air 450 programs a year worldwide).
BUZZR is a pop culture time capsule – an unending celebration where viewers can play along to some of Fremantle's vast portfolio of more than 40,000 iconic game show episodes, which are shown around the clock.
Featured titles include:
Family Feud, where you won’t want to miss the outrageously fun Richard Dawson kissing every female contestant;
What’s My Line, featuring cultural icons becoming time-stamped contestants/panelists like a 29-year-old whip-smart Betty White and a young Muhammad Ali;
as well as famed titles To Tell the Truth, Match Game, Password, Beat the Clock, Blockbusters and Card Sharks.
Check out the website to get a feel for it.
Where can you watch BUZZR?
It started as a Youtube channel back in 2014 to launch a year later on Free to air TV.
10 years later, it’s still on Youtube and Free TV but now also on Cable, CTV, FAST, Social Media (the most recent launch being a TikTok channel).
The success of the channel brought Fremantle to launch spin-off channels like “The Price Is Right: The Barker Era”, “Let’s Make a Deal”, “The Price is Right from Drew Carey's era, “Family Feud Classic”.
Here Fremantle took a page of the FAST playbook by going Single-IP.
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What is Beat the BUZZR?
A big draw of TV in the age of streaming is its potential reinvention of the audience interaction. We wouldn’t simply watch TV, we would interact with TV to play a game, place a bet or buy a product via the TV itself.
I say potential as the space is still fairly new, with around 10 million Connected TV households in the U.S., or 11 percent of device owners, saying they have used their TVs to buy physical goods, according to Parks Associates.
The use of a second screen remains the easiest way to interact with your TV. You watch an ad on TV, you then flip your phone to buy the item advertised on TV. A recent study from LG Ads found that 47% of CTV users have made a purchase after seeing an ad.
This is the premise of the Beat the BUZZR project: TV Reimagined.
TV where one can step into its favourite classic game shows and not just watch but play along.
Beat the BUZZR adds fun quizzes, trivia, and insights to classic game shows, making them more exciting and engaging. You can play alone, with your family or with a global community of fans.
Beat the BUZZR is an app-based solution and operates as a proof of concept which was demonstrated on the NAB show floor this week.
Who is behind Beat the BUZZR?
Microsoft and its partners, including NVIDIA, Prime Focus Technologies, MediaKind, Alice & Smith, Microsoft Advertising, Xandr, SymphonyAI’s Revedia, UIC Digital, and Fremantle, have collaborated to bring "Beat the BUZZR" to life.
Here's how each partner contributes:
Fremantle (BUZZR Network): Provides the treasure trove of classic game show content that serves as the foundation for "Beat the BUZZR." Fremantle's involvement ensures access to a rich catalog of beloved pop culture and game show classics, enabling a nostalgic yet fresh viewing experience.
Microsoft: As the driving force behind "Beat the BUZZR," Microsoft leveraged its cloud, AI, and computing capabilities to orchestrate this innovative project. Microsoft's technologies, including Azure AI and cloud services, underpin the infrastructure that makes "Beat the BUZZR" possible, showcasing Microsoft's commitment to innovation in entertainment and media. By bringing together leading-edge partners and technologies, Microsoft aims to redefine audience engagement and open new revenue streams for content creators and advertisers.
NVIDIA: Supplies the computational and graphics technologies that power the interactive elements and high-quality visuals, ensuring a smooth and engaging user experience.
Prime Focus Technologies: Utilizes CLEAR AI to enrich the metadata of Fremantle’s archive, unlocking new interactive possibilities and enhancing viewer engagement with classic content.
MediaKind: Offers advanced solutions for channel playout and ad insertion, optimizing content delivery across platforms and maximizing ad revenue through targeted advertising.
Alice & Smith: Employs XR server technology to create immersive experiences, allowing viewers to interact with Fremantle's game show content in innovative ways.
Microsoft Advertising: Provide dynamic ad insertion and interactive sponsored content capabilities, creating new monetization opportunities through enhanced viewer engagement.
SymphonyAI’s Revedia: Delivers analytics and reporting tools for real-time insights into viewer engagement and revenue metrics, helping to optimize content strategy and ad placements.
UIC Digital: Specialises in UI/UX design, creating intuitive and visually appealing interfaces that improve user engagement, retention, and monetisation opportunities.
Let’s see it in action 👉 Video
Why this move?
Instead of making assumptions, I spoke to Laura Florence, SVP Global Channels - Fremantle, to get to the bottom of this.
Here’s Laura for you:
→ The genesis
This was the brainchild of Andy Beach - the CTO of Microsoft (Media). I was trying to build this same thing, but didn’t have the bandwidth to "piece" together vendors. We saw the connection within 5 minutes on our call and spent 6 weeks sprinting getting this ready.
→ The play
We have a 96% play along rate and x3 the average watch time of our competitive channel set.
Gamifying the channel is the natural extension of this experience but this proof of concept also provided us a way to sample new technology - one ingest to generate metadata for the questions and trivia prompts, SD to 4k restorative AI (the quality of the picture is amazing!) and first party community interaction with classic content that is sharable.
I spoke on a panel with the leaders of Game Shows in the US (CBS and Fox), and we got to talk a lot about community (taking content to the next level of engagement) and new innovative ways we are using technology for that game / community experience (read more here). Let’s reward our Fans!
→ The tech
This partnership highlights all the amazing solutions that Smart Tech can bring to the media space- and more importantly at hopefully a reasonable price! Classic content can’t afford big costs and needs efficient workflows to be worth the time.
→ The benefits:
Here are the benefits of interactivity I see here:
Deepening Viewer Engagement
Enhancing Storytelling with Real-Time Feedback
Creating Immersive Worlds
Monetization Through Interactivity
Building Communities Around Content
Revitalizing Classics
Enhanced Accessibility and Learning
This year, NAB exposed that worlds are colliding... FAST. Old school linear broadcast is migrating to new entrants (vMVPDs, FAST, AVOD and SVOD) and we, as content providers, need to meet them where they are and how they want to watch. Which means diversifying your tactics, but also making sure your library is staged and ready to try things. Exciting times but still a super fragmented ecosystem we play in.
→ What’s next?
Andy Beach and I are going to keep expanding out on this experience. Fremantle has a treasure trove of content we can unlock - we are looking forward to debuting new ideas at upcoming conferences over the next year.
Big thanks to Laura for contributing this week.
That’s it for today but before you go:
Enjoy your weekend and see you next Friday for another edition of Streaming Made Easy!
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