COMMENTARY

Will Streamers Offer Regular Tune-In TV Show Promos - Like Linear TV?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 1, 2023

A maturing streaming TV business prompts the question of what comes next. For many that means tune-in promotion.

Many have talked about streaming looking to be more efficient, trimming the TV and movie production budgets, and raising consumer subscriber prices.

But one question may have been avoided: What can streaming do to get consumers to watch more content on their platform?

This means tune-in promotional/marketing, where streamers will have the potential to get higher viewing specifically for their new TV shows and movies.

This becomes more important as premium, mostly subscription-based streaming platforms and FAST networks put more emphasis and scale into their advertising-supported options.

This includes new ad-supported efforts from Netflix, Disney+, and perhaps even more impactful stuff to come from Amazon Prime Video.

That means we need more -- and more specialized -- program promotion.

This would expand the current rash of streaming marketers to advertise on linear TV with generic, bland marketing/advertising creative that shows a slew of short video clips of TV shows/movies, old and new -- in one 30-second commercial. 

Many believe streamers will adapt to mimicking what linear TV does for network on-air promos for TV shows. 

“Despite enormous shifts in the connected TV space, we are still currently only halfway through this migration,” Ron Gutman, chief executive officer of Wurl, tells TV Watch. “In the beginning, the focus was on moving content to streaming. The next phase as we head into 2024 will be about moving viewership, where the growth is still ahead of us.”

Linear TV, for all its flaws, is still a key for “tune-in” program promotion for viewership of regular TV series and other content. Those on-air promotions also are used to highlight streaming availability of those programs, where consumers typically can access the next day after its initial airing.

Dave Morgan, chief executive officer of Simulmedia, has said: “Tune-in promotion has always been one of the most predictable and successful forms of advertising, helping launch shows and build viewership episode-over-episode and season-over-season.”

Change is coming. The bottom line, says Morgan, is to look at the bigger picture: As NBCU marketing legend John Miller used to say, "TV shows are no longer competing with the few other shows in their same time slot, but are now competing with every show and movie ever made.”