NAB New York: Advanced Streaming and FAST Revenue Strategies for Local TV
How can broadcasters go beyond antiquated methods to provide fresh chances for profit on their FAST and AVOD channels? Beyond programmatic, where are the income opportunities, and how can they be realized? Which vendors are interacting with marketers on streaming the most successfully, and why are they doing so? Leading industry professionals from NBCUniversal Local, CBS News, Scripps, and The Weather Company debated these topics on a panel at NAB New York titled "Advanced Streaming and FAST Revenue Strategies for Local TV."
The panel was moderated by Adam Wiener, Founder of Continuous Media LLC. The panelists were Justin Tuggle, Director of Sales, Strategic Solutions, The Weather Company, Sahand Sepehrnia, EVP of Digital Content Strategy and Business, CBS News, Stations, Entertainment and Sports, Sonali Pathak, SVP, Business Development & Strategy, NBCUniversal Local, and Tom Sly, VP, Strategy, The E.W. Scripps Co.
The importance of scale, quality content, and effective promotion across various platforms
Wiener started by asking the group to discuss the importance of scale. “We can't really talk about revenue growth and strategy without discussing the need for scale,” he said. “And when you think about the size of the audience and where people are consuming content now, specifically AVOD and FAST, there are two things that are required. One is the need for quality content. There's an expectation of that by the audience and the ability by the platforms themselves to drive awareness, which is an ongoing battle.”
Sly of Scripps said, “I can tell you we have some peers still in the space that are afraid to promote CTV, and they're afraid to talk about it…but at the end of the day, we have to wake up and say that business and the audiences are transitioning or changing and we got to change with them and we got to move fast.”
Sepehrnia of CBS News highlighted the scope of streaming for CBS News and how it has become a significant revenue stream for the company, with 23 FAST channels across news, sports, and entertainment. “Traditionally, I think major media companies used to partner with a certain FAST platform. In our instance, CBS was Pluto, but at this point, we recognize that you need to be ubiquitous. You need that reach, you need that scale. So you see all of our platforms available across all distributors.”
Pathak said that over the pandemic, NBC launched NBC Spot On. “Five years ago, when we did not have this product,” she said, “We had a wonderful digital footprint in our local markets, and we weren't seeing it grow fast enough for what local advertisers were actually looking for. So, what did local advertisers want? They know who their customers are, and they have a very specific geography that they want to be able to reach them in. And that requires massive amounts of scale to find that targetable audience. So what we did for step one was we had our own inventory. We added premium third-party publishers as our partners to be able to bundle that together, and we were off to the races from a business perspective. Lucky for us, our company had an ad-first strategy when it came to streaming.”
Tuggle of The Weather Company noted that weather is one of the major reasons people tune into local news channels. “We've created a product based on feedback from news publishers that they need more weather content because that's what advertisers want,” he said. “At a lot of local TV stations, their weather sponsorships are sold out and that they need more weather content. And then we're hearing from viewers, they want content differentiation on various platforms. So now we have streaming and that opens up the doors technologically on being able to create or target people in new ways.”
The role of AI and automation in improving content production and sales efficiency
The role of AI and automation was also brought up by Tuggle, where he highlighted The Weather Company’s innovative ReelSphere product.
“What it does is it takes everyday weather on TV that you see and adds in automation and AI to be able to scale beyond what is humanly possible,” he said. “And when you scale beyond what is humanly possible, it allows you on digital platforms to do two things: create hyper-local weather forecasts and to do personalization, [such as] lifestyle forecasts, like a hiking, a biking, a golf forecast. Those types of pieces of content that will resonate with viewers. And then when you're matching the right content to the right viewers, not only does it create a good viewing experience, but it also creates a great advertising opportunity with monetization. So you can sponsor that content and then what it does is automatically distribute that content to all digital platforms and allows for new revenue.”
The need for data transparency and collaboration with distribution platforms
Wiener asked the group to discuss measurement, and the need for transparency and collaboration with distribution platforms.
Sly said, “Look, data today is everything. It's an asset. It's almost a currency in many ways, too. This allows us to bring value to the audiences that we bring to bidders and buyers on FAST and streams. We've been fortunate that we actually have created charts and graphs that show every partner, every FAST channel, the revenue per hour.” He elaborated on how his teams work collaboratively. “We've been really fortunate to have a couple of the very largest platforms where our team has worked together with them and said, ‘If you can't fill it, let us fill it, but you’ve got to pass data and so we're going to make money for all of us.”
Sepehrnia said, “I think the dynamics between content creators and FAST platforms has really evolved in the last five years,” with the dynamic primarily shifting towards revenue shares. “They want to do rev shares and they want to sell the inventory, but in the last year, some of these platforms have been very challenged, where to Tom [Sly’s] point, [if] you're not selling, let us backfill and let us sell.”
“It's that supply search that's happened that's really caught that shift, and it's very interesting to see where they are coming back and saying, Hey, we'd like you to sell, and we're happy to do it. We sell our own inventory best,” Pathak said.
Tuggle said, “We've had news publishers reaching out to leverage weather for back door unsold inventory instead of running a slate or another house promo. They're wanting to run a 30 second weather clip, and that's creating a better user experience if you're able to give somebody their backyard weather in a stream instead of another promo or slate.”
The challenges of 2025 and why there are reasons for optimism
Wiener concluded by mentioning the likely challenges of the upcoming year on many levels. “What should those in the industry focus on? What do you think is going to help drive things the best for your businesses, and what might need to evolve to get us there?”
Overall, the panel was optimistic that 2025 would continue to be about focusing on leveraging data, video, and AI to enhance their strategies and capitalize on their strong content offerings.
Sly of Scripps also emphasized the need to disseminate information better and make it more relevant to users on a local level. “I hope we as an industry can do a better job of selling the value of local news,” he said. “We get roped into national news, and on streams that hurts us programmatically. It hurts us with national advertisers, and we, as an industry, have a story to tell. And you know what? We've got a hell of a microphone. A megaphone that we're on every day. Somehow or another, we need to do a better job telling that story.”
Related Articles
News broadcasting is one of the most exciting and quickly growing areas for FAST development, highlighted by the recent announcement of the BBC/AMC 24-hour live FAST news channel. Other legacy media news broadcasters, such as Scripps, Sinclair, Hearst, and USA Today, have also entered the FAST news space, many of them with a focus on local content. What are some of the current trends and challenges for FAST news delivery? In this article, several leading industry commentators provide insight.
14 May 2024
Streaming localization is not just about delivering content to multiple regions; it's about "opening up the world," according to Peacock TV VP, Products Quincy Olatunde, who explains why he believes streaming localization is so critically important in this clip from his Streaming Media Connect 2023 keynote conversation with Media Universe Cartographer Evan Shapiro.
27 Sep 2023
While featuring localized content on streaming platforms still faces logistical and legal challenges, there are new ways to present a regional user experience via apps that can feature hyper-local channels that can help tie communities together.
22 Aug 2022
Evoca's Dana McLeod and USA Today/Gannett's Caroline Harris discuss the advantages of hyper-localizing OTT content for both major providers (who seem to be moving in the opposite direction) and end users (who are clamoring for it) in this clip from their panel at Streaming Media West Connect 2021.
17 Nov 2021