The Explosion of Streaming Services Is Forming an OTT Nebula

In the mood for an indie flick Try SnagFilmsamp160Looking for a bit of inspiration Watch a TED Talk Need a laugh Check out Elizabeth Bank39s channel WhoHaHa which features original content from female comedians Feeling spiritual Get your Zen on in one of the 1000plus religious and spiritual apps for every religion and domination available on RokuWhile Netflix Amazon Instant Video Crackle Hulu are all established OTT services there is a next wave of OTT apps amp8212 including Twitch TV Tubi and Newsy amp8212 that are scaling fast and finding success in growing audiences in a very fragmented environment These hot media companies all have one thing in common when it comes to marketing For the most part they are eschewing traditional paid media and are finding success reaching their audiences through social and other more grassroots effortsLet39s take a closer look at what makes Twitch TV Tubi and Newsy stand outMultiplayer EntertainmentAmazon39s Twitch is an open platform that allows gamers both professional and amateur to live stream and archive their videogame play It encourages the building of community by giving viewers the tools to view the streamed games and comment with either words or emoji It may seem strange that this type of content would be compelling but as founder Emmett Shear recently said in a Ted Talk it fills a primal void to connect with each other that the past 20 years of fairly solitary media consumption has left us with quotModern multiplayer videogames are like a shared campfire Today they are more complex They39re intellectually stimulating and most of all they39re intrinsically social If there is an activity you really enjoy you probably will like watching other people do it with skill and panache Bonding over shared passion is a human universalquotAccording to website Twitch Tracker the platform reached approximately 34 million active streamers in August 2019 with a peak of 13 million concurrent streamers and 48434 concurrent channels Over the years Twitch has done very little reported traditional media to market itself and grow the audience It has however had several marketing partnerships including a 2016 sponsorship with Pepsi39s Amp Twitch received massive exposure on millions of Amp cans that encouraged consumers to quotLevel Upquot and used sweepstakes to compel consumers to amplify the message by tagging their social mediaMore recently Twitch has looked to go beyond just gaming and has partnered with the NFL to stream Thursday night football games on its platform The partnership also allows Twitch streamers to stream the games on their individual channels and engage and interact with their individual communities throughout the game quotOnly hundreds of people today get to be sports announcers But sports is about to go multiplayer which means anyone can become a sports announcerquot said ShearOf course being a part of Amazon does come with benefits Twitch users who are Amazon Prime subscribers receive free access to Twitch Prime which includes adfree streaming exclusive emojis free games and exclusive ingame loot Amazon has been known to promote this benefit via the main Amazon site as well as with onbox promotion in shipping during particular times of the year including the winter holiday seasonA Library Without the StacksTubi is an adsupported movie streaming library that39s available across more than 21 platforms It ranks as one of the most popular adsupported apps on Roku and currently reaches over 20 million unique active users per month Tubi is growing its audience by continually marketing via host devices leaning heavily on social media The service recently launched an aggressive outofhome campaign teasing its top competition in Chicago Detroit Los Angeles and New YorkFounder and chief executive officer Farhad Massoudi is not concerned about the upcoming barrage of nonad supported movie options from Disney HBO and NBCUniversal quotWe realize that there are other streaming services but we also recognize that more than 50 percent of content viewing in OTT is library content that is older titlesquot Massoudi said quotWe are aggregating the world39s largest libraryquotNews That FitsMuch of today39s cable news world has moved from traditional objective reporting to a more subjectively skewed product Additionally large news organizations are constrained by the need to run stories with the broadest possible appeal This leaves many important stories amp8212especially those relevant to younger audiences eg Gen Z millennials who have different priorities and interests amp8212 underreported Plus those younger audiences have mostly turned away from traditional cable news sources as their main source of informationEnter Newsy a multiplatform news network geared towards latestage millennials whose mission is to provide a politically neutral nonpartisan platform for factbased journalismNewsy part of The EW Scripps company has taken a grassroots approach to building an audience quotWe show up from a social standpoint we have a daily email newsletter that we know is very effective We are trying to market and be everywhere where our audience isquot said Scott Dannenfelser Newsy39s creative director quotWe are creating an ecosystem for our viewers so they can opt in to multiple platforms at a time We are pretty much everywherequotNewsy also has been a longtime advertiser on overthetop platforms where the news service can reach viewers directly and most closely to the actual app In fact Newsy is also one of the few digitalnative networks that have secured distribution across a number of multichannel video programming distributorsamp160MVPDs as linear videoNewsy is positioning itself well for the election season amp8212 not only to best serve its audience but also to drive growth quotWe really believe that the most important piece of this election is understanding where candidates stand on the issues that are going to impact our audience in the biggest wayquot said Dannenfelser quotWe recently launched a series called Off the Trail where we take one particular issue and explore how it ladders up to the economy or healthcare or immigration or other issues important to our audiencequotBright Spots in the Nebula That Is OTTAs the traditional media universe of paid television ads contracts with consumers increasingly doing their primary viewing on nonadsupported or limitedadsupported vehicles there is a mad dash for premium brandsafe alternatives to meet impression and ratings goalsamp160And as device fluidity becomes the norm new brands developing in the current OTT space will continue to strive to scale and reach consumers wherever they areFor consumers content that meets their needs and isn39t available in a traditional linear world is shining through in the OTT universe Services such as Twitch Tubi and Newsy that stand out by serving unique content in an overcrowded space amp8212 and market themselves with communications as engaging as their programming amp8212 will be those that thriveClick the social buttons to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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The Explosion of Streaming Services Is Forming an OTT Nebula

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Jeff Minsky

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The Explosion of Streaming Services Is Forming an OTT Nebula

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Tomorrow Will Be Televised: “Buy It Now”, ZipWave TV & Quincy Jones Tribute Episode - Listen Live Today at 2pm - By Simon Applebaum

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