Sinclair STIRRs Up a Station-Driven Content Stew

By far the most ambitious of Sinclair's ventures in this arena is STIRR, launched more than a month ago.  Part linear channel bundle, part video-on-demand content assortment and all advertiser-supported, STIRR's main distribution avenue here is smart TV-connected devices and smart TV sets.  Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Apple TV carry the service, with Samsung and LG expected to make it available among their smart TV customer base in the near future.  STIRR is also available through iOS and Android-formatted smartphone and tablets, and from a dedicated website.

The bottom line, as STIRR General Manager Adam Ware explains, is that at all times viewers get a localized and customized experience, no matter if they live in an area served by Sinclair-owned broadcast stations or not.  "The front door of this service is local," he says.  "Each city can throw off a tremendous amount of content and news and go way beyond with unique local interest.  Over-the-top [technology] has unlocked this opportunity and made the economics work to do it."

With STIRR, Sinclair joins the growing number of station groups and individual stations that incorporate locally produced material for national delivery through smart TV sets and devices.  There's Investigate TV from Raycom/Gray Television; Localish, a growing collection of unscripted series contributed by ABC's owned TV stations and, late last month, the start of performance-centric service All Arts from PBS flagship station WNET/Thirteen in New York.

Ware says that STIRR offers an initial glimpse of what TV stations can bring to viewers when ATSC 3.0 is deployed across the country.  "This lays the path for a deeper dive into this local bucket, developing a [rich] content marketplace that's localized," he explains.  "You can do so many different things [by] providing all sorts of data and transaction capabilities."

The first thing STIRR users see when visiting this service is a home screen inviting them to select what they want to see by city.  Viewers in places where Sinclair operates a TV station are encouraged to choose that direction.  Viewers elsewhere get choices "powered," as Ware describes, by the closest Sinclair stations to them.  Once the choice is made, the linear and VOD options customized to that choice are put on the screen and viewers select what they want to see.

Seventy-nine Sinclair-owned stations are currently represented on STIRR.  In each area, 20 linear channels are organized as a bundle.  Participating services include all of Sinclair's multicast-distributed networks: Cheddar, Dove Channel, NASA TV, Dust and Outdoor America.

In putting the bundle together, "we looked at the basic food groups one wants as a TV viewer," Ware notes.  "The target audience we're going after are people in their late 30s-early 40s.  Bringing on Cheddar (the Millennial-minded business news service) made sense for people who want news." Other channels cater to the appetites of sports fans, while several feature classic series in one genre or another or cater to people with special interests.  "At the end, you hit all the key groups and naturally complement the front door."

The bundle's centerpiece is STIRR City, a dedicated channel to station-supplied programming, including local news and public affairs simulcasts.  In between the simulcasts, blocks of time are filled with content from various national sources.  "The idea is to look, act and feel like a local TV station," Ware says.  In Washington, D.C., for example, the channel goes by STIRR Washington, to highlight WJLA-TV there.

For VOD, individual news stories and newscasts provided by the Sinclair station, or stations viewers can access over STIRR, are available 24/7, refreshed as developments warrant.  On-demand users also can watch weather and sports updates, national news coverage and up to 140 movies at any hour.

Sinclair's CompulseOTT unit handles national advertising buys for both the bundled linear services and the VOD feature.  Each local station also sells spots for STIRR City and the on-demand segments they produce.  The stations also promote STIRR during their newscasts and over their websites.

One month in, viewership around the country and ad sales revenue are moving up on a weekly basis.  Roku accounts for 60 percent of viewing per week, with iOS/Android devices attracting 20 percent and other smart TV devices 20 percent.  "Time of usage is up; return usage is also up," Ware notes.  "Nothing has gone down yet."

With a growing number of households having the ability to control how they watch and use TV with their voice through artificial intelligence-powered features, such as Google Assistant and Alexa, Sinclair is exploring a number of interactive options as next steps for STIRR.  Pause and return to what you see from that point in is one idea under study.  Impacting the direction of programs and merchandise orders is also under review.

"We could add the ability to implement a la carte subscriptions where people can buy deeper experiences by individual brands [or channels]," Ware says.  "We're looking at that closely."

Given all the national programming attractions now under Sinclair's purview, management there may be close to going forward with a first-ever public Upfront or NewFront event this spring.  If not then, look out 2020.

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