In the ongoing series of interviews on podcast and video, Mediaweek recently explored the growing importance of sport in the streaming world. Talking with Mediaweek editor-in-chief James Manning were Kayo Sports marketing director Kim McConnie and Samsung TV Plus head of business development Ed Love.
The discussion below is just part of the highlights from the full Behind the Screens podcast, powered by Samsung Ads. Listen to the unedited podcast session:
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Fragmented sports streaming road map
Kim McConnie: The market is definitely becoming more fragmented and the market across streaming and as a whole is becoming more fragmented. That actually makes a position like Kayo even a little bit stronger, because we still have over 50 sports. It’s pretty diverse and it’s pretty broad, and global as well. People will gravitate to what can make it easier for them. Streaming fatigue is having too many streaming apps. Sport is something that will be a little bit fragmented, but ultimately, people will look for where can they get the biggest sports, both globally and locally in one place.
Kim McConnie
Viewing experience and ad loads
Kim McConnie: There’s always going to be different approaches. We believe the viewing experience and no interruptions with ads works really well for us. If you think about The Ashes. People did expect The Ashes to be on Kayo. It wasn’t and it was probably the best test cricket we’ve seen in many years. We were encouraged by the fact there was also a lot of frustration and comments on social media about the ads. It reinforced to us that people really value that uninterrupted viewing experience.
Ed Love: I’ve got to say I’d rather not see ads. Obviously, they also serve an enormous purpose in getting rights onto different platforms. So from our perspective, even as a platform, generally our ad load sits a lot lower than, for example, free-to-air. That’s a choice we’ve made to create a point of difference. Then during sport were sort of beholden to the channel partner that owns the rights to it. Some don’t carry any ads at all during live sports. Some do, but it’s definitely a lower ad load, which I think the viewer would be much happier with.
Live is still king, but…
Kim McConnie: What we’re seeing on Kayo is a shift in behaviour. The live game is absolutely king. But we’re starting to see an increase in snackable, on-demand streaming consumption. Things like our Kayo Minis and VOD streaming are performing very well. The shift in behaviour I think will be people searching for more to complement the live game. It really comes down to freedom and flexibility. We all live such busy lives, that if I can’t watch that live game, in the moment, I want to be able to see all the highlights within minutes of the game ending. I want to be able to rewatch the game at my time, when and where I want as well.
The rise of the mini
Kim McConnie: We gave it scale by doing it across nearly all of our sports. It became a regular behaviour that people could rely on and now people really rely on it. F1 is a great example. We see the huge benefit from [Netflix’s] Drive to Survive bringing in a more casual fan base. They’re not staying up at 2am to watch the race. They still want to stay engaged with the sport and they are waking up and watching the minis of the race over breakfast or on their way into the office.
Sports bodies going direct to consumer
Ed Love: Sporting bodies doing it themselves [direct to consumer or DTC] is in my view much more complimentary as opposed to an and or. Let’s talk a lot about the NFL because I love it. NFL has had NFL Red Zone for years. It’s a direct-to-consumer model, and a lot of people have it as an add-on to them watching the game on free-to-air or on cable or how ever they might consume it. We’ll see more and more of that as the sporting bodies become much more aware of the rights they maintain and how they can use that to get to a new audience. I can’t see a world, and in particular in Australia, where sporting bodies will go totally direct to consumer.
Ed Love
Importance of pre and post-game coverage
Ed Love: We saw with the Women’s World Cup the importance of the pre and post-game shows around the matches. They were actually great and they rated really well. For the viewer, if their team has won, then they are hanging around because they just want to soak it all in.
The attractiveness of a sports FAST channel
Ed Love: It’s probably less on the acquisition side of things. It’s more about the sporting rights owners realising they do have a treasure trove of content and that they can utilise it in new ways. The FIFA FAST channel we launched is fantastic. They own all the rights to every bit of back catalogue, every World Cup, and all those premium documentaries they’ve created. They obviously saw an opportunity to spin up a channel around that. More and more sporting rights bodies will start to realise what they are sitting on. Most of them do retain rights to their games, pre-certain periods, perhaps pre the latest broadcast agreement. Then it’s about really honing in on what they own, and how to find a new audience for it. To re-monetise the content that they monetised maybe 10 years ago.
Different sporting bodies also have different priorities. For some, it’s a monetisation issue for a lot, it’s eyeballs, and it’s engagement. If we look at some of the global sports that haven’t always been a tier-one sport here, they’re trying to grow their brand in this country. To get into the country and show all this premium content. People on Samsung TV Plus are getting it for free and it’s very much a premium streaming product.
What’s ahead on Kayo and Samsung TV Plus?
Kim McConnie: It is a really strong back end of the year. The Men’s Cricket World Cup in India is just around the corner. There is also the Las Vegas Formula One which is going to be exciting. And that’s going to be a great time zone for us [5pm AEST]. And then we’ve obviously got other Formula One. It is a really strong next six months of sport which Kayo loves.
Ed Love: From a sports perspective, this has been a really big year for us. We’ve prioritised our sports offering which is something we wanted to grow. We did launch FIFA+ and we’ve got some really exciting channel launches coming towards the end of the year. What we’re really trying to do is give as broad a sports offering as possible to our viewers.
You can watch and listen to other Behind the Screens programs powered by Samsung Ads.
Nine CMO Liana Dubois in the Samsung Ads Behind the Screen Studios with Mediaweek’s James Manning
Behind the Screens: The Future of Television
Episode one podcast
Episode one video
In the first episode Cathy Oh, VP & global head of marketing Samsung Ads, spoke about how technology is driving viewing behaviours, the future of connected TV advertising and key questions for marketers.
Episode two podcast
Episode two video
In the second episode, Mark Frain, CEO Foxtel Media, and Nick Thomas, chief investment officer at EssenceMediacom Australia spoke about the importance of attention as a measurement of advertising success.
Episode three podcast
Episode three video
In episode three, Richard Henson, Seven Network director distribution & content partnership, and Alex Spurzem, Samsung Ads ANZ general manager discuss the growth and opportunities offered by FAST channels.
Episode four podcasts
Episode four video
In episode four, Is connected TV the new cookie? our special guests were IAB chief executive Gai Le Roy and Paramount ANZ’s digital advertising and product director Shani Kugenthiran.
Episode five podcast
Episode five video
For the final episode, The Future of Television, Behind the Screens speaks to the chief marketing officer at Nine Entertainment, Liana Dubois.