"There's so much time, energy and budgets that are spent on personalisation and trying to present the right thing to the user within the television application, when in reality they might have already discovered something to watch before they even switch on their TV."
Matt Duhig, co-founder and CEO, FX Digital
65% of Gen Z decide what to watch on a feed before the TV goes on. 6% of boomers do. That’s year 2 of the study FX Digital runs with research partner Craft: 800 people last year, 1,200 this year, older audiences added because the SME Live audience told them to stop fixating on Gen Z 😁
So the industry keeps paying to personalise a decision that’s already been made. Disney+ is adding a vertical feed to the app this year to meet that traffic further upstream. Matt Duhig thinks the on-platform answer is search and points out YouTube puts it on every page while Netflix doesn’t. Konrad Collao argues the opposite, that you shouldn’t give people what they came for too fast.
Collao also wants us off generational labels. Millennials were the ones who’d supposedly never watch TV again. They now watch more than Gen Z and he’ll put a guarantee on what Gen Z looks like in 15 years.
Then profiles. Most people watching with someone else compromise, millennials most of all, and TV apps still personalise for one. Collao has spent 25 years in other people’s living rooms, “much like a burglar”. At an FX Digital event a few weeks back, a couple in the room explained their own fix: two TVs.
We also get into gaming on the big screen, whether anyone will ever store card details on a television, and whether long-form YouTube counts as TV…
FX Digital’s co-founder Tom Smith will be on stage during SME Live on 10 September in Amsterdam with more of this data. Come find him.
Watch our full conversation 👇🏻
That’s it for today but before you go:
🎤 3 weeks to go and only 45 tickets left for Streaming Made Easy LIVE!
On September 10, the day before IBC kicks off, we're bringing together the people shaping the future of streaming and broadcast in Amsterdam, at Rode Hoed.
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