Denver – While the age of streaming has resulted in a fragmented viewing landscape, the on-demand nature and various avenues to interact with content means new – and sometimes older – titles can have a longer lifeline of discovery well beyond the initial premiere date as consumers learn about it at different times and in different places.
And keeping on top of trends and cultural moments that can boost a title’s visibility or interest for a new crowd can help optimize those second-window opportunities.
It’s a notion Courtney Thomasma, EVP of linear and streaming products at AMC Networks, brought up and shared on stage during a panel discussion at The StreamTV Show on Friday, saying that long-tail consumption and discovery of the programmer’s content library is massive and growing, even well after shows have first hit the AMC+ service.
“It is not uncommon for us to see titles spike months or sometimes even years after we first released a piece of content,” Thomasma said during the session.
And in a very fragmented viewing landscape, AMC shifted its strategy to keep on top of it. It now has Monday pulse meetings that pull in a cross functional-team of marketing, partners and social – with the goal of tracking trends, looking across social, search and some of its own behavioral data to try and identify surges or spikes “that tell us something is happening in culture that’s causing the second wave of discovery.”
From that, the team can hop on to operationalize, including through marketing and merchandising efforts, to take advantage of what essentially becomes a second premiere window.
The Last Anniversary sees bigger viewership four months later than initial release
Thomasama shared an example of when this recently happened for AMC+ when it premiered a new original series called The Last Anniversary – an adaptation of the book by Liane Moriarity. The series premiered in March and did very well. Then about a month ago, according to Thomasama, AMC started seeing “this huge surge in viewership on our platform around that title.”
Digging in, the company found what she described as an “interesting confluence of events” including the series release on the BBC in the UK – which drove a whole new wave of online discussion and social buzz. At the same time, another one of its adaptations Nine Perfect Strangers returned to Hulu for a second season, which AMC found ignited social conversation around fandom for Liane Moriarity.
“And all of this resurfaced The Last Anniversary, this title in places and spaces where viewers were discovering it for the first time and then coming to our platform to watch it,” the exec noted.
When that happens, it provides AMC+ the chance to align its marketing, merchandising and partner strategy to support the second wave and resurface it, essentially creating “a whole second premiere window” – and one that isn’t insignificant.
“That title is doing bigger numbers now, four months later than it did in its initial release,” Thomasama explained. “I think it gives us a lot of opportunity and at bats, if we’re listening to viewers and ready to capitalize on these cultural moments.”