Dave

TV and the way we watch it is changing irrevocably, in the way it is produced and presented to us and how we choose to engage with it.  As always, technology is at the root of it, with new platforms and access technologies proliferating the amount of TV we can consume and challenging what we understand to be broadcast content in the process. 

More choice should mean the need for an editor or aggregator to steer us through and help find the can’t-miss nuggets we want  – perfect territory for channel brands perhaps?

Except it isn’t.  In fact, the opposite is true.  One of the outcomes of all this is that the old ad-funded business model is shot. Eyeballs=advertising revenue just doesn’t cut it any more. Lack of revenue reduces the ability to make or buy programmes which in turn cuts even more viewers and so the cycle repeats.

5 million+ viewers for anything other than major live sport or a ‘significant event’ are now virtually unheard of.  Audience fragmentation means tough questions about the long-term viability of not just TV channels but companies themselves.  Just ask ITV. 

Broadcasters are trying to fight back and one weapon in their armoury, which is increasingly being deployed, is the ‘branded channel’ - stronger, attitude or personality-led brands targeted to a key demographic who come because of the brand first and content second (or so the logic goes).

Most high profile of the channel brands have been the Channel 4 stable, with E4 being the younger, more fun version and More 4 the slightly more cerebral, grown-up brand.
All under the Channel 4 umbrella, which positions itself as edgy and non-mainstream.
(Big Brother anyone?)

Other examples to the branded channel approach include Dave and parts of UKTV, as well as Channel Five with Fiver and US. 

The reality is that this approach might stave off the inevitable briefly (in investment circles they call this the dead cat bounce, I think) but the long-term future for channel brands is bleak.  Rumours about the need for consolidation persist and even Channel 4’s future is far from assured. 

For audiences, the bottom line is that they want the programmes they want, when they want them.  They want to be in control and they want it to be easy to exercise that control.  Two things make me fear for the future of channel brands. 

Firstly, it has always been (and will always be) about the content.  If I am a fan of Sex and the City I will find it and watch it, irrespective of what channel it is on (I’ve probably go the whole series stored on my hard drive by now, anyway). 

If the Premier league moves away from Sky to another broadcaster then so will all the subscribers who watch live football.  No amount of channel ‘branding’ will make up for the gap left behind and consumers will promiscuously follow the content wherever it turns up. 

Secondly. technology is also making channels redundant.  Sky+ for instance is proving that all we want as consumers is a mechanism to get to the content we want quickly and easily (if that means by passing the channel in the process, so much the better). 

A good EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) or a clear consumer interface that allows search, select and download is all that is needed.  The channel becomes, at a stroke, redundant.  As consumers increasingly watch their programmes via the internet and/or PVR’s become the norm, people will build their own channels, not be spoon fed someone else’s idea of what should be on or not. 

In that instance, the question is not even ‘what is the role of channel brands but rather when will they disappear altogether?.

Building channel brands today is a little like building sandcastles – fun while you are doing it but soon to be washed away.  Go with the flow, save the money and invest in some original programmes instead.