There’s something of a “perfect storm” developing as technology vastly extends consumers’ TV content choices and continuously expands the number of devices they can use to watch. And that means agile content discovery strategies are becoming ever more important across the TV ecosystem.
“The coveted Millennial demographic is in the eye of this storm, consuming the most content across the most services and platforms. However, members of this generation have short attention spans, and they are the most likely to ‘show dump’ when access to content becomes challenging,” Paul Stathacopoulos, VP of strategy and strategic research at TiVo, observes.
He was commenting about a recently released TiVo report that suggested service providers and content developers looking to better appeal to consumers − especially younger ones – need to pay a lot attention to content discovery options with seamlessness and speed as key factors.
Netflix made an announcement in a blog on Tuesday indicating it’s aware of the growing need for better discoverability. The powerhouse streaming service launched a new television user interface that utilizes video more extensively to “bring content alive in real time and helps members decide whether to click play.” The company says its research shows it has less than 90 seconds to grab a user’s attention about a particular title, and that’s the thinking behind the new interface.
At first blush, this all sounds like teasers or trailers, but Netflix says it’s more than that.
“They are specially designed video synopses that help members make faster and more confident decisions by quickly highlighting the story, characters, and tone of a title,” the Netflix blog says. “In developing this experience, our testing showed that people watched more of a story, demonstrating these previews helped them browse less and watch more.”
The company reports these previews are launching globally on Tuesday and will become available on eligible devices over the next few weeks. They reportedly will be available on most game consoles and Roku devices, and smart TVs and other devices will get updated in the coming months.
