Broadcasters Thinking Out Of The Box To Attract Next Generation

LAS VEGAS — QR codes, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, hyperlocal – if it provides another way to connect with viewers, broadcasters and content producers are trying it, several said during TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere conference at the NAB Show on Sunday.

Even a show that’s in its 43rd season, as CBS’s Entertainment Tonight is, is constantly thinking about how to push its brand past its traditional boundaries to meet new viewers.

“We don’t hold anything back for the television show. Social and digital are always our first thoughts,” said Erin Johnson, the show’s executive producer.

To make its game shows more interactive, Fox this season added QR codes to such shows as Pictionary, starring Jerry O’Connell, and You Bet Your Life, hosted by Jay Leno. This season, Fox ran contests in both shows — to win an air fryer, for example — by putting a QR code on the screen for 15 seconds and asking viewers to play along.

“We wanted to give our sponsors hyper-engagement. We also wanted to make sure that we hyper engaged our audience, so we gave them an opportunity to play and win at home,” said Stephen Brown, EVP, programming development, Fox First Run and Fox Television Stations.

Since it typically takes people longer than 15 seconds to get their phone out of their pocket, open the QR code app and grab a shot of the code on their TV screen, next season Fox will leave the code on the air throughout the entire episode. Instead of just having 15 seconds to click in and get a chance to win a prize, viewers will access multiple offerings, including behind-the-scenes footage, games and other activities.

“By our estimation, people are only watching syndicated shows once a week,” Brown said. “If we can get them to watch twice a week by hyper-engaging them, then we win.”

Once the episodes move to other platforms, the QR codes will still be in play, allowing viewers to accumulate points that they can redeem for show-related swag.

NBCUniversal Local works closely with local sponsors to produce high-quality branded local content, said Meredith McGinn, EVP of diginets and original production, and then uses that to populate its stations’ multicast networks.

“We are great collaborators with the client but we’re always about the story first,” McGinn said. “None of the content lives in any newscasts or is hosted by anyone on our journalism team. Our producers are meeting with the clients and hearing what’s so great about the destination, but the producers always decide what story to tell and how to tell it.”

NBCU Local is also producing lifestyle shows for its stations to air on their linear channels, McGinn said, and it experiments with different ways to program the news on its LX diginet.

Similarly, Hearst is creating plenty of hyper-local content within its Very Local brand, which includes such shows as Boston Rob Does Beantown, starring Rob Mariano of Survivor fame, Finding Adventure with Kinga Philipps and Wait, What Happened, hosted by Frank Nicotero. The shows originate out of the group’s 27 markets and are available to watch on the Very Local streaming app as well as on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, LG, Samsung and more.

“Our goal is to help streaming consumers connect with the communities more deeply,” said Andrew Fitzgerald, SVP, streaming video services, Hearst Television. “Very Local is a blend of AVOD and FAST, so we want to be as evergreen as possible and operate flexibly.”

NBC and Hearst also tap into their news archives to tell true-crime stories and they’re always looking for new ways to present them.

“I keep looking for the ceiling on true crime and I can’t find it,” Fitzgerald said. “As broadcasters, these are the stories that we’ve always told incredibly well.”

“There’s room for innovation in the way these stories are told in this space,” McGinn said. “We’ve been trying to plot a new twist on true crime. For example, we’ve been using virtual reality in productions to differentiate the way these crime stories are told.”

Coming to syndication next season is PPI’s daytime talk show Michaela, starring former CNN and HLN host Michaela Perreira, and that show is already plotting how better to reach viewers.

“So much of the content that we see on social media is so quick,” Perreira said. “I’m looking forward to the long-form nature that YouTube is going to allow us for our show.”

While digital efforts are helping content producers chart their courses to the future and expand their brands, their bread-and-butter remains their linear programming.

“Our broadcast is still the largest revenue driver,” said ET’s Johnson. “What we’re not doing is using these other platforms to constantly say ‘tune into the broadcast.’ We’re going to meet people where they are and be great everywhere.”

Read more from Programming Everywhere here.