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đŸ”„ The Generation Game

Plus: Man City + Sony Pictures, and Kamala dominates TikTok

Author

Oli Thomas
July 30, 2024

Happy Tuesday - here we go again, and we’re returning to a common theme - how to stay relevant to young people
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I can guarantee you one thing in life, beyond death and taxes, and that is: whatever I try to present as cool, my son will think is achingly cringe.

I could turn up at the school gates in a Prime Hydration-branded Lamborghini Aventador with Mr Beast in the passenger seat and Messi doing keepy-uppies on the bonnet, and still be waved away as an embarrassing eyesore. I am the anti-cool. The Sadim touch to street cred.

And there’s a touch of this afflicting old media companies today. It doesn’t matter what they present, it’s the fact that they are presenting it that is turning off younger audiences. This dynamic between young and old has always existed. But it has been compounded in media by kids growing up in an on-demand, socially-driven, globalised world, meaning (1) content is self-serve and not beholden to the TV and Radio schedule, (2) discovery is driven by word of mouth rather than adverts and listings, and (3) ‘local’ broadcasters are less relevant if they’re not part of the global conversation.

The power to leverage decades old media brands to curate and present content to these audiences is therefore significantly weakened.

This is playing in to some of the BBC’s problems reported this week. And belies a lot of the more structural issues faced by big media, many who saw share price falls in recent days.

The answer?

One part of it lies in Partnerships and M&A. Bundling up the significant assets of big, traditional media in fresh new ways that are more relevant and appealing to young audiences.

The other part = the secret sauce, the multi-billion dollar question


Vamos 👍

Man City partners up with Sony

As discussed last week - the money is not in the content, but in the audience. Partnering with ready-made audiences, like those of a global football club, is the future.

Sony and Man City announced a partnership to develop “new digital fan experiences” creating a whole range of content together - expect everything from feature-length docs through to immersive gaming.

This deal brings together Sony’s Production & Publishing expertise with the talent, funding, and fandom of City.

And for City, its a further example of how they plan to reach younger, international audiences and build that love (and lifelong loyalty) from the early years.

More of these partnerships will be coming in the months and years to come.

Read more here

BBC in need of Sherlock ‘Homes’

Over the last decade the BBC has lost 30% of its income. And it faces an uphill challenge to stay relevant according to its latest report.

500,000 households cancelled their BBC licence last year; a 2% drop in the total base of licence fee payers.

Despite various attempts to engage younger audiences (BBC Three, BBC Sounds, etc), only 69% of under-16s consume any BBC content in an average week.

“What’s under way is a massive transfer of skills and resources from linear to digital.” (Tim Davie, BBC Director General)

The BBC is throwing a lot of stuff at this. Just in the last couple of months its announced its first foray into Roblox, an investment in an immersive live events company, and building out its short-form, vertical video offering.

But the issue is not all to do with its content and distribution. The BBC still makes kickass content. The issue is a brand thing.
The BBC = Parents and Grandparents. YouTube et al = Creators & Youth.

The BBC is Facebook. And it needs an Instagram.

A younger-skewing brand, detached from its parent. It needs to be global. And it needs regulatory freedom to fly. Only then can the BBC reach young audiences, albeit not purely as ‘the BBC’.

Read more here

Kamala is Brat đŸ„„ đŸŒŽ

Kamala Harris well and truly won the battle for social kudos in her first week of campaigning, and raised a record $81M in 24 hours in the process.

The thing about the internet game is that its 80% luck and 20% skill. No doubt Kamala Harris’ team will take credit for the monster social campaign they’ve created in the few days since she became a Democratic nominee, but in reality its owed its success to the following (largely uncontrollable) ingredients:

  • Charlie XCX - tweeting ‘Kamala is Brat’ and spawning a load of viral memes

  • Kamala’s ability to make anecdotes and quotes sound like something straight from an episode of The Office

  • Being the underrepresented underdog

The result is significant amounts of viral content driving loads of awareness and media value amongst young (potential) voters.

Source: New York Times

Read more here

Best of the Rest

GAMING: New UGC gaming startup Look North World raises $4.5M from Hasbro, Bandai Namco and others to develop games for creator-led platforms.

ADVERTISING: Google is giving up its mission to kill the cookie after push back from rivals and regulators. Whilst it packaged up the plans as a consumer-friendly privacy move, it ended up feeling more like a Trojan Horse with an underbelly objective of transferring more power over to Google.

STREAMING: YouTube says it is closing the gap in how much ad money it makes from short-form vs long-form content.

STREAMING: Sky released its inaugural ‘Attention Index’ report showing how the UK watched TV in the first half of 2024. Spoiler: Social and Linear TV are the top 2 sources of video content. NB: this is for Sky homes, which (a) tend to be older, and (b) watch a lot of live sport. So that linear figure will be higher than the national average.

Media stocks take a tumble

Yes, the markets were spooked by economic conditions and underwhelming results at Big Tech this week. But other results didn’t do much to allay any investor fears around the wider media sector. Here were a few of the headlines:

  • Universal Music’s value dropped 24% due to a slowdown in revenues from subscriptions and streaming (i.e from Spotify, Apple Music, and others).

  • Warner Bros. Discovery stock dropped 6% off the back of the announcement that they had lost the NBA rights renewal to Amazon.

  • ITV stock dropped 5% primarily driven by revenues at ITV Studios down 12% for H1 2024.

  • Comcast stock dropped 5% initially due to revenue falling across its content and experiences (Theme Parks) businesses.

It was not all bad news. There were reasons for optimism sprinkled throughout the results, not least an improved advertising outlook cited by ITV, Google and others.

Pick of the posts

In case you’re wondering - the ‘code’ is apparently:
1. Simplicity
2. Authenticity
3. Consistency
4. Cultural Commentary
5. Cross-platform strategy