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🔥 Meatballs in the Metaverse
Plus: Linear TV's wrinkles + YouTube vs Love Island
Oli Thomas
June 11, 2024
Linear TV hasn't died, but it has just entered retirement. At least that's what the numbers suggest - with the median age for the linear broadcast channels in the US now reaching 65. So half the people watching it are now retired.
Linear TV has its benefits: think of it like this - if I ask you what you want to eat tonight, anything you want, it might take you a while to decide.
And here's where the set menu has an appeal. Or indeed the restaurant with its curated offerings.
The Paradox of Choice comes to mind.
And here's where linear TV still has a place. And where FAST channels are equally finding a place: 'Lean back' TV, where things just play without you having to make any decisions.
Last week we also saw a traditional linear TV format being pushed on YouTube - reality show Inside launched by the Sidemen, with a new episode dropping daily across a week (sound familiar?). And new linear music channels being launched on Samsung TV Plus.
So don't let the numbers deceive you - linear TV is definitely ageing up, but its still got a lot of life in it.
Vamos 👍
Meatballs in the Metaverse
Ikea has launched a virtual store in Roblox, but whilst more recent retail announcements have been focused on the customer - i.e enabling purchases - this one is about the staff experience.
And as part of learning what it takes to cut it in an Ikea store, they are offering 10 paid roles at £13 per hour.
This is a pretty neat use of the platform as an employee acquisition and experience tool.
But irrespective of that, it helped Ikea gain a tonne of PR - being picked up by BBC, CNN, TIME, Wired, and a load more.
Source: Ikea
Read more here
YouTube vs Love Island
KSI has form in taking on the establishment - in boxing, in energy drinks, and, now, in reality TV shows.
Inside aired on YouTube in direct competition with Love Island, with a new episode released daily last week. The first episode attracted 2.3M views at launch, and has amassed 11M views in the days since.
And the 7 episode series has clocked up nearly 40M views across the week.
The average episode of Love Island on ITV clocks up 2-2.5M views, coming in significantly lower than Inside, albeit limited to UK audiences.
Expect lots more creator-led, long-form programming to come
Read more here
Best of the Rest
TV: UKTV is set to launch its new “U” rebrand in July. It helps bring all of its channel brands (Dave, Yesterday, Drama and W) under one master brand.
CREATORS: Spotify did a deal with creator-owned streaming service Nebula, to add its original video content onto the platform. Spotify is leaning more into creators, and tentatively focusing on video content again after a failed run on Spotify originals
STREAMING: New Star Wars show, The Acolyte, is the biggest premiere on Disney+ this year, with nearly 5 million views on its first day. However, it ended the week down on last year’s Ahsoka - signs of the Star Wars machine slowing down..?
STREAMING: Netflix are being sued for £132M for Baby Reindeer and, if they lose, it could all come down to the omission of two words: '“Based on”.
TV’s grey hairs
Linear TV is wrinkling over faster than a sunburnt grape, and the numbers just released from US data cruncher Nielsen prove it.
The median age for a network primetime viewer is now 65yrs for the five English-language broadcast networks in the US.
Its one of those bits of trivia that you kind of knew but still seems surprising when you see it in black and white.
Read more here
Lego aims to Get Lucky
Pharrell has teamed up with Lego for a new animated biopic about his life.
This taps perfectly into Lego’s original millennial audience - featuring a number of well known faces from across the last 30 years (incl. Jay-Z, Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, and Snoop Dogg).
But most of all - if this works - it opens up a whole new range of (grown-up) movie opportunities for Lego; developing into a format with endless extensions, not dissimilar to anime.
Source: Lego
Read more here