BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE TV-PROGRAMMING STRATEGY ANALYTICAL storylines are intriguing, if a proper proportions of the humorous element are exists, if there is a balance between optimistic degree and dramatic intensity. This requirement is valid for all time slots and t our attention is concentrated on this aspect first of all. For prime-time also becomes important potential of watching nontargeted audience, ideally— the possibility of family viewing. Obviously, there are areas, themes and conflicts are close and understandable to the masses in general. We have identified 3-4 areas for which we make purchases for, their mesh products— it is Ukraine, the CIS, Turkey, USA, Europe. We try to explore deeply the features of the products to understand the trends and main strengths of each Production. In order to be included in the focus, the product must be properly innovative, bright, with minimal localization or connected with our country.
NBC Universal The deciding factors are always: how does it fit into my current inventory, will it outperform content for which I currently have the rights acquired, and does it satisfy my ad-sales and affiliate commitments. Ultimately, by the time it comes to making an offer I’ ve already assessed the content strengths and weaknesses. Utilizing previous ratings performance, stakeholder feedback, and brand fit we can quickly identify if a series is going to work for us. The challenge when acquiring a programme is determining whether or not the content is going to succeed in its original market. This is where the knowledge of global markets other than your own comes in to play, its crucial to be aware of content’ s potential to be renewed before making an investment as an acquisition.
It’ s not critically important from what country content, though it is a consideration based upon the known production quality for a specific territory. We are happy to source content from any country as long as it is strong creatively and works for our channel. For the most part, we do tend to look at English content only, simply because it’ s a language a lot of our viewers in Asia speak or have some understanding, even though we subtitle everything in local language.
TRACE TV Purchasing content has become a very large part of our activities more recently because of our work on the TRACE Play platform. We are building this service for viewers who enjoy urban culture. It was important to identify content that would not just resonate with our audience, but also entertain, empower, and engage them. In each territory we will launch, the teams have been working on identifying unique, trendy, and popular programming that will make TRACE Play a must-have amongst the Afro-urban population in that region.
TRACE sources content from across the world, and makes sure it fits our urban music programming and sport lifestyle themes respectively. With TRACE Tropical and Toca, the source country, or region, will more than most times be the same, e. g Angola for Toca and Latin America as the music on this channel. TRACE Urban has hip-hop from across the world, with the South African and Rest Of Africa feed containing localised content. These are just some examples of our views on the source country, we try and localize where possible but remain providing the best content from the channel’ s vertical.
Da Vinci Our acquisitions committee evaluates the content based on educational and production value, creativity, storyline, target audience and so on, but also how it complements the current channel offering in terms of genre, target audience or format. We also pay close attention to the needs of different markets— what may work really well in Singapore, won’ t necessarily work in Russia or Romania. So we rely on feedback from our regional teams in all these countries and of course feedback from operators and above all viewers, which is the most precious.
Once all these factors come together, we decide on a programme for Da Vinci Learning. We won’ t buy in bulk just because it’ s easier or it may bring down the acquisitions cost, because a big part of having the best educational programming is hand-picking each show. And once picked, the prices vary significantly depending on the region, for which we acquire, whether the show is animation or live action, or for example whether it’ s an observational documentary about animals or a lavish re-enacted docudrama.
Latina TV All materials that appear in Latin America are carefully tested. There is nothing to choose only ruling by“ intuition” or with the assumption that“ may or may not” like the audience, on the contrary, we must be sure of that. Thus, the solution adopted also by taking into account the opinion of our audience, because we are working for them!
Evaluations, which can make the area, solutions that can take the lead, always include the results of tests carried out for the target audience.
Fox TV First of all, when we are going to acquire of content we analyze, which are the lacks of the channel, what show has been cancelled, its profile and how to keep the same kind of viewer for its replacement. Once we have screened the content we also take in consideration where this product is going to be scheduled in US, when, the competition, etc. With all this information we are more comfortable to decide if the show is good for our channel or not.
Our schedule is built mainly with US content. Local scripted production is more successful in free TV and pay TV viewer is more receptive to the US shows
Finally after analyzing all of them— the findings were quite predictable: the decisive factors are the potential of mass-market trend for several seasons( interesting and related topics, familiar characters, intuitive sense of humor); it is important to match clearly the interests of your audience by age and gender; minimal localization; quality and again quality; advancing trends— modern, fashionable, innovative. TV channels from the nearest countries are betting on their own production. Often, they have their own special tendencies which are based on the historical and cultural values. It is clear that the national or self-production is a feather in one’ s cap for every country. Some, on the contrary conduct special tests to identify the interests of their audience and have the results of selected content. It’ s quite unusual and interesting way of making decisions, especially if it works. For example, this approach is used by Latina TV.
Some platforms are covering half of the world, guided only by western producers. On belief of many— that they set new trends in production.
At the same time they all have their strictly ordered audience, thematic and sometimes completely different approaches in content selection. Some of them are sstrnews. com Issue 6 JUNE 2016 ▪ 21