IBC: Ways to Build, Engage and Retain Online Audiences

IBC’s Content Everywhere theatre is a mainstay of IBC, but with IBC 2021 cancelled, our Managing Director, Ed Abis was invited to a virtual session to talk about ‘ways to build, engage and retain online audiences’.

Colin Dixon, Founder and Chief Analyst at nScreenMedia led the discussion with the team of experts including Matthew Wilkson, CEO of Magine Pro and Joe Foster, co-founder of Easel TV. With viewer trends changing so much over the last few years, the panel talked about the variety of different approaches in attracting audiences and delivering a quality viewing experience.

Considering broadcasters, video service providers and even touching on theatre productions, the focus turned to the number of ways to engage viewers on social media and how it “flagposts” the live production. Creating organic advertising and driving more people to the live content, while chatting with other like-minded viewers on social media. Discussing if Dizplai – our cloud-based display platform- works best for one particular genre, Ed stated, “No, we work with the BBC for The One Show which is an entertainment show, the Martin Lewis Money Show Live – a factual show, lots of sports, and any genre where you have an audience watching content that’s likely to have an opinion – we can make it work.”

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An eye-opening session saw the panel cover various areas:

• Ed Abis talked about the tools and strategies being employed by content producers, rights holders and sporting institutions to engage with their fans, audiences and viewers.
• Matthew Wilkinson shared insights on a recently published white paper from Omdia that explored consumer behaviour around discoverability.
• Joe Foster, shared a pandemic case study in which his company’s SaaS OTT platform was deployed to enable one London theatre to host and sell live and recorded productions and was then expanded and extended as a shared service for multiple theatres to offer an ongoing programme to an aggregated audience of theatre lovers.

You can find out about how Dizplai can support broadcasters with the tools to engage and interact with viewers by watching our latest video showcasing the simple production workflow here.