Genius Digital, the London based company that specializes in audience analytics, recently announced their new Offline Viewing Analytics solution for both broadcasters and operators. The new product is designed to help operators understand how their subscribers are viewing downloaded and offline content, and how offline viewing fits into the wider consumption profile of subscribers.
Genius Digital turns data into actions so TV operators can build more compelling and profitable services. It helps TV, Cable, Satellite and OTT service providers gain a deep understanding of real-time audience activity across any platform and device. With the Genius Digital Insight Platform, TV providers can build, test and adapt compelling and profitable new services that delight their subscribers.
The new Genius Digital Offline Viewing Analytics solution tracks viewing events that have been stored locally while the subscriber is viewing offline. Operators can then track multiple downloads and viewing sessions at the same time, and distinguish between the two. It means, for example, that when a subscriber is downloading five different files and streaming a sixth, operators can understand the difference between these types of consumption. It is straightforward for operators to understand how many assets are downloaded via their content delivery network (CDN) logs, but this data typically does not show what content was viewed, and does not show whether the subscriber has even watched the content or not after it has been downloaded. Though server-side solutions such as Google Analytics can provide a picture of what people are viewing, it does not distinguish between streams and downloads. Offline Viewing Analytics bridges this gap, and brings these two different types of analytics capabilities together.
Tom Weiss, CEO of Genius Digital said of their new analytics solution that, “For operators, providing offline viewing helps them to fulfil the promise of ‘anytime, anywhere’ viewing for their subscribers. However, if their analytics systems are not engineered to track this viewing, operators risk having a large blind spot in their understanding of how their multiscreen services are consumed.”
The insights provided by Offline Viewing Analytics can improve decision-making across an operator’s business in a number of ways:
· Acquisition and rights: Identify content types where it is worthwhile to pay a premium for download rights; understand where content is downloaded and not watched, or not downloaded at all
· User interfaces: Make better decisions around download prominence within the user interface of a multiscreen services
· Content marketing: Which content to use to promote offline viewing functionality
· Subscriber marketing: Understand the best part of your subscriber base to market offline viewing functionality
· Pricing: Understand whether to charge a premium for offline vieiwng functionality, or whether to include as part of the package
· Retention: Use offline viewing functionality as an offer to help retain customers at risk of churning
· Windowing: Make decisions around whether to extend the window of time that in which a download can be viewed
· Research: Help to complete a holistic picture of how subscribers are using a Pay TV service.
Weiss went on to say that, “Our Offline Viewing Analytics product provides operators with a detailed understanding of how their subscribers are viewing downloaded and offline content, and how their offline viewing can inform decision making and wider business goals.”