In this presentation Steve Langdon, Regional Director for Parrot Analytics, explores audience trends and consumption patterns in the Asia-Pacific region at the Media Summit APAC held on 23 June, 2021. He explains how we collect, analyse and apply demand data, why we track consumption (piracy) and what media companies can learn and action from this data set, and how this data can be analysed to understand consumption patterns and audience trends in specific regions.
How do we collect and analyze demand data?
We live in an attention economy today, and its very difficult to find out and measure how and where consumers are using content nowadays. We use empirical measurements for this purpose- we gather billions of data signals everyday, and our accuracy is in our volume. We aim to make sense of the attention economy so our clients can understand their consumers and craft their business objectives in a data driven manner. As seen in the charts below, we delve into the two layers of the attention economy - demand and monetisation.
Demand- a consumer might see a TV show advertisement, and if interested, begin researching to know more about it. They will look it up on Google, Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB to understand the content and what it is about. Then they might look into their social networks- Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr to know if anyone has watched it, and what they're saying about it. They also would end up on sites like Dailymotion, Vimeo, Youtube or Twitch to watch clips from the show, trailers, previews and so on. And importantly, they might choose to pirate that content if they haven't got access to it. We track these signals to help the industry make sense of what is going on, so they can use this information in a positive manner with Demand- which is an aggregate of all those signals together.
Monetization- As an industry, this demand for content can be monetized, whether its on AVOD, SVOD, Linear TV or Pay TV.
Why we track consumption (piracy) data and how it can be used
This data allows us to look at the share of global demand for programming. For example, below is a chart of global demand for original programming in Q1, 2021 - shortly after Netflix announced its earnings for that quarter. In Q1, 2020, Netflix's share sat at about 59%, and by Q1, 2021, this share has fallen to just under 50%. We see in the chart that this demand is actually shifting and this share is actually being captured by other platforms. Disney+ is a key example here, in Q1, 2020 The Mandalorian was released, Hamilton launching between Q3 and Q4, and the Marvel launches and announcements which kicked in in Q1 2021. Our data has an almost 1:1 correlation between content demand and number of subscribers on a platform.
Not every show or platform is created equal. Using our data, we grade shows into four categories- average, good, outstanding, and exceptional. Almost 64% of the 17,000+ TV shows that we track sit in the average category, while only 0.2% of these shows breakthrough into the exceptional category. As seen in the chart below, Netflix does have a lot of new shows, but the return on investment is probably playing out better for platforms like HBO Max, and potentially Starz or Apple TV+. In terms of demand per dollar, you can see that some companies have been able to become hit machines.
The presentation also covers how we can use demand data to track demand for shows as platforms have begun moving away from the binge release model, and stepping into the weekly release strategy.
Consumption patterns for top titles in the APAC region
The chart below showcases an example of why exactly consumption patterns and piracy is so important to track. Here we use an example of a "show A" which was launched in Great Britain and the USA, with a breakdown of all the demand signals including social media and piracy. In the regions where it had launched, we see that the show piracy levels were at 66% (GB) and 53% (USA). On the other hand, the piracy rate for the show in a region where it wasn't released, is much higher, going all the way up to 94% at its highest.
It is very clear that there is a lot more piracy for shows in a territory where they have not been released yet. This gap between the markets and the rate of piracy is an area of under-monetisation for companies and business in the industry. This example is a clear representation of why demand data is so useful, and how it can be used to help our clients understand their business objectives in a data-driven manner.
Download the full report now to gain insight into the presentation and the charts used as we delve further into more consumption trends in the APAC region.
You can also watch the full presentation below:
