Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1469966
D E PA R T M E N T 37 KEYFRAME TO CREATE OR NOT CREATE So where does this leave creators? How do you stay true to your art when you know it's going to come up against the numbers game? Nielsen can tell a streaming platform what demographic of people is watching what kind of show, shaping platforms' decisions about what to acquire. Parrot can leverage characteristics about a show or shows to further analyze demand trends. These characteristics can include the language, country of origin, keywords, themes, and other descriptive factors. "Let's say you have two different concepts, Concept A and Concept B," says Engelhardt, "and you want to know which concept will perform better in the market. We can analyze the characteristics of each of the concepts and model the predicted demand, using the historical demand performance and our vast catalog of titles and their characteristics to inform which show is likely going to be a success." (When asked for examples, Parrot responded that they cannot be publicly shared.) Data is also used in a very basic supply- demand equation. Within their sprawling, comprehensive database, Parrot can look at the demand for each genre. "We can see drama has a really high demand, for example, but it's completely saturated," says Engelhardt. "There are just so many drama shows out there. Or let's say adult animation has a really high demand but a low supply. Platforms can use demand to identify whitespaces in their catalog or at the market level … and focus their programming strategies on shows in that genre with a high demand and that will benefit their subscriber acquisition and retention strategies." In the end, of course, this all comes back to subscribers. How many new subscribers does a streaming platform have? How many subscribers is it retaining and adding? And while this may make it seem as if originality is doomed, the bottom line, says Engelhardt, "is that data can only get you so far. Demand and other data points can inform what topics, what genres, what key words have been the most successful for certain types of content. But at the end of the day, [creators] still have to create a good show. That's where there's the balance of the arts and the sciences. As much as the sciences can help inform these content creators, then we pass the torch to them to create good content." "... data can only get you so far. At the end of the day, [creators] still have to create a good show. That's where there's the balance of the arts and the sciences." – renee engelhardt, vice president of partner insights, parrot analy tics RECOMMENDED FOR YOU Fuhrer enjoys looking at the numbers and then going back and trying to determine what influenced them. He shares the example of a popular Selena biopic with a large viewership. "This program, it wasn't a really well-known program, called Mariposa of the Barrio—suddenly it got tremendous [viewership]." He saw significant viewer overlap with the Selena biopic, and "the conjecture is that there was cross- promotion," he says. He notes that Netflix is becoming a kingmaker with its recommendation engine and Top 10 list, although that power base "isn't what it once was when they commanded 99% of the viewing," he says. This is where Parrot comes in. "Netflix only knows what I watch on Netflix," Engelhardt says. "Let's say I only watch true crime [on that platform], but I love animation, and I love watching that on Paramount+. Netflix is likely going to recommend to me the true crime because it doesn't have visibility into what else I'm watching. The way that we globally collect our data signals allows us to have that insight into demand and consumption behaviors across platforms. … We can use demand on a title level to measure the performance of a show relative to other shows that might be on other platforms, as well as what other shows across platforms an audience has a high affinity for. Knowing the affinity of audiences to content across platforms allows platforms to make informed decisions about content acquisitions and even improve their own recommendation engines." SUMMER 2022 37