56 Executive Summary
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Leaders’ Summit
Offering a wake up call to broadcasters Laurence Miall-d’Aout CEO, TVbeat Region: UK Interviewed by: Catherine Wright As the head of TVbeat, a three year-old London-based TV start-up which aims to collect and analyse data from digital, cable, satellite and OTT apps in one single platform, Laurence Miall d’Aout is well aware that the key to business development in an increasing non-linear world is measuring and knowing your audience. The paradox is that social media tools such as Twitter or Facebook reveal a huge amount of information about the viewing public, but that no one can yet claim to measure both linear and non linear audiences on one single device. BARB’s project Dovetail which aims to combine both in the UK is still only at beta test stage; the Coalition for
such as Telekom Austria’s subsidiary Vipnet in Croatia, or Russian OTT broadcaster Nemo TV. But TVbeat is also expanding into Western Europe. “We are in advanced discussions with a broadcaster in the UK and we hope to sign up after IBC,” she reveals. “Quite a few smaller pay-TV channels are interested in what we can offer, because their audience is too small to have much of an impact on traditional panel based data.” Miall-d’Aout says TVbeat can give an insight into multiple device content streaming as well as delayed TV viewing. “We can keep track of delayed viewing after a week and even up to a month,” she explains.
traditional broadcasters. “I am not hugely optimistic because so many big groups are failing to adapt to shifting viewing habits. They are dinosaurs, and if they don’t wake up, their business will end up in the same spot as the publishing industry did a few years ago.” The lack of vision at the heart of the traditional broadcasting world is one of the reasons she joined TVbeat three years ago. “I was fed up with being asked to devise strategies for channel launches without having any proper realtime measuring tools. It is amazing to think that in the day of the internet and the mobile phone, so many broadcasters simply don’t know their audience.”
“Many big groups are failing to adapt to shifting viewing habits. They are dinosaurs, and if they don’t wake up, their business will end up in the same spot as the publishing industry did a few years ago” Innovative Measurement in the USA is attempting to develop a cross-platform tool with the backing of CBS, Fox, NBC and ad agencies Publicis and Carat, but it has yet to hit the market. “We are not in the business of providing a currency measurement, but we can supply complementary tools to analyse viewing patterns and behaviour,” explains Laurence Miall-d’Aout. “We know which data to process, and perhaps more importantly, how to read it and make it meaningful.” Since its launch, the company has sold its products to an increasing number of broadcasters across Eastern Europe and the Baltic States,
“According to our data, 25% of the audience we monitor watch television on their smartphones or tablets, even if it is for shorter periods of time.” TVbeat’s business model works on two levels : it provides broadcasters with an algorithm which aggregates non-linear and linear data, but the company also resells its readings and findings to other clients, whether broadcasters or, increasingly, advertising agencies. Laurence Miall-d’Aout’s background in television (she spent 10 years with Sweden’s MTG, launching pay-TV channels in Russia and in the Baltics) have given her a great insight into the weaknesses of
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23/09/2015 11:15