Most Creator Content Sucks But No One Cares, Live Viewing Heats Up
1. Most Creator Content Sucks But No One Cares
We are French!
We eat baguettes!
We are French!
We love stinky cheese
Oui! Le more stinky the better!
We are French!
We are always looking chic!
I’ll spare you the rest because if you’ve spent any time on TikTok or Instagram you’ve seen this video—or one just like it—several dozen times.
It’s expected. It’s banal. It’s not remotely illuminating or even quirky or funny.
But it’s somehow gotten 512K views and well, the creators who made it are pretty easy on the eye.
And that’s the thing.
No one expects these sorts of videos to be good. People watch them because they’re easy. And expected. And don’t make them think.
Because if it said “We are French! We have complicated views about the political structure of the Fifth Republic!” it wouldn’t make it to 512 views, let alone 512K.
Why It Matters
I bring this up, not to dump on Creators (okay, a little) but because the industry is in high freakout mode about how popular Creators are with “Those Zoomers™” and how are they ever going to compete with the likes of Mr.Beast and Logan Paul?
The answer is not one any of them want to hear, but it is to embrace their heritage making the sort of unchallenging-yet-entertaining content they spent years perfecting.
Call it the Mr. Belvedere Plan
It’s not like I’m the first person to notice this or that we have not been making a big deal out of the fact that the two most popular shows on Netflix—Ginny & Georgia and The Night Agent—are not, shall we say, critical darlings.
And that’s the thing the media companies need to decide—do they want to be mass media companies with huge subscriber bases or do they want to cater to people for whom “shiv” still means Sarah Snook.
Now because it is streaming, and no longer bound by the constraints of time slots, they can conceivably do both, only in order to do so, they need to stop seeming as if they’re embarrassed of their mass media properties.
Because the people who like those sorts of shows—and not just as a guilty pleasure--can tell that they feel that way.
Again, it’s not that hard.
Take catch phrases.
People f-ing love catch phrases. They were the bane of the sitcom writer’s existence, but a good “Dy-no-mite!” could make or break a series. And the sad fact is we still remember them all and that even much praised sitcoms like All In The Family had them. (Stifle, dingbat! appeared on many a t-shirt back in the 70s. Trust me—I was there.)
Now this is not a plea (or even a suggestion) to go back to catch phrases, but rather to bring back the mass market mindset that mints catch phrases.
Which is not going to be easy—TV was getting used to being the cool medium, or the cool medium for a certain type of viewer, anyway, thisclose to stealing the crown off film’s head (don’t call them “movies”) and now the masses want them to go back to making the sort of sitcoms Raphael Bob-Waksberg so brilliantly parodied on BoJack Horseman, right down to the “that’s too much, man” catchphrase.
But if the goal is to be mass media, you can’t forget about the “mass” part and you need to start catering to the masses and making the sort of programming that will give people a slightly better alternative to scrolling through TikTok.
What You Need To Do About It
You need to hire people who don’t look at “We are French!” videos and wonder if it’s too late to have the creators shot as collaborators. You want people who want to make mainstream programming because that is what they think is good and because they think it is good, they will not condescend to it and will actually make it better.
I saw this back when I was an advertising creative. Agencies would hire hipsters who’d worked on breakthrough spots for tattoo parlors and craft vodkas and put them on big budget laundry detergent and mouthwash accounts. And when the clients inevitably rejected the edgy scripts they’d come up with and forced them into the “hold up the product and smile” genre, the condescension in the resulting spot was palpable. Whereas when the uncool and untattooed Gap-clad creative team did those same spots, there was an affection and an authenticity to them that often managed to transcend the genre. Just a little, mind you, but enough to be noticeable. (There’s a political lesson in there too, but I’ll let you figure that one out.)
And once you hire those people, you need to invest in them and promote the heck out of the stuff they do and stop giving a hoot (or a flying fuck) about what the New Yorker’s TV critics think of what you’re putting out there.
Those shows are not meant for them and they know that.
Besides, they’d rather be reviewing architecture. Or opera. Or both.
2. Live Viewing Heats Up
You know what people are watching more of? Linear TV. Live linear TV to be exact.
Maybe it’s the urge to avoid any fighting over which of the 52,000 original streaming shows to watch, but NFL football and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade both saw record viewership this year.
Maybe it was because the price of eggs was up.
The Thanksgiving Day Parade drew 31.3 million viewers to a combo of NBC and Peacock, with 23.6 million watching live. Notable too, is that NBCU is claiming a 26 percent YOY increase on the number of viewers who watched on Peacock.
Meanwhile, the NFL is claiming that 141 million people watched at least one game on Thanksgiving Day. Or at least had the TV turned on in the den in case, you know, the Bears decided that the game clock wasn’t an issue or some such. That number is spread across Fox, CBS and NBC, giving everyone a piece of the bragging rights.
Not to be outdone, Amazon claimed 13 million people watched its Friday afternoon game. That number is as per Nielsen, so far more accurate than the grading-our-own-homework numbers the streamers are often accused of using.
While it’s not a huge number, it’s a big jump from last year—41 percent—and proof that football fans can find games on Amazon and other streaming services. Though to be fair, Thanksgiving weekend likely means the kids are home to help.
And hat tip to TheDesk for all those stats.
Why It Matters
At a time when media is increasingly fragmented, live sports remains one of the few opportunities to reach large audiences in real time.
This is key for advertisers of course, but also for media companies and for the national mood—it’s so rare for everyone to be focused on the same thing, watching the same broadcast, and so it takes on even greater significance.
It also gets people used to the notion of live TV, that if you miss it, you miss it. Unless of course you record it or watch it on demand, but then you’re just playing catch-up, you’re not a part of the main event.
Live sports and live events in general, are likely to assume greater importance in the years to come, both as a way to placate advertisers who still see TV as a massive reach vehicle and to allow streaming services a medium to self-promote.
With so many options and so much fragmentation, a live sporting event becomes an ideal way to tell the world about all the news shows you’ve got, shows many of them likely did not even know existed.
What You Need To Do About It
If you are one of the many streaming services, you need to be realistic about how many live events people will watch each year. Yes, there is live sports, but Thanksgiving weekend is a poor benchmark—people turn on the game to avoid discussing politics or because they feel like they’re supposed to. That’s not going to happen with your mid-October pro lacrosse tournament.
If you’re an advertiser, this is still your best chance to reach a mass audience all at the same time. And since you are going to pay handsomely for that privilege, it’s on you to find a message that works best in that particular circumstance, something unique, memorable and worth the massive squeeze.
If you miss the old days of television, where everyone watched the same thing at the same time, rejoice. That piece of the industry won’t be going away any time soon.
Hallelujah!
