Amsterdam – Allen Media Group, owner of several streaming services including free AVOD service Local Now, The Weather Channel, The Grio and others, has its long-term sights set on global growth and a competitive user experiences, according to Michael Senzon, president of digital at AMG.
As part of that future goal, AMG recently announced a new multi-year partnership with Quickplay (formerly named FirstLight Media), using the vendor’s Google Cloud-powered OTT platform to essentially serve as the backend of its entire tech stack across the AMG streaming portfolio. That includes Local Now, The Weather Channel, The Grio, as well as HBCU Go, a free streaming AVOD service with programming created at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and sports-focused AVOD Sports.TV.
“Really it’s the next generation of our mission to sort of dominate streaming,” Senzon told Fierce on the sidelines of IBC taking place this weekend at the RAI in Amsterdam, adding that it all comes back to great product experiences.
Local Now has been on the market out of beta for nearly two years at this point. Senzon said the AVOD platform, which offers more than 400 channels and 16,000 TV shows and movies along with local news feeds, has seen tremendous growth is now ready to unlock the next phase.
Part of that is the backend migrating to QuicpPlay, with the company looking to bring new capabilities to free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels.
“We also see this as an opportunity to do some bleeding edge stuff, so we have our eyes set on personalized [FAST] channels,” he said.
Senzon said the company is seeing users enter the Local Now platform for a local news feed, checking out a broadcast affiliate on the channel, and after that turning to entertainment. An aim for AMG is to grow engagement of entertainment channels on the platform.
Local Now wants to provide a linear-like experience for viewers watching a movie, but one that’s personalized.
“We want to make sure the next movie you see is something you want,” Senzon said of the user journey.
Allen Media Group is building apps natively, and he cited a need to meet high consumer expectations for user experience that have come alongside the ease of using apps like Amazon for shopping or Uber for travel. In Senzon’s view, anyone that wants to be a player in the direct-to-consumer space needs to be benchmarking themselves against the likes of Netflix, YouTube and Paramount-owned FAST service Pluto TV.
“We’re essentially upgrading our entire infrastructure to be more competitive in streaming,” he commented.
For that, apps need to work really fast on the front end, while the backend requires a cloud-based system that can move and iterate quickly.
“Our DTC experiences should be like Ninja Warriors – they operate super quickly, very interactive and do exactly what users expect,” Senzon told Fierce. He also noted that AMG is talking “to every single one of the glass makers” – aka smart TV OEMs.
As for the timeline of when the overall backend transition will happen, Chris Drake, SVP, global head of sales and revenue at Quickplay, joked, “we’re not called Slowplay.”
Jokes aside, Senzon noted AMG will move fast and expects partners to move even faster, saying the transition will likely take about a year, though it’s releasing new versions of the company’s app roughly every month with small tweaks.
For example, it implemented small changes for apps to open in six seconds instead of 15. It wasn’t something users specifically asked for, he acknowledged, but done with the understanding that if accessing the app is easier, users will likely spend more time with it.
For Allen Media Group owned-and-operated apps, Senzon said users are spending multiple hours, “sometimes five or six hours on some platforms,” in terms of time spent viewing. And for Senzon, he’s largely zeroed in on creating a user experience that viewers enjoy.
As part of the larger migration, he noted AMG wants to continue to and see how Google’s products along with Quickplay can help accelerate monetization on the platforms further.
“It goes back to love,” he said of monetization. “If we create an experience that you love…then you’re going to spend more time with us, we’re going to monetize you.”
While the DTC strategy so far is largely U.S.-focused for AMG, longer-term the company has ambitions for international expansion.
“We need a framework to be positioned to do that,” Senzon said. “So we believe between Google and Quickplay we’ll be positioned for that growth.”
To expand globally, the hope is that new partnerships in part are laying the foundation for a 2024 timeframe, he said. And in the halls of the RAI at the IBC show, he said people have been asking if Local Now can leverage its technology in emerging markets or markets like Africa that has multiple languages but lacks more robust local news and information.
For Quickplay, Drake said AMG is “a poster child” for the types of projects the company is focused on and where both its strengths and industry needs are in the evolution of OTT.
And key OTT 2.0 benefits, according to Drake,include the ability to reach diverse populations both geographically as well as based on interests and personalization-wise. Back to the personalization and targeting aspects AMG is aiming for, Drake said it’s no longer just the world of traditional content recommendations.
“We can actually know something in advance about a user and direct a set of content, a set of experiences and a set of business model offerings that we know are going to appeal to them more effectively than others,” he commented. “And then we can use and harness machine learning to measure that, adapt to that and see how that user journey changes over time as well.”
Aside from the data piece, is the fast-paced nature of the streaming industry – meaning not only fast to launch, but fast to adapt and iterate on services, he noted.
A hallmark of that, according to Drake, is Quickplay’s work where it rearchitected toward being cloud-native and microservices-based to enable adaptability. And when they’re working with clients, not everything needs to be totally reworked, he acknowledged.
“We try to be careful about not trying to characterize our solution as an end-to-end platform, but what we do is end-to-end orchestration,” Drake said.