For Canada’s broadcasters, the Internet began as a dumping ground of sorts, a place to air old and cancelled programs, show video clips and advertise their main network offerings. That attitude has all but disappeared in the search for eyeballs and supplementary advertising. Like their U.S. brethren, Canada’s broadcasters now view their online sites as mini-networks-places to air original content, bonus material, and special events.
CTV Television is perhaps farthest along on its journey into the fully digital world. Its seven-channel CTV Broadband Network currently offers a couple thousand hours of full-length programming, plus live streams from sources such as CTV Newsnet.
Although CTV is still attempting to figure out what works online versus what works over the airwaves, the broadcaster believes many tenets of old-fashioned television apply to the digital world: Good programming rules, people want to be entertained, and big events such as elections or sports championships draw massive audiences. For example, CTV found its online coverage of the 2006 Toronto election to be “incredibly sticky,” while the final game of the World Junior Hockey Championship in Sweden drew TV-type numbers for TSN-with 118,000 unique viewers watching streaming video of the afternoon match.
“What we know works really well is programmed television,” says Kris Faibish, CTV’s vice-president of digital media and executive producer of MTV digital. “On a given day we look at what is on our own main network, what is on competing networks and the U.S. nets and try and look in a thoughtful way about the kind of shows we want to launch that day so we have a compelling and interesting broadband offering.”
CTV operates under the premise that broadband today caters to two very different audiences: A younger demographic, which views digital as its primary entertainment platform, and people who don’t have access to TV during the day but have a broadband connection at work and might jump in to catch up on news, gossip or view a cult show such as Nip/Tuck.
Global Television, which boasts an online roster including the U.S. hits Heroes, Survivor and Deal or No Deal, is also pushing to expand its integrated offering.
Deal or No Deal Canada, which kicked off after the Super Bowl broadcast in February, drew 2.9 million TV viewers, but also included a Web site which delivered the show online, featured profiles and pictures of the show’s models and contests such as Canada’s Case Game. The online contest attracted an “unprecedented amount of entries in terms of mobile and online participation,” says Greg Treffry, the broadcaster’s VP of business development. The Canada’s Case Game contest, which offered prizes from advertising partners General Motors Canada and Sunquest Vacations, attracted 750,000 participants.
Global won’t divulge numbers, but Treffry says its online traffic increased 300% around Deal or No Deal.
Global built traffic and interest with a model search which carried over to the Case Game and online viewing of the show itself. In fact, wireless carriers were unable to handle the massive spike in volume from the first night’s Deal or No Deal Canada broadcast, a problem that was rectified in subsequent episodes.
As with CTV, the big learning for Global with Deal or No Deal Canada was that broadband demands the same broadcast quality as traditional TV. “Because we treated it as a broadcast production and the quality was so high, it looked like a part of the show. That is what helped drive traffic,” says Treffry.
Peter Vaz, VP and general manager of M2 Universal’s online practice, says the program also demonstrated how TV and the Internet can work as complementary mediums. “As the show was going on, there were throws [from TV] where a contestant could play Deal or No Deal online, watch it on broadband and have a chance to win a vehicle. That was only happening online,” he says. “There were a lot of entries and I don’t think one [medium] cannibalizes the other.”
The broadband model also affords advertisers the opportunity to experiment with different ad formats. CTV is encouraging agencies to urge clients to consider everything from 15-second commercials to spots that are seven or five seconds in length, says Faibish. These shorter lengths, she says, represent a “sweeter spot” for broadband ads.
A typical 22-minute show on the CTV Broadband Network features one pre-roll ad, one or two in the middle and another at the end, says Faibish. Broadband carries a higher CPM, but Faibish says “our perspective is you are actually getting a very targeted audience that is reportable and trackable. We can actually tell you if someone saw the ad or not, and as a result there is a higher commoditization of the viewing of that commercial.”
CBC is taking a slightly different approach with its broadband offering. Rather than view the Internet as another way Canadians are viewing television, the public broadcaster considers it as a way to air programming that can’t be squeezed onto the main network.
CBC’s plans for the NHL hockey playoffs are a good example. Its new broadcast deal with the league actually comes into effect with the playoffs, spurring it to produce both pre- and post-game shows and consider streaming live game telecasts free on cbcsports.ca.
Steve Billinger, executive director of digital programming and business for CBC.ca, says the online push should help allay one of the biggest complaints of hockey fans-the inclusion of The National between the East and West games. “Hockey fans clearly lose that ‘between the first and second game experience.’ So what we are really doing is creating a whole new experience online for fans.”
The concept of new journalism exclusive to online is also being carried over to CBC’s arts and entertainment and news programming. “What we are trying to do is treat all forms of digital programming as an alternative platform of original content, we’re not sure we see the benefit of just streaming what we are doing on air,” says Billinger.
The leading edge of CTV’s seven-network broadband offering (CTV.ca, MTV, Discovery Channel, Comedy Network, TSN, Business News Network and Newsnet) is currently MTV.
Part of that is due to the nature of much of its audience: Young and web-focused. As well, because of the conditions of licence imposed by the CRTC, the web is the only place MTV can actually air music, forcing it to beef up its broadband offering. Besides acting as a storehouse for 10,000 music videos, MTV is producing 10 half-hour shows a week focusing on the Canadian music industry.
Free of the rules of TV, MTV Canada is experimenting with shorter programming. While the trial and error process goes on, MTV knows it is doing something right: the channel averages more than 400,000 unique viewers per month and they stay an average of 49 minutes, far longer than with MTV’s U.K. and U.S. sites.
Faibish compares the current state of broadband TV to the nascent days of the iPod. “We’re in early adopter mode right now with kids who are naturally going to the net,” she says. But as the technology, the encoding, the resolution, allow for simultaneous distribution on broadband and portable devices, these alternative channels will take off like the iPod. “People will consume entertainment when and where they want it, and when it hits the mass market that is when it really will get traction.”
Paul Brent is a freelance writer in Toronto.
