OTT Question Time #4: Content Production, Sales & Scheduling in a Pandemic World

At this week’s OTT Question Time we talked about content – about the making, selling and scheduling of it. Together with Wim Ponnet, the Chief Strategy & Commercial Officer at Endemol Shine, Emma Tibbetts, the former GM of UKTV Play and now founder of Chuck Data and Mike Sid, founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Mediamorph (now part of Whip Media Group) we explored:

• The challenges of producing content, in different genres, whilst maintaining social distancing
• Potential workarounds (let’s all move to New Zealand!)
• The increase in demand for library content and whether the “long tail” is finally wagging
• Planning broadcaster schedules and how much, if it all, they might continue to reflect the content that we as audiences expect to see at different times of the year
• And how much resale value the content that gets made now, during lockdown, might have in the future

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Reading List

During this session we referred to:

• An article from the Times [paywall]: When the cameras stop: what has happened to your favourite TV shows?
• An article from the Guardian: Extra terrestrial: how lockdown revived linear TV
• An article from Variety: Indie World Scrambles to Put New Plans in Place Ahead of Virtual Film Markets in June
• Plus new guidance – released today (18th May) – from all of the UK’s major broadcasters plus the Association for Commercial Broadcasters and On-Demand Services (COBA) and Pact on producing television safely during Vovid-19