Expert Strategies for Navigating the Shifting TV and Fandom Landscape

There’s no denying that the TV landscape has changed drastically in the last several years, especially during the shift from cable to streaming—and companies are continuously finding ways to navigate and tap into audiences despite those changes. 

During ADWEEK’s Brandweek event in Phoenix, Ariz., on Monday, experts from across the TV industry tackled the shifting landscape, explaining various methodologies for thriving in a changing space.

Fans don’t only stick to TV schedules

Stephanie Fried, chief marketing officer at Fandom, noted that the TV space has become more complicated in the last 20 years. 

Among the difficulties, it’s unclear which streamers have certain programming, show release schedules are constantly changing, and consumers are fragmented across hundreds of different channels and streaming options.

“Everything’s just much more complicated,” Fried said. “It’s great in many ways because we have a lot more shows, but it’s harder to find them, and it’s harder to interact.”

According to Fried, companies such as Fandom can be a solution for navigating the space.

Fandom, the wiki hosting service that features wikis focused on entertainment, has more than 250,000 communities and 50 million pages of content. More than 350 million global users visit the platform’s pages of popular series like Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and more. 

By tapping into Fandom and similar resources, marketers can better understand what consumers gravitate towards and why, according to Fried.

Streamers are leaning into a pipeline of content

From the perspective of a streaming service, Nicole Parlapiano, Tubi chief marketing officer, said the Fox-owned free, ad-supported streamer is creating opportunities for brands to engage with target fandoms and audiences. 

According to the executive, Tubi’s ad-supported audiences at scale set it apart. The streamer offers everything from “Italian Westerns” to “comfort horror,” creating spaces within a massive library to reach broad swaths of fans or niche groups.

“We like to celebrate viewers’ taste and what they like and be able to build a streaming product that’s very custom to viewers to watch,” Parlapiano said.

Ultimately, Parlapiano said Tubi is focused on creating an effective ad-supported experience and knowing “when to serve an ad, how many ads to serve,” and “exactly, elegantly at what breaks.”

“Tubi started as a tech platform before it was a streamer,” Parlapiano said. “So we’ve been perfecting the ad-supported model for a decade. Over time, our tech and our machine-learning have gotten good at being like a streamer, with the best way to connect and discover things you want to watch.”

Sports teams are tapping into streamer audiences

But it’s not solely community-based fan platforms and streaming services navigating the ever-changing landscape. On the sports streaming side, which is seeing increased demand among audiences, many sports teams are figuring out how to work with streaming services as sports rights deals continue to be a point of contention for some. 

Adam Grossman, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the Boston Red Sox, said the sports world is still figuring out the streaming space, but the changing ecosystem is presenting opportunities as well.

For instance, Grossman explained that the Boston Red Sox and the MLB are working with Netflix on an eight-part documentary series coming out next year, which will follow the team throughout the entire season. 

From a marketing standpoint, Grossman said it would be fascinating to see the benefits that come from the series and whether it will have a ripple effect through baseball as the league taps into Netflix’s more than 270 million global subscribers.

“We think this type of appeal will be impactful, not only for the Red Sox audience but also for how we can pull in this much larger audience to grow revenue and keep that relationship going well beyond the eight episodes that’ll come out,” Grossman said.