Linear TV has been the natural home outlet for 24 hour news coverage ever since the launch of cable and satellite TV services, and as a format it works. Linear viewing lends itself to rolling ‘up to the minute’ news coverage. So when it comes to news, CTV services have primarily been used for evergreen or catch-up content, but now many news publishers and broadcasters are exploring ways in which they can capture a much bigger slice of the streaming pie.
One of the main drivers of investment in CTV news apps is access to younger audiences who are more inclined to want news on demand. Nine in ten young people in the UK get their news online, according to Ofcom’s news consumption report. By comparison, only two-thirds of that age group, consisting of 16-24 year olds get their news from television.
“Not a news headline service”
In the UK, online newspaper The Independent has been developing their online video news offering. The Independent TV Hub is the publisher’s home for original short-form current affairs videos and currently exists as a section on their website, but the content will soon be redeployed in a new ad-funded CTV app.
Large TV news networks like CNN and Fox have also decided to expand their streaming services beyond just ad-funded news apps. Interestingly, both have decided to steer away from straight news content for their new SVOD services.
CNN is planning a new subscription-based service, CNN+, which will be available in Q1 2022. Executives at the US news network have indicated the service will consist of longer-form content rather than straight news, and CNN has been hiring hundreds of new staff in advance of its launch.
“It’s not going to be a news headline service,” CNN’s chief digital officer Andrew Morse told reporters. Instead he said the CTV app would provide new opportunities to do “deep dives” into a wider array of topics.
Fox News already has an SVOD service, Fox Nation, priced at $5.99 a month. However, Fox’s streaming service largely consists of entertainment content, with titles such as “What Made America Great” and “Tucker Carlson Today”, rather than traditional news programmes.
Moving away from linear TV formats
Others venturing into the world of streaming news have taken approaches that deviate from traditional streaming formats. Haystack News is a US based ad-supported news streaming service. The company partners with hundreds of local, US and international news broadcasters to bring users on its platform a mix of content from partners like Bloomberg, CBS News, ABC News and AP.
“We like to call our consumers information omnivores, because they really value having a variety of news types and sources in their newscast,” Jennifer Stamm, head of marketing at Haystack News, told VideoWeek.
Users do not select individual news programmes to watch on Haystack, rather the app, which is available on devices like Roku, Amazon Fire and Apple TV, instead they select their news preferences and the app provides a personalised newscast for the user.
Stamm said the service can work either in lean-forward mode, which you might get if browsing the app on your phone, or as a more leanback experience on CTV.
“We partner with hundreds of local news stations across the US. So once you’ve set Haystack News to your preferences, you could absolutely turn on your TV, open the app, and it will give you a leanback experience based on the preferences that you told us. We’ll give you weather, top headlines of the day, and then the news that matters to you. If, for example, you’ve told us you love entertainment news, we’ll give you lots of that. Or, if you’ve told us you don’t care about entertainment news, we won’t put that into your newscast. It’s really set up to be a bespoke 30 minute news show,” she said.
CTV apps for news may seem like the perfect way for broadcasters to reach cord-cutters. But younger consumers used to consuming news on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram also enjoy a degree of interactivity in their content.
Haystack News have integrated interactive quizzes and polls into their CTV offering to engage this audience.
