Rameez (Antenna)

Beyond Views: How Teams Value Titles That Drive Growth

As we've built out Subscriber Views over the past year, I've sat with dozens of content strategy & analysis teams and asked a simple question: how do you value an individual title? Here are 7 of the most common answers — the surprise: none of them lead with "most watched." That number makes a great press release. It tells you almost nothing about what a title actually did. Here's what the sharp teams measure instead: 1) First Watched — the title someone pressed play on first. The thing that earned the signup. 2) Only Watched — the one show someone watches and nothing else. NFL Thursday Night Football is the cleanest example. If it leaves, the subscriber leaves with it. 3) Woke the Dead — the title that reactivated a dormant subscriber. Reactivation is cheaper than acquisition. Preventing churn is key. 4) The Targeted Shot — not broadly popular, but wildly popular with a given segment of interest from the company's needs-based segmentation. 5) The Engager — may not be the most popular, but it creates and sustains DAU throughout the full season, and sometimes even afterwards. Retains users effectively. 6) The Gateway — pulls a one-show viewer into the rest of the catalog. These shows migrate new/light viewers to heavy viewers over time. 7) The Switcher — pulls someone off a competitor. In a saturated & competitive world, conquesting is even more important than pure new user acquisition.