When it comes to Channel 7’s Olympics app, the audience is the real loser
Watching the Rio Olympics on 7's app left Dave Cain wondering why the channel chose to add value to advertisers instead of audiences?
Channel 7 rolled into its final 2016 Olympics coverage on Sunrise yesterday with a shout out to sponsors Telstra, McDonald’s, Swisse, blah, etc… as if we had no idea who they were.
I was at the gym and having only a few minutes left to absorb some last minute heart-string heroin, I thought what better way to get inspired than to jump on the stationary bike and take in some elite human beings being what I was only dreaming. So I opened Channel 7’s Olympic app, hit WATCH: Live and started peddling.
After the first ad package, instead of Olympics I got Sunrise, my mistake, this happens every day at this time. Back to the homepage, hit the next WATCH: Live icon, more ads, then finally… The Home Shopping channel. Obviously the term ‘Live’ within 7’s app environment is more brand mark than brand promise.
Desperate for one last patriotic cry, perhaps a heroes’ montage or cross to live interview, I returned to the app’s homepage advertising loop in search of Sunrise, clicked on WATCH: Live, more ads followed by 30 seconds of actual programming then cut to minutes of regular scheduled broadcast ad break, and back to the Olympics.
The segment I was able to catch before leaving the gym this morning was a heartfelt shout-out to the other games champions, all of 7’s broadcast sponsors, thanking them for bringing ‘the spirit of the games’ to all Australians.
Such a blatant last-minute advertising land grab left me feeling more like the guy in the opening scene of the film Seven, force-fed pasta until his stomach stretched to bursting then kicked until they split, than the thankful ‘spirit of the games’ recipient 7 were making out.
I am baffled that in this era of commercial television’s decline, instead of using the Olympics to celebrate content consumption, 7 reveled in their ability to beat the interruption model dead horse into broadcast dust.
o
Is anyone, anywhere taking note of the frustration actual real live people are feeling at the Olympics app? And which media agency thought this level of saturation beneficial to the brands they represent?
Sure, 7 can now stroll the media hallways, manila folder in hand bursting with statistics they will use to claim an outstanding advertising victory for months, or even years, for they truly are the most interruptive network in the country. But did they even for a minute entertain the possibility of having done more damage than good to their brand clients?
The Olympics costs a lot of money and sponsors need to pay for it, but the app should have added value to audiences, not advertisers. Why didn’t 7 honor their client’s investment by delivering an experience their audience could walk away with in awe and praise? Why couldn’t they have started from a place where the experience of the end human was the measure of success and work backwards from there? And why don’t brands seem to care about that experience?
Understanding the commercial reality of the Games, here are just a few things ‘built in’ to the app which contradict delivering an experience that was ‘in the spirit of the Games’:
- Ads before every main channel TV stream, followed by ad breaks in the main channel broadcast.
- Ads when switching between app streams, regardless of how little time was spent watching previous streams or time since watching ad blocks on previous streams.
- Home page buttons promoting Live coverage, hiding regular programing behind a stream of ads.
- Deliberate instability, so whenever there was a disruption (bad signal, bad button choice or fat thumbs), the stream would freeze with no resume play button, forcing a return to the homepage advertising loop.
The Channel 7 App was an example of the incumbent interruption model having absolutely no consideration for the experience digital audiences expect, and a system completely incapable of averting eyes from a seriously flawed, institution-first system to face the very real humans at the end of the pipeline.
I wondered for about five seconds why 7 didn’t instead choose to thank their audience for supporting the brands participating in the commercial reality of the modern Olympics? I wondered less why 7 didn’t offer an ad-free option and collect $50 from the 1M people who don’t care for ads, surely that would have been a popular option?
Because that would be elevating people above the machine, subverting a system that has served so many for so long and an evolutionary step just far enough from reach as to assure commercial televisions dinosaur-like decline into oblivion… because let’s face it, we all know it’s just a matter of time till the big one hits, right?
Congratulations Channel 7, a truly Gold Medal performance in myopia, now back to your regular, scheduled programming.
Dave Cain is the co-founder at GreenLights
All I know is, that I went to the toilet a few times – loaded up the app and didn’t see one bit of the Olympics before I was finished. Just an app loading screen… then a seemingly endless series of ads.
But… for the 100m coverage I was extremely surprised. I got the push notification, clicked through and watched it after about 1-2 ads. No buffering either. That was impressive.
User ID not verified.
exactly what i was thinking.. the app was SOOOO annoying when changing channels to see what was on.. an ad (sometimes 2) every time you flicked the channel
Hardly the seamless digital experience i wanted for my paid access
User ID not verified.
Spot on Dave … Well said.
Big missed opportunity to ensure engagement.
Also… I think your glasses are cool
Can I have a job?
User ID not verified.
Although i agree with the faults in the app (Ads when switching channels, overplaying of Ads and streaming issues at times) The no ads option would be counter intuitive for any brands willing to subside any media capital towards investing into the Olympics. How are they able to maximize on their investment if Channel 7 provide an option around ads? 2020 investment would be looking bleak if Channel 7 couldn’t guarantee these brands audience viewership.
User ID not verified.
Couldn’t agree more, was ridiculous how many ads they crammed into the app. Only took 1 or 2 days of watching to start loathing the brands that were supporting the Olympics.
And nothing more frustrating than seeing in the bottom corner you’re now watching ad 3or4/2.
User ID not verified.
Couldn’t agree more with Mr Cain. The 7 olympics app was great for notifications of big events (which basically meant when to find a TV to watch that event!). Chan 7 app designers needed to take some lessons from the phenomenally good SBS Tour de France app!
User ID not verified.
wow, with that many ads maybe there is a chance foxtel could bid for the games!
User ID not verified.
There does seem to be a real disconnect with some companies investing in sports sponsorship only to then really annoy the audience by getting in the way of sport. That can’t be a good thing, but anything is better than the ARU geniuses who decided to sell a sponsors announcement at the ground twenty minutes into the Bledisloe while the ball was in play. I’m pretty sure those brands won’t see a return on that investment.
User ID not verified.
@dave. I agree wholeheartedly. And I bought the premium package and as far as I can tell the experience was the same – the only difference being additional sports content being available. Numerous times I spent two or more minutes being shuffling around the app in frustration watching endless plugs for a cake show. The single biggest gripe I had was not knowing what was actually being broadcast at a given time on each stream. As a consumer – the obvious need is to be told what is on NOW and then you choose that stream and away you go. Sadly 7 have not approached this from a user first POV.
User ID not verified.
Couldn’t agree more. My biggest peeve was being forced to watch the continuously repetitive pre-roll ads and then getting the every time watch ‘Our partner in Rio streaming error’ – which meant refreshing and of course watching more ads to deliver more ad impressions… Nice one 7. Utter cash grab. And don’t even get me started on McDonalds being the ‘Official Restaurant parter of the Olympic Games’. Who comes up with this shite?
User ID not verified.
Great article. Will be interesting too see if anyone from Seven respond.
I got my Olympic need from Google and Twitter.
User ID not verified.
Thank you for the article and shining light on what was an absolute disgrace of an offering.
Considering they were already charging $19.95, this really should’ve been ad free.
The app was buggery as hell.
The number of times that you would load a stream and watch the pre-roll ads only for the connection to fail loading live coverage and then have to go through the process of exiting and going back in, to only have to watch the ads again.
I personally used it to watch the basketball games. A lot of times the coverage would just skip backwards by around an hour, without an option to get back to the live coverage. Only “option” was to exit and reload with all the ads again.
Commentary for some games were non-existent.
In some cases, the picture would freeze, whilst commentary would continue. Again, only way to fix it would be to reload the stream and watch the ads again.
Thankfully, some of those ads featured Boomers and Opals players…
User ID not verified.
You only have to visit any of SWM’s websites, thewest.com.au etc., to understand that this was always going to be the case. It’s money first at SWM, everything else is a long way second.
You can test this yourself. Pick any video on any of their websites. Even 15 second clip pinched from Facebook carries a 30 second ad.
We can only hope international broadcasters come to the rescue soon (talking to you BBC), because no one in Australia is doing any of this well.
User ID not verified.
Perhaps the very point of this app was to achieve a higher purpose for the network and, with a once in 4 years opportunity to educate the masses, they could teach us all that digital is a bunch of shyte so that all of us start thinking “thank Heaven we still have TV”. Why else would they have hired Clive?
Just a thought …
User ID not verified.
Quite frankly the worst Olympic service/coverage I have ever experienced. Ch7 clearly put money before their user experience, simple. Their advertising partners would have been cringing by the end of the coverage. All the house promos didn’t seemed to work for that appalling cake show either by all accounts.
If I was Foxtel I would be rubbing my hands at the opportunity for 2020 having seen a lesson in how not to do it by Ch7. BBC iPlayer was a lesson in how to deliver a user experience without only showing Australian participant sports for the majority of the time.
I also agree that paying $19.95 should ensure the service is ad free. Does that not show how far behind what is happening in market Ch7 are. Have they not heard of Netflix?
Finally I really don’t see why we all expected anything different. Based on their complete lack of originality in creating half decent programmes, why did we think the Olympics coverage across app/TV would be any different. I don’t care how many people watch the X factor, Ch7 and Australian TV programmers/creators really need to take some lessons from overseas as the utter tripe they churn out each year is quite frankly an embarrassment.
User ID not verified.
attempting to monetise digital….outrageous.
User ID not verified.
Aussie living in the US here. NBC usually has the same disdain for their viewing audience- instead of anything ‘live’, we’re force-fed highlights packages every night. However, the live streams they provided for cable subscribing customers were excellent. Every event was available for livestreaming, and the ads weren’t too obnoxious.
User ID not verified.