Channel 4's data strategy is the 'antithesis' of data, says head of viewer relationships Steve Forde - but it's working
Channel 4’s data strategy to deliver on its ethos of creating diversity is the very “antithesis” of data, according to head of viewer relationships Steve Forde – but it’s bringing results, with user engagement doubling in some cases.
Data: Steve Forde spoke ahead of the Digital Convergence event
The broadcaster has put data at the centre of its user engagement strategy, moving away from more editorially-minded decisions about how best to optimise its digital offering, and one of the biggest challenges is using that data to predict different programming the user may like rather than recommending content the viewer is already interested in.
“Part of Channel 4’s remit is to create diversity and make sure that people widen their repertoire of programming and issues that they know about, so it’s a challenge from a data perspective to encourage people to try new things,” Forde told The Drum.
“In a way it’s the antithesis of data, the antithesis of recommendation – normally you would recommend based on what you already know people love, but what we’re trying to do is introduce the right opportunities for them to try something new.
“We’re taking a real personalised approach to our user engagement. In the past it would have been an editorially driven set of recommendations, what we’re moving to is much more of a data-driven set of recommendations based on their behaviour. We don’t want to just be creating record chambers whereby we’re narrowing what people watch because we’re just serving back to them what the data tells us they like.”
While the job is a challenge and Channel 4’s data-driven strategy is still in relatively early days, it is bringing encouraging results, according to Forde. In its first two years it attracted more than nine million registered viewers. Its content is now available via its on-demand 4oD service, Channel4.com, iOS, games consoles such as Playstation and TV services such as YouView, and it is viewable across multiple devices.
“We’re right at the beginning of this but what we’re seeing is that whenever we use data, targeting or any sort of business intelligence to influence what we put in front of the viewer, we tend to get a significant increase in engagement rate - in some cases we double the engagement rate that people have with us.”
Another tool now being used at Channel 4 is multivariate testing, a technique commonly used for testing market perceptions based on complex variables and commonly used in the online retail sector, to gauge user experience and improve the delivery of service. Using such processes removes “disagreements or differences of opinion” on how to make progress and improves decision making, according to Forde.
Extensive use of data has thrown up interesting trends, such as the number of people using Channel 4’s digital platforms to watch the channel instead of viewing on TV.
“We’re seeing quite significant viewing of our watch-live or simulcast services right across the platforms available. There are people who might either not have TVs at all or their TVs are downstairs while they’re upstairs, or viewers could be students who are on the move, but there is quite a big shift in the number of people who are watching live on digital devices rather than on TV, which is an interesting shift.”
Forde spoke to The Drum ahead of his appearance at Digital Convergence conference on 12 March in London, where he will take part in a panel about the unification and leverage of data. You can find out more about the conference here.