By Etan Vlessing
AS ROGERS SPORTS AND MEDIA unveiled its 2022-23 slate of original programming to Canadian advertisers and agencies, a major focus was showcasing online offerings as the line between traditional linear TV and digital streaming platforms increasingly blurs.
The company’s strategy to engage marketers increasingly shifting ad dollars online is simple: Begin with tried-and-true content, whether scripted franchises like American Idol and America’s Got Talent on Citytv, or National Hockey League and Major League Baseball games with Canadian teams and passionate fan bases on Sportsnet. Then scramble to connect marketers and viewers across each and every platform and device on which that content is being viewed today.
“Video is everywhere. And it’s accessible everywhere,” Canadian rapper Kardinal Offishall proclaimed when introducing Rogers Sports and Media’s Total TV 2022 virtual upfront presentation on Tuesday.
He painted the picture of a Canadian TV landscape where consumers view content across TV sets, laptop computers, tablets, phones and social media – anytime, anywhere.
“At Rogers Sports and Media, they are all about that, creating content, delivering content, digital, broadcast, live events and partnering with people like you to benefit from this content,” Offishall said of targeted content delivered across multiple platforms to increase viewership and ad and subscriber revenue.
For Rogers Sports and Media’s main Citytv network, for example, content can be re-programmed for the Citytv.com and associated mobile applications for live streaming or catch-up viewing, and there are authenticated Citytv apps for cable and satellite TV subscribers that offer more library content.
And for cord-cutters and cord-nevers, the company has Amazon’s Prime Video streaming platform to market its direct-to-consumer option, Citytv Plus, which costs $4.99 per month.
Hayden Mindell, vice-president, programming and acquisition at Rogers Sports and Media, underlines how the Citytv main network – with core franchises like Bachelor, Chicago, Law & Order and Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday – is the engine that drives viewership for the media player through the increasing multiplatform clutter that is Canadian TV today.
Noting linear broadcasts are still providing the greatest reach, he told Cartt.ca “that’s still what drives the programming decisions and from that, shows gain some level of notoriety from their broadcast reach and others may choose to watch the content via catch up.”
It is much the same strategy on the sports side of Rogers Sports and Media, where core content like pro hockey, baseball and other popular franchises underpin the main Sportsnet channel, which is available to cable and satellite subscribers and as part of the Sportsnet Now direct-to-consumer offering.
And that has the company’s sales team fanning out across existing and emerging digital platforms to allow marketers to get their messages to footloose audiences.
“Wherever we serve up our content, either live or shoulder programming or complimentary programming on whatever device, we continue to find means to target that audience for our marketers,” Anthony Attard, vice-president of sales at Sportsnet, told Cartt.ca.
That may be as younger Canadians especially watch an NHL game on Sportsnet while using their mobile phones or tablets to stay on top of other hockey games or what their friends are saying on social media.
Or Rogers Sports and Media going from Blue Jays in 30, where a Blue Jays game is broken down into a half hour format, to Blue Jays in 60, where game highlights are squeezed into a one-minute video with TD Bank as the sponsor on Sportsnet.
“That again is snackable content that’s distributed on digital platforms and marketers find that a great tool to talk to a particular target audience,” Attard explained.
The goal is putting the company’s content and sales teams at the fingertips of marketers.
“With Rogers Sports and Media, as effortless as it is to enjoy our content, we’re making it just as easy to get your message and brand in our content, in front of our audiences – partnerships, activations, promotion sponsorships, branded content and integrations – dollars and cents that make total sense, that’s what the Total TV experience is all about,” Colette Watson, Rogers Sports and Media president, said during Tuesday’s upfront virtual pitch to Canadian advertisers and agencies.
Here Rogers Sports and Media execs echo the rest of a TV industry where younger viewers especially, when they are not gaming or surfing YouTube and social media platforms, take extra effort to reach in an expanding 500 streamer universe.
“Our streaming TV video products, together with linear TV, produce significant incremental reach for your ad campaigns,” Al Dark, senior vice-president of revenue at Rogers Sports and Media, said of chasing online audiences via buying platforms like Cynch and SAM TV with original content, like the Sportsnet, Citytv and FX Canada properties and streaming platforms for the NHL and MLB.
Image borrowed from Rogers Sports and Media’s website.
