Monograph 2 (2025): Streaming, welcome to television. Adding advertising to on demand platforms

 

Streaming, welcome to television. Adding advertising
to on demand platforms

 

The concept of Streaming Wars has been used by authors such as Neira (2020) or Lobato and Lotz (2021), meaning the television period characterized by the arrival of the new streaming platforms. This is a period known by the offensive of various entertainment companies "with new and abundant offers, demolition prices and all the necessary strategies to convince us that we need to incorporate this service into our daily lives" (Neira, 2020, p. 15). A situation that has become more and more unsustainable due to the multiplicity of platforms and the dispersion of content, forcing the simultaneous payment of several monthly fees in an uncertain context of growing inflation.

This bubble could have burst in 2022, when Netflix, the leading platform in the market, announced that it had lost subscribers for two consecutive quarters, an unprecedented situation caused in part by market drift and specific circumstances, such as the closure of the service in Russia. The loss of more than one million subscribers and the economic consequences of this, with falls in its stock market value of up to 40%, forced the application of a shock plan that seems to have had an effect, with a recovery of 2.4 million of subscribers in the third quarter of 2022. However, and thinking in the long term, the management of the Californian company has announced that it will reorient itself to a new business model that allows them to continue growing, betting on subscription with advertising and limiting shared accounts (Neira, 2022).

The inclusion of advertising in the business model for streaming platforms marks the transition from a period of introduction and growth to one of maturity (Fernández-Gómez et al., 2022). For example, Netflix will offer to twelve markets a new subscription model with advertising, with limited content and, also, at a lower price. Besides, Disney + has announced the launch of a similar initiative during the month of December in the United States. Therefore, the main objective of this call for papers is to attract research that addresses the transformations that the incorporation of advertising has brought to streaming platforms. Thus, the aim is to address how the presence of ads on streaming platforms, both national and transnational, affects different actors such as audiences, creators (e.g., producers and scriptwriters), advertisers and also traditional television.

In the last decade, the rise of streaming has transformed how audiences consume Audiovisual contents (Lotz & Lobato, 2023). Those days in which the programming forced to see a content one day and at a certain time have gone (Ferguson & Eastman, 2006; Fernández-Gómez & Martín-Quevedo, 2018). Streaming platform users get used to access full seasons, without commercial interruptions and being able to experience so-called binge-watching (Jenner, 2021), a way of viewing widely understood as consuming multiple episodes of a program in one session and which increases viewer empathy towards the characters (Sligh & Abidin, 2022). The arrival of advertising on platforms may have transformed the relationship that the public, mainly from generations with little experience with the advertising model of, for example, broadcast TV, has been establishing with Audiovisual contents.

The new scenario also raises questions from the point of view of the creators. In many countries, streaming platforms have become a key element for promoting national productions (Castro & Cascajosa, 2020). However, the inclusion of advertising could dilute the attractiveness of these platforms and call into question the productive system. Will fewer series be financed? Will series have a higher quality? Will Audiovisual contents be promoted with fewer episodes or with episodes of different lengths? Production is affected by the strategies of the platforms themselves (Naranjo & Fernández-Ramírez, 2022). Thus, the premiere of the fourth season of Stranger Things on Netflix was divided into two parts released in non-consecutive months to prevent that users who make specific subscriptions to see content, leave the platform once the season has ended.

For the advertising environment, the adoption of this business model by streaming platforms has also raised doubts. This is due to, for example, the lack of audience data that usually characterizes these services compared to traditional television (González-Neira et al., 2020), the personalization of advertising, as well as more formal issues such as the number and frequency of advertisements. Therefore, a new stage opens for streaming platforms and the advertising model, until now based on formats such as product placement in series (Vilaplana-Aparicio et al., 2021).

Finally, traditional television has also been adapted to the needs of an audience that is increasingly reluctant to accept limitations on the medium or when a content is broadcasted. The incorporation of platforms into the advertising business means dividing up the advertising pie even more. In Spain, for example, a campaign of Atresmedia -the leading television group in this country- went viral as they reminded to its future competitors that they have been working with brands and contents for three decades.

Thematic lines:

This special issue invites proposals related mainly to the following lines of research:

- Changes in audience consumption habits: adaptations and strategies to avoid advertising.

- Changes in the production model or the narrative of the productions to facilitate the inclusion of advertising.

- Application of the advertising model: algorithms, personalization, differences between accounts, adaptation of ads to the product...

- Communication strategies and promotion of new advertising measures (plans with ads, account sharing restrictions) and audience reactions.

- Adaptation of linear televisions to the new model: communication strategies, new services, new audiences.

Keywords: streaming, over-the-top services (OTT), Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD), television, advertising, Netflix, audiences.

Deadline: 12/10/2024

References:

Castro, D., & Cascajosa, C. (2020). From Netflix to Movistar+: How Subscription Video-on-Demand Services Have Transformed Spanish TV Production. JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 59, 154-160. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2020.0019

Fernández Gómez, E., & Martín Quevedo, J. (2018). Connecting with audiences in new markets: Netflix´s Twitter strategy in Spain, Journal of Media Business Studies, 15(2), 127-146. https://doi.org/10.1080/16522354.2018.1481711

Fernández-Gómez, E., Martin-Quevedo, J., & Feijoo Fernández, B. (2022). Netflix’s communication strategy on Twitter and Instagram during the unlock in Spain: humour, proximity and information. Observatorio (OBS*), 16(3). https://doi.org/10.15847/obsOBS16320222054

Ferguson, D. A., & Eastman, S. T. (2006). A framework for programming strategies. En S. T. Eastman & A. D. Ferguson (Eds.), Media programming. Strategies and Practices. Thomson Wadsworth.

González-Neira, A., Quintas-Froufe, N., & Gallardo-Camacho, J. (2020). La medición de la audiencia televisiva: desafíos ante las nuevas plataformas de vídeo. Comunicación y Sociedad, e7284. https://doi.org/10.32870/cys.v2020.7284

Jenner, M. (2021). Binge-Watching and Contemporary Television Studies. Edinburgh University Press.

Lobato, R., & Lotz, A., (2021). Beyond streaming wars: rethinking competition in video services. Media Industries, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.3998/mij.1338

Lotz, A. D., & Lobato, R, (2023). Streaming video: storytelling across borders. University Press.

Naranjo, A., & Fernández-Ramírez, L. (2022). Netflix in Web of Science: a bibliometric approach. Communication & Society, 35(4) ,133-145. https://doi.org/10.15581/003.35.4.133-145

Neira, E. (2020). Streaming Wars. La nueva televisión. Libros Cúpula.

Neira, E. (21 de julio de 2022). La doble jugada de Netflix: por qué perder casi un millón de suscriptores es una victoria y los anuncios dibujan el nuevo modelo para blindar su futuro. Business Insider. https://acortar.link/P95SX8

Vilaplana-Aparicio, M. J., Boix-Romero, J., & Ortiz, M. J. (2021). Análisis del emplazamiento de producto en tres series originales de Netflix. Comunicación y Sociedad, 1-25. https://doi.org/10.32870/cys.v2021.8001

 

Coordinators:

Erika Fernández-Gómez

Ph.D. She is an Associate Professor of Communication and Advertising at the School of Business and Communication, International University of La Rioja (Spain). She is in charge of the Degree in Advertising. Main researcher of the ADKIDS MOBILE project with reference PID2020-116841RA-I00 financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain. Her research focuses on social networks, streaming platforms, advertising and younger audiences.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7088-1814

 

Juan Martín-Quevedo

Ph.D. He is Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism at Rey Juan Carlos University, where he teaches web media projects. He is member of the research group Communication and Digital Society (COYSODI). His main research lines are social media, lineal and online television and scholar communication.
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1005-0469

 

Deborah Castro

Ph.D. Assistant Professor in Media Studies at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Her main research interests lie in the fields of television and audience studies. Besides participating in multiple funded research projects, she received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship from the European Commission. Her work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Television & New Media and European Journal of Cultural Studies. She is also a research fellow at ITI-LARSyS, Portugal; and vice-chair of the Television Studies Section at the European Communication Research and Education Association.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7980-0964