← The Media Odyssey
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- [00:00]
A
All right, this is the second half of the season finale of season two of the Media Odyssey podcast. And now we're going to get into a topic that's very close to my heart because I've been spending hours of my life, feels like years of my life, working on a brand new project called the ESHAP Cross Screen Attention Index. And we're going to discuss that right now.
- [00:33]
B
By the time this episode drops, the World cup will be done. Hopefully France will have one. Otherwise, you know, my heart is going to be broken yet for, you know, another time. That's, you know, fingers crossed. But the one thing. So let's, let's move on from sports. But, you know, in terms of all of that we're seeing, what we're seeing is that the, the ecosystem is just like, keeps fragmenting. It's more and more complicated. So get an understanding, right, of what's going on, where to invest, whether that's in producing content, where to distribute. A lot of broadcasters are getting hit for working with Netflix or working with Amazon or even YouTube. And I will say that at the core of this, there's one challenge is that we're unable to properly measure where people are spending time. Right. And I think this is one of the things that you, you know, you've attempted, this is your attempt at fixing this. Do you want to tell us more about this index that you've created?
- [01:34]
A
Yeah. So a couple weeks ago, I launched the ESHAP Cross Screen Attention Index. As far as I can tell, it's the first and only attempt on the planet Earth to truly measure all attention across screens across the world. We launched it with eight markets, uk, us, Germany, Italy, Spain and France, Brazil and Mexico. And it's available at Index ESHAP TV right now. And it gives you a picture of where the world's attention is being spent. And what we did was we took the major measurement platform in each market as kind of sacrosanct for television consumption. Meaning there's a TV on in the room. And then we took handset data from Sensor Tower and comscore and then diaries from gwi, who polls all across the world and we cross collateralize them to de duplicate. Because you, when you watch tv, you have a phone in your hand, right?
- [02:33]
B
Yeah, half the time.
- [02:34]
A
And when you look at the phone, can you watch the TV simultaneously?
- [02:39]
B
No, but I would say that I'm still engaged in listening. But. Okay.
- [02:43]
A
Are you though? I mean, if you're watching a YouTube video or looking at a TikTok or looking at an instagram feed or sending an email on your phone, are you really paying attention or is it just ambient noise in the background?
- [02:56]
B
Uh, well, so I have to say, right, that those, those lapses moments where, you know, you, you have this in hand and you're watching something, it's not like it lasts the entire session, right? So I don't do that for an hour and a half at some point in time during that hour and a half or whatever. Unlike what we think, what we think we can do two things at once. You know, I have to choose between one and the other. I get it.
- [03:22]
A
And the brain can't do that. It can't take in. It's not like music, which you can actually hear and you're reading something at the same time. Those are two different experiences. And so what we did was not for the whole movie, but for whatever time a consumer says that they're spending on their phone, we eliminate that time, even if the television is on in the room from the television screen. And we also, on a parallel track, surveyed people in all of these markets about their favorite device for video. Two thirds of the people in these markets say that they watch more video on their phone than they do on their television set. And this is especially true for people under the age of 55. And what happens is when you look at consumption across all these markets, every single market, when you eliminate people over 55 from the data, which we don't do, we pull everybody 13 plus. But when you on the index, you can actually, it's interactive, it's free, and you can eliminate different segments of the population and look at younger portions. Well, 81% of the world's population is under 55, 81%, 19% are over 55. And what's happening very clearly when you look at this data is that traditional media is almost exclusively an old age hunt. It's Almost exclusively the 19% of the population over 55 heavily indexing or over indexing for traditional media. The second you look at 13 to 54, the entire landscape shifts. YouTube's, you know, in the top almost across the board, except for 55 plus. But then what happens in almost every market is TikTok then jumps up to number two. In fact, TikTok beats almost all of traditional media in almost every market that we studied. And what's dangerous for YouTube actually is that when you get to 34 and younger, TikTok is beating YouTube in a decent number of these markets, including the U.S. also, TikTok is beating all of traditional media. And in most of These countries, this is not true in Brazil and Mexico, but for the rest of the six markets in this, on this index and in our, in our research, TikTok is beating all of traditional media for, for people under 55, not under 45, not under 35. And in many cases, they're getting more attention than all of traditional media in that market combined. So they're beating Netflix in most of these markets and a ton of markets, Instagram is beating Netflix. And so when you're wondering why Netflix is going vertical, this is why. If you're wondering why all these platforms are now rushing into vertical, this is why. And what you'll see is the index covers eight countries. It's totally interactive, it's totally free to use. And you can look what happens not only when you segment the audience by different age brackets, but at the same time you can actually see, well, if YouTube increases its share, what happens to the rest of the market? If TikTok increases its share, where does that audience come from? And what's Fascinating is when TikTok increases its market share in any of these regions, it's taking it from Netflix and Disney, the streamers. When YouTube increases its share in any of these markets, it's stealing it from traditional media. And that's kind of an interesting dichotomy that, that one of the many different. I'm going to continue to report on what this data shows, but there are a lot of layers to it. And it's, and it's. What most of traditional media does not understand is that the phone is now the center of gravity for video on the planet Earth, not the television set. And it's not even a close second place.
- [07:18]
B
A few things, because this actually goes against the results of this survey I did with RTL at Alliance, which showed that the living room and big screen TV were central. And so I wonder, because you say that you've surveyed people and I wonder if surveys are any good in a way, because people are here to say, are they saying what they should be saying? Are they saying what they think they should do? I don't know. But what I'm seeing is that we're getting a lot of contradictory data when it comes to surveys. So let me put that aside for a second. I have to say I was puzzled to see that, particularly in the European markets that you mentioned.
- [08:05]
A
But just to double click on that one second in the home, I don't think you're wrong. Right. When I'm in the mood for premium content, the television is absolutely the main screen. But Then look at the surveys that we actually did. We asked people where, what are the top three places you watch video? Number one is bed, not the living room. Number two. And think about your own life. Right? Number two. Number three. So number two is the living room. Number three is waiting online somewhere. Number four is the toilet.
- [08:44]
B
Yeah.
- [08:44]
A
Number five is in transit. So life is just different than a very. Your survey focused on where you watch co viewing and entertainment, not utility, not passing time, not out of home. You know, we, we don't spend most of our time at home. We spend most of your time somewhere else. And even when you're at home, you know, I haven't watched that. We talked about this when we had Roseberry on. I haven't watched Saturday Night Live on television probably in six or seven years. I watch it the next day on the toilet, on my phone, in sketch form, by the way. That's how I watch all of my new. I don't watch news on TV anymore, ever. I only watch news on TikTok and Instagram from feeds that I trust. And so when you think about your own lifestyle, you have to, you have to look at the reality of the world. You watch substantially more video on your phone. Not, not by choice, but by kind of. This is how the world works. Right. This is how my life.
- [09:44]
B
I'm the exception.
- [09:46]
A
Well, but you're also a boomer, so.
- [09:48]
B
Yeah, well, no, I'm the oldest.
- [09:50]
A
You're a millennial. You're a boomer, acts like a boomer.
- [09:53]
B
Yeah, perhaps, perhaps I'm a dead expert
- [09:55]
A
who thinks like a Gen Z.
- [09:56]
B
But, but that's, I embrace, I embrace this. No, but I, I. Okay, so agreed. It's true that the, the focus was. But we did, we did look at, you know, what people were doing, you know, where they were. Watch. And we didn't just ask about home and the living room. So that's where you know, something to look at later. You use the term attention. And I think that's an important term because what we're hearing a lot of companies debating, right? And I don't want to get into the what's premium, what's not premium? Because we've said it, you know, many times on this part. It's in the eye of the beholder, right? So what is worth, what is worth my time is, is the angle not, you know, what's the production quality, the production value, et cetera, et cetera. Now is the attention, the quality of attention not measured in time spent, but how attentive you are measured here Because I will say that, you know, what I do here or what I do on tv, my level of attention is not the same when I'm on social and when I watch, when I, you know, lean in and really choose something to watch on my tv, yes, I get distracted. But you know, out of that 90 minutes it's going to be a few minutes, right? Whereas I'm going to really go quickly and have 30 second things and I'm going to be doing many things at the same time, etc. Etc. So do you measure the quality of that attention? Because it's not just a question of time spent.
- [11:36]
A
No one's measuring the quality of attention. No one on the planet earth. They can tell you with these eye following bullshit. No one's measuring the quality of attention. Not on TV and not on phones. And so they aren't trying.
- [11:49]
B
You were at the scale.
- [11:50]
A
But they're failing. But they're failing. There is no way to basically go into at scale to measure the quality of intention. First of all, quality is a very subjective term. So we have to really remember to, to use, if you want to use data, then let's use data. Why do you think Obsession beat Star wars at the box office? Why do you think Backrooms is now going to be one of the highest grossing films of the year? Why did Digital amazing digital circus beat Masters of the Universe at the box office? Why? Why? Because the attention on social is paramount. When you're on social, when you look at Curry Barker talk about how they learned how to capture attention by making sketches on the Internet, there are a couple of different things that they talk about. One, learning how to grab the attention in the first three seconds. But two, understanding that YouTube was great as a platform but TikTok was really where they took off and now Obsession is going to wind up being the highest grossing movie of all time. For films with a million dollar or less budget. Of all time. Of all time.
- [12:59]
B
Yeah, but in this example, can I say that I think that's the power of social and you know, not, you know, disparaging.
- [13:09]
A
You're making my point.
- [13:11]
B
Yeah, but so I, what I, what I mean is ultimately it took people to the cinema, right? Yeah, but you tend to oppose, you know, social media and then the rest of traditional media, right?
- [13:24]
A
No, I don't, no, that is not the point. The point, and if you read the report I put out on the index, it's saying these two things are intrinsically the whole consumer. You cannot see a consumer just as a television consumer or a mobile consumer. Just as a mainstream media consumer or a social media consumer, you have to see them as a continuum that. That obsession and backrooms are really great examples of this. I found these kids on social media. I then went to a movie theater. Yeah, I paid money and showed up at an appointed time to sit in a dark room to put my phone down while I did it. And then I went back on the Internet on social media to talk about it. There's a great new movie that Olivia Wilde directed called the. The. The. The Invite. The Invite.
- [14:13]
B
The Invite. Yeah. Yeah, it's on my list.
- [14:15]
A
And it's. By the way, it's the fifth time that this play has been turned into a movie. This is the first time in English. The only way I know it's a good movie is because of TikTok. By the way, Kareem, who hosts Subway Takes, which just got an Emmy nomination.
- [14:29]
B
He.
- [14:29]
A
He. He'll tell you, the only reason his podcast blew up was because of TikTok. So the. When was the last time you went to a dinner party and didn't hear the following? You know what I saw on TikTok today? You know what I saw on Instagram today? You know, I heard this recipe. I got it on TikTok. These jeans. I bought them on TikTok. So the data really does show that the attention paid on social media is as powerful, as powerful, not more powerful, but as powerful as it is on the television set. The difference is 60% or more of the attention is on the phone, on social video, as opposed to the attention on television. Our lives center around our phones. You've seen me do this, what, a hundred times now? Who here has a smartphone? Who here is their smartphone the first thing they pick up in the morning? Who hears their smartphone the last thing they touch at night? I'm very sorry for your significant other. How many times have I told that joke? It's never. It never doesn't work. I just did it in finance, on. On stage with France television. Because it's true. Because it's true. It. It and you. To go back to your question about the surveys, we surveyed eight different markets. The results were the same in eight very different markets. Italy, Spain, France, the United States, Brazil, Mexico. This is not a monolith. And then we used big data to ratify the theory. We have massive data from AGF in Germany, as much as it pisses them off to mention them, from Barb in the uk, from Nielsen here in the US From Kantar in Brazil. We have enough big data to tell the world that this is actually what's happening and you need to adjust your business models. There's so much confusion and fog in the C suites in mainstream media. What's happening? Where is all the attention going? Why are we not as effective as we used to be? You want to know why? Because you're ignoring the phone. The phone is the center of the.
- [16:33]
B
But for sure, I mean, at the end of the day, we're fighting for time. There's only 24 hours in a day and we have more options than ever. And of course, the one thing that is with us all day long is, is, is this on that? Yeah. No question asked. But I think what I will say is that you. Okay, let's say you're not pitting one against the other. You're often criticizing traditional media's usage way. Usage strategy on social. I think again, yes, creators are incredibly important. But for example, for news, you've said it. Trusted sources. And this is a mix of creators. But there's, I'm sure in there, there's a lot of traditional and legacy media. So a lot of that, most of,
- [17:22]
A
most of my, most of my news consumption comes from BBC, the Economist, the Atlantic, the Guardian, who's leaning into video, the New York Times, who's leaning into video. So, yeah, absolutely.
- [17:36]
B
And so what's missing for me from the index is that when you're popping YouTube, when you're popping TikTok, that content, a lot of that content is coming from traditional media. So in a way, in the index, you're downplaying
- [17:52]
A
a much smaller percentage than you would think. Actually, when you look at YouTube, when
- [17:58]
B
you look at the data like that, you don't see it. Right. So are you saying that most of what's being seen on YouTube and TikTok is only coming from non traditional legacy media? Is the consumption only UGC?
- [18:13]
A
No, but it's overwhelmingly UGC. If you look at YouTube's top channels, if you look at TikTok's top creators, almost none of traditional media enters into the top echelons of distribution. BBC Studios being kind of an exception to that, but not BBC in the UK. Now, this is why Dan McUlpin came on our podcast to talk to us about how BBC is now leaning into social video in news and other platforms. We had, I had Gaspar G&TF1 on stage at Stream TV Europe and they talked about their collaboration around news at France television's annual new season conference, which I opened up. You know, they, they opened up Stefan, their head of programming, opened up the entire conference by saying, I'm here to talk about a murder, the murder of traditional television. And then they brought me on stage to do the autopsy. But then they also talked about their great collaboration with Hugo Decrypt, a documentary that they're making with him around the world, including here in the US and in Mexico. And so there. You're absolutely right. A decent portion. I just talked about watching Saturday Night Live and Saturday Night is one of the most watched things on YouTube. But it's de minimis compared to the sea of content that's coming from digital natives. That will change, by the way. That is definitely going to change over the next five years. I think the biggest movement in media over the next five years is the syndication of our great libraries around the world onto BBC Disney, Warner Brothers, onto social video. And that's what I'm trying to encourage them to do is unlock these huge vaults of amazing content that they own and bring it to the audiences who've never seen it, but desperately, desperately want it, which is younger consumers.
- [20:13]
B
Agreed. But again, one thing that is, isn't, you know, fixed here is that this move so them making those moves and I'm sure the audience will follow. But you know, right, that the, the, the ad dollars do not, you already know today. Today.
- [20:34]
A
But, but that's because the traditional media sucks at selling advertising.
- [20:38]
B
No, I think that's not true. If you take again the example of Lumi, he says, why did he bring Lumi? He says we are incapable of selling against kids content on YouTube and it's because of YouTube, because the product is not fit for this and traditional media is going to say the same when. So it, it is, it is a, it is a limitation from the platform itself, the way those platform works. So I think that's.
- [21:06]
A
No, I don't think it's a limitation. I don't think it's a limitation.
- [21:08]
B
I don't think it's fair to only
- [21:10]
A
say that they said the same thing about cable television. They said the same thing about cable television at the beginning of cable television. They're going to sit there, you know, Netflix sucks at selling advertising. They're terrible at it. And almost all of traditional media is absolutely terrible at selling their own content on. They don't even understand what the partners program is on YouTube. They don't know how to do branded content really, really well. But when you look at, when you listen to the CEO of l', Oreal, l' Oreal will tell you that they're selling gobs of product on TikTok so there is a really. You have to understand these platforms in order to monetize them. And it isn't about programmatic ad sales. It's certainly not about letting Google sell all your ads for you. That's not how it's going to work. You have to take responsibility for selling it yourself. You have to package in your traditional media and you have to create a whole consumer profile. If Disney chose to do that, right? If sky and itv, once they combined, chose to do that, if everybody on earth, if the mainstream media understood that the phone and the television together is the whole consumer, they'd be way better at selling ads to the whole consumer. Right now they're ignoring 60% of their own audience's life.
- [22:28]
B
I don't agree that by their failure, I don't agree. You go to. I, I did a keynote in front of, you know, European ad sales houses and everyone is, you know, making sure that their teams are able to sell across the entire, you know, ecosystem. And I think, again, as often, it's easier said than done. It's easy to say, let's put all of that shit on YouTube and then monetize it.
- [22:50]
A
No one's doing it. No one's doing it.
- [22:53]
B
That's not true. Perhaps on your side of the ocean, but you've seen, right, the channel, Channel
- [22:57]
A
four is doing a really good job of it.
- [22:59]
B
And Francis Levison, everyone is. It's gonna take time. You know, it's not that it is
- [23:03]
A
gonna take time, but you have to agree to do it. And you have to also put your best content, which is up on these platforms, which.
- [23:09]
B
Which I think this is something that is happening, right, in Europe, at least. You. Yeah, perhaps slowly. But at the end of the day, man, man, you were at France Television. I was at France television for the YouTube event. 20k hours per year on there. Again, let's remember, right, that all of that work has to be done with more limited budgets than ever. You know, absolutely no risk being taken by any of the platforms. Because I think, you know that I'm pissed off by this because as much as I agree that audiences are there, the platforms are not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And they're putting the burden on the commercial broadcasters, the public broadcasters, the streamers, everyone else, everyone who's taking a risk on producing content. So that's where I think the same
- [23:57]
A
thing about the telecom companies, though. That's where the, the irony of this all comes into play, which is they're all rushing to do bundles and, and distribute content with Orange and all these other telecom companies, but they don't hold their feet to the fire the same way. Look, I hate meta. Let's be honest. I think they're cancer. I, I think they're cancer on the planet. But it's not their fault you can't sell your inventory on their platform. Let's be honest, it's your own fault. You, you don't own. Understand the mechanics of it well enough. And by the way, you're right. I'm being, I'm, I'm painting the whole traditional media ecosystem with one brush. That's not fair. TF1 is doing a very decent job of it. Paramount actually does a pretty decent job of it. The New York Times is doing a really good job of it. So there are examples. BBC studios who we've talked to a thousand times about this. So there are people who are do in traditional media. Channel 4, ITV actually in, in the UK is doing a really decent job job of this as well. So there are examples, but they are the exceptions, not the rule. Disney is being, you know, what the hell is Disney doing? Like, why is it taking so long for them to adopt to the way that the world actually works? And they're so bad at it, by the way that they outsourced it to Lumi. That's how bad they are at selling their inventory on social media. They can't even do it themselves. They outsourced it to Hasbro and Animosity. It's it. It is. It's Ashanda, as my grandmother would say.
- [25:27]
B
Okay, I loved it. I mean, you know, talk about debating with.
- [25:31]
A
Yeah, yeah, finally we got a good debate.
- [25:34]
B
Don't say that because we do do that, you know.
- [25:36]
A
Well, we agree more than we disagree. But this, this is one where we definitely disagree.
- [25:41]
B
That's. That, that's true. Well, as always, you're very. And I'm more nuanced anyway, but I'm
- [25:48]
A
American and you're French.
- [25:50]
B
You, you have that big brush pollock kind of way. And you know, I'm more like, you know, doing.
- [25:56]
A
Well, what I would say is check out the index. Check out the, check out the index at Index eshap TV and see for yourself. You can touch all the points, you can look at the methodology, you can look at all the data. See if it doesn't jive with what you see in your own life, with your own family and your own friend set. And if you have any issues with, regarding methodology or anything, anything else that's on the platform, please let me know. It's a work in progress. And by the way, I was able to build that entire thing using LL. I had to train the LLMs on how measurement worked and why it was important to deduplicate and use sound methodology. And it took me, took a, took years off my life doing it. But I was able to build, without a huge investment by my company, a brand new user driven app for attention measurement across every eight different regions. And so there's a really good example of how if you learn how these models work, they are incredibly powerful tools.
- [27:01]
B
Yeah. Okay. I love this episode. This is the end of season two for the Media Odyssey podcast.
- [27:07]
A
Out with a bang.
- [27:08]
B
Yeah, out with a bang. Well, with an hour long episode. So guys, you know, do consider, you know, listening or watching in two parts because this second part on the index I think was quite fascinating and I'm thinking not the last conversation we're going to have about this topic. I really love this. I'm going to wish you an amazing summer break. I'm going to go enjoy myself in Spain, in France, in the Netherlands, et cetera. I'll see you in a few weeks time.
- [27:35]
A
Yeah, enjoy yourself and your family as well and everybody out there. Happy summer. Stay cool. I know Europe doesn't believe in air conditioning, but maybe go out and buy one. This has been the Media Odyssey podcast. The end of the season. That is Marion Ranchette and that is Aventure Pyro. We will see you next season.