Where does ad-supported streaming go after the live sports boom?

Politicos wanting to digest the outcome of the U.S. presidential election had a few more options available to them this year. Alongside the cable and network channels bringing the latest tallies, they could also open Amazon Prime Video and watch former NBC News anchor Brian Williams guide them through the night.

“After 41 years in the business, from local news to network shows to cable news, this feels like the next big thing,” Williams said when he announced the broadcast. Albert Cheng, vice president and head of Prime Video, called it a “one-night-only” event. But could this signal a surge of real-time content on streaming platforms, which have already dipped their toes in the water with live sports coverage?

Some seem to think so. “Ongoing news content is the natural next step in ad-supported streaming, but in a more snackable format,” says Kathryn Bean, head of media at Wake The Bear, a marketing and communications company. “Rather than large, full-scale newsroom productions, we’ll likely see short-form news bulletins and highlights, similar to how we now consume the news in online mobile-device environments.”

Others are a little cagier about the potential of live news in particular, which requires significant resources. Even 10 years ago, the BBC spent 114.2 million pounds ($148 million) in a single year on its rolling news channel on traditional TV, making each hour of content cost just over 13,000 pounds ($16,850). Sports, for example, can cost around $40,000 per game, by one estimate.

“Compared to live sports, delivering rolling news coverage is an entirely different ball game,” says Liz Duff, head of commercial and operations at Total Media. “The immediacy and scale of live news coverage means it requires resources, namely a widespread network of journalists.” There’s also the stark reality that people are more likely to watch sports in large numbers than they are news, which is more of a prestige product for broadcasters than something that brings in the big bucks.

It would also require a shift in sensibility around the concept of news, adds Victoria Abbott, audio-visual director at The Kite Factory. For news to be a success, the way audiences engage with subscription VOD [video on demand] would need to change, she says. “Moving from the home of ‘bingeing’ to the trusted source of truth requires a seismic shift in mindset of the viewer and goes beyond buying up sporting rights.”

Yet Duff points to the success of podcasts as evidence that audiences have semi-primed themselves for that shift. “We know audiences will consume live influencer content on a social platform as if it was a live broadcast show,” she explains. “So there is a huge opportunity to encourage this experience in more of a CTV [connected TV] streaming environment.”

However, attempts at this — such as LiveNow from Fox, a traditional TV broadcaster dabbling in YouTube and smart TV live streaming — have tended to focus on discussion around breaking news, rather than personality-led coverage.

Producing news coverage is one thing. Funding it is another question, in part because of the reticence of some advertisers to book slots for their products against content that can be unpredictable, says Matt Buckle, managing director at Transmission, a creative production agency.

Still, two recent studies in the U.S. and U.K. from Stagwell could allay marketers’ worries. They both found advertising alongside news content is safe for brands, regardless of topic. Stagwell CEO Mark Penn told The Media Leader that “ads placed next to politics and crime stories did just as well as those placed next to positive business stories or sports and entertainment stories.”

For now, the cost of ads is something streaming giants will likely take into consideration. “With potentially low ad revenue as a result, it isn’t an obvious next step for streaming giants, at least in the short term,” reckons Total Media’s Duff.

Buckle suggested that streamers could grab an advantage over linear TV by following the lead of online news sites. Advertisers can already tap into DSP tools like Do Not Air lists and Content Signal Targeting to target the kind of content they want on CTV. “Advertisers are happy to appear next to online news because you can do so programmatically,” Buckle says. “You can whitelist and blacklist certain topics. This isn’t something you can do in traditional broadcast, but it could be something that streaming news via platforms such as Prime Video could bring to the table.”