TV Guide Draws Viewers to Web

Online Guide Watchlist Has Signed Up 450,000 Users Since August 2011

By Mike Farrell -- Multichannel News, 1/30/2012 12:01:00 AM

Back in the day, TV Guide was the only guide in town.

Then a tsunami of digital products joined the venerable viewer. Today, nearly six months after launching its online Watchlist product, TV Guide Digital, which operates the eponymous website TVGuide.com, is gearing up for its next phase, with a host of new features the company hopes will make it indispensable for TV viewers.

Watchlist was launched in August and basically allows users to track their favorite shows, sports teams and celebrities across all platforms — linear TV, online, on demand and DVD through services like Netflix and Amazon.

Since August about 450,000 users have signed up for Watchlist, exceeding even TVGuide.com’s initial expectations and poised to grow even larger.

“That is what we see as the next generation of the grid,” said TV Guide Digital executive vice president and general manager Christy Tanner.

ON SALE BLOCK

TV Guide Digital is owned by Lionsgate Entertainment, which also owns the TV Guide Network. Both properties have been on the block for about a month and could be sold in the coming months. Tanner declined to comment on a possible sale.

The Watchlist is the latest in a series of additions to the Web portal that Tanner has made since coming on board in 2006. Tanner views the TVGuide.com site as five separate sites in one — a news site that uses its 20 editors to generate entertainment news, gossip and exclusive interviews; a social-media engine that allows users to share information and chat about shows on Facebook and other social-media sites; the Watchlist; linear television listings; and fan pages and reviews.

Via more than 120 different sources, including Comcast’s Xfinity.tv, Hulu, individual programmer websites and sites like Funny or Die, Watchlist users also can view select episodes of TV shows, movies and trailers.

“There are six different ways you can get there,” Tanner said of locating content. “This is your one-stop shop.”

The on-demand aspect of Watchlist was initially launched with Comcast, but Tanner would like to expand that reach. “What we aim to do is to have every provider’s data in here to allow users to make the best decisions.”

TVGuide.com is talking to all major distributors and is planning on adding more features in the coming months — it hopes to fully integrate the Watchlist into its mobile app by the second quarter of this year, and email notifcation of upcoming programming and a remote DVR feature are coming soon.

But the main driver of the model for the site is advertising — since 2010, TVGuide.com has added about 70 sponsors for its Watchlist and social media features, ranging from networks like ABC and Starz to companies like Starbucks and Microsoft. That focus has paid off — Tanner said 2011 marked TVGuide.com’s second consecutive year of profitability and its fifth straight year of double-digit traffic growth.

“When our team conceived of these products, we really thought through what are the advertising opportunities,” Tanner said. “When you think about it, a dollar spent on a Watchlist ad over the lifetime of the show, it’s a very well-spent dollar.”

As content choices have grown into the thousands, with VOD and online offerings included, cable operators have been searching for navigation tools that will allow customers to more easily toggle through the growing number of selections. While many have tried to address the problem internally, dozens of other companies have sprung up over the years — including former TV Guide parent Rovi, TiVo and, most recently, Google TV — with their own solutions.

Miller Tabak media analyst David Joyce said with the proliferation of content available, finding a way to organize and locate programming more easily would be compelling to most operators.

“The marriage of the TV and the Internet has been a logical evolution for a long time that is just coming to fruition,” Joyce said. “There is room for products like this.”

RECOMMENDATION ENGINES

RBC Capital Markets analyst David Bank said what’s missing from the equation is a search algorithm that finds not only the specific show that a user is looking for but, like Netflix or iTunes, seeks out content that the user doesn’t know about but might like to watch.

“If they could crack that code, they would be the first to do it efficiently,” Bank said of developing a broader recommendation engine. “That would be an interesting product.”

Tanner said that discovering new programming is an integral part of the site — for example, its Social Power Rankings list the 10 most talked-about shows on the site, fan pages, Facebook and Twitter. In addition, smart recommendations will roll out this year.

In the meantime, TVGuide.com continues to grow. Traffic has grown exponentially since 2006, from 4.5 million unique users to 24 million today. About 6 million iPhone, iPad and Android users have downloaded its mobile application, with 1.5 million active users monthly.

“The key goal for us this year is doubling down on the Watchlist in every way possible — growing the user base, adding new partners and synching what is already a robust online experience with our mobile product,” Tanner said.