How do you know when something is truly transcending the norm? Share of Voice (SOV) attempts to get at the answer. Let’s take a look into how SOV gives insight into show and movie distribution methods.
SOV gets at the question of audience share by calculating the proportion of audience engagement for a given title over total engagement from across the entire entertainment landscape. In short, it quantifies how much one particular piece of content is capturing audience attention at any given moment.
One neat aspect of SOV is that we can group content in different ways to define different insights. Distribution is one of those methods, dividing content by four categories: linear, streaming, multichannel and theatrical release.
Linear covers the more traditional methods of TV distribution, specifically broadcast, cable and premium. You’ll often find your favorite live sports or special events on linear, and these types of events tend to do really well with audiences. For example, the Oscars captured 93.5% share voice the day of its airing this year.
Streaming covers any and all content premiering on streaming platforms. Streaming attention tends to coalesce around major original content, premieres, finales, as well as controversial episodes. Tentpole shows like Love is Blind, True Detective and Apartment 404 push the upper bounds of the list every week.
Theatrical includes any major film released and distributed in theaters. Blockbuster releases garner major attention that peaks on weekends around premieres. Dune 2 for example earned a 19.08% SOV on the Friday of its opening and declined slightly to 4.18% by the second Friday.
Multichannel is the newest addition to our methodology, reserved for pieces of content distributed in multiple ways simultaneously (most commonly on cable and streaming). 44 different pieces of content were considered multichannel this year including the FX / Hulu hit Shōgun.
Distribution share voice can help with a wide variety of analysis and understanding. It can help you figure out optimum times to schedule content releases, either through historical analysis or anticipatory projections.
It can also help with general distribution strategies like if you should release your movie to theaters or directly to streaming. It can also help to narrow or widen the lens of analysis, like contextualizing why one piece of content may not be garnering as much attention as expected.
Distribution is just one of the many flavors of share of voice. For more info about SOV or other Diesel metrics, check out our data marketplaces or visit our website.