Meet the Makers: Streaming
The number of people who game is at an all-time high. Some sources say the gaming industry is worth about 150 billion dollars. Although it’s more profitable than the movie industry, traditional media still thinks of gaming as its little sibling that is not allowed at the big family table. RTBF decided to help shape this narrative and focus on this large, but long-forgotten audience. By meeting children in all aspects of their lives and setting up an in-house streaming label, RTBF became a frontrunner in combining streaming with traditional broadcasting. Let’s take a look at the innovative projects they are working on.
Ok, boomer
It’s a challenging question for traditional broadcasters: how do we stay relevant with the younger audience? As Head of New Generations at RTBF, Charly Dutat leads projects that target kids and teenagers. One of the ways for engaging them is through the world of gaming. Here, they let one of the faces of a children's TV show play video games on the gaming platform Roblox.
That show is called Rocky & Lilly. Lilly is a dynamic, creative young woman that works at RTBF. When she meets Rocky, a talking teddy bear, they get into all sorts of adventures. With Rocky & Lilly, RTBF's aim is to connect with the audience by creating a bridge between the virtual and the physical world. Besides vlogs on YouTube and a series of podcasts, there are live events in schools and a WhatsApp account where Rocky & Lilly can chat directly with their audience.
There is a lot of potential to engage this target group through video games. Since Rocky already was a gamer, they decided to introduce him to the world of Roblox. There were a few reasons to choose this particular platform. First, Roblox has a large player base: it has 43 million daily active users, evenly split across the globe. What’s very interesting is that 54% of the players are under the age of 13. Unlike, for example, Instagram, where children under 13 years old aren’t allowed. In addition, the New Generations department learned that the level of skills these children have is extremely high on this creative platform. Finally, another big factor in choosing Roblox was that it is a safe environment: it is not centered around killing others to win a game. One of the games Rocky plays on the platform is My Restaurant, where you can create and run your own restaurant. Rocky is great at it. One of the reasons the kids love him is because he shows them a good example.
One of the biggest takeaways goes back to our talks about vertical video: you cannot control where the audience is. There is no use in desperately trying to connect to viewers that are no longer there. As a public broadcaster, we have to find ways to thrive in the new media ecosystem. Even when it means exploring the unknown.
The name of the game
But gaming isn’t only for kids. For every person, there is a video game. Recently, RTBF launched a label dedicated to video games, geek culture and eSports called RTBF iXPé. iXPé is named after the word experience because this universe that RTBF is diving into is a new experience. Greg Carette is video game and e-sports expert at RTBF. He told us that one of the biggest missions RTBF iXPé has is to build an ecosystem that brings together like-minded people whose interests were long forgotten by the general media.
RTBF iXPé is mostly active on Twitch, a live streaming platform that to the general public is mostly known for its gaming channels. However, there are no limits to the content that can be found on Twitch, ranging from cooking classes to dj-sets. Besides that, since it’s a live stream, the content is easy to produce. While on YouTube, for example, it takes a lot of time to edit your videos, RTBF iXPé creates more than 50 hours of programming a week.
The chances for everyone succeeding on Twitch sounds like a dream, right? The reality is that 95% of the French-speaking audience goes to about 20 creators. It is a hard industry to break into, and if you do, there are no days off, no mistakes you can make. That is why RTBF iXPé wanted to build a Belgian ecosystem, because there is a bigger chance to break into the market together. That is why they assembled “Le Crew”, a win-win partnership with 4 professional streamers.
Packam is one of those streamers. With 25k followers, he was not a small fish, but he couldn’t make a living as a professional either. By joining the brand, he was able to share his knowledge of Twitch with the RTBF team, and learn from RTBF’s expertise as well. One of the biggest takeaways for Packam is realizing the importance of being active on social media.
So what can we learn?
There is no single solution for broadcasters that want to be more active on gaming platforms. You have to find out what works for your brand, and how you can organically implement the metaverse in your productions. After these sessions, one thing is clear: gaming is not only for children, and it’s a very profitable industry.
Something that will help grow your audience is learning the language of social media. Rocky puts out content on other platforms, and RTBF iXPé even has a team dedicated to teaching streamers how to engage their audience through alternative channels.
In the world of gaming, there is a big sense of community. Besides engaging your audience, there is an opportunity to bring people together. And isn’t that what it is all about?
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