When it comes to Channel 7’s Olympics app, the audience is the real loser
Watching the Rio Olympics on 7’s app left Dave Cain wondering why the channel chose to add value to advertisers instead of audiences?
Channel 7 rolled into its final 2016 Olympics coverage on Sunrise yesterday with a shout out to sponsors Telstra, McDonald’s, Swisse, blah, etc… as if we had no idea who they were.
I was at the gym and having only a few minutes left to absorb some last minute heart-string heroin, I thought what better way to get inspired than to jump on the stationary bike and take in some elite human beings being what I was only dreaming. So I opened Channel 7’s Olympic app, hit WATCH: Live and started peddling.
After the first ad package, instead of Olympics I got Sunrise, my mistake, this happens every day at this time. Back to the homepage, hit the next WATCH: Live icon, more ads, then finally… The Home Shopping channel. Obviously the term ‘Live’ within 7’s app environment is more brand mark than brand promise.
All I know is, that I went to the toilet a few times – loaded up the app and didn’t see one bit of the Olympics before I was finished. Just an app loading screen… then a seemingly endless series of ads.
But… for the 100m coverage I was extremely surprised. I got the push notification, clicked through and watched it after about 1-2 ads. No buffering either. That was impressive.
exactly what i was thinking.. the app was SOOOO annoying when changing channels to see what was on.. an ad (sometimes 2) every time you flicked the channel
Hardly the seamless digital experience i wanted for my paid access
Spot on Dave … Well said.
Big missed opportunity to ensure engagement.
Also… I think your glasses are cool
Can I have a job?
Although i agree with the faults in the app (Ads when switching channels, overplaying of Ads and streaming issues at times) The no ads option would be counter intuitive for any brands willing to subside any media capital towards investing into the Olympics. How are they able to maximize on their investment if Channel 7 provide an option around ads? 2020 investment would be looking bleak if Channel 7 couldn’t guarantee these brands audience viewership.
Couldn’t agree more, was ridiculous how many ads they crammed into the app. Only took 1 or 2 days of watching to start loathing the brands that were supporting the Olympics.
And nothing more frustrating than seeing in the bottom corner you’re now watching ad 3or4/2.
Couldn’t agree more with Mr Cain. The 7 olympics app was great for notifications of big events (which basically meant when to find a TV to watch that event!). Chan 7 app designers needed to take some lessons from the phenomenally good SBS Tour de France app!
wow, with that many ads maybe there is a chance foxtel could bid for the games!
There does seem to be a real disconnect with some companies investing in sports sponsorship only to then really annoy the audience by getting in the way of sport. That can’t be a good thing, but anything is better than the ARU geniuses who decided to sell a sponsors announcement at the ground twenty minutes into the Bledisloe while the ball was in play. I’m pretty sure those brands won’t see a return on that investment.
@dave. I agree wholeheartedly. And I bought the premium package and as far as I can tell the experience was the same – the only difference being additional sports content being available. Numerous times I spent two or more minutes being shuffling around the app in frustration watching endless plugs for a cake show. The single biggest gripe I had was not knowing what was actually being broadcast at a given time on each stream. As a consumer – the obvious need is to be told what is on NOW and then you choose that stream and away you go. Sadly 7 have not approached this from a user first POV.
Couldn’t agree more. My biggest peeve was being forced to watch the continuously repetitive pre-roll ads and then getting the every time watch ‘Our partner in Rio streaming error’ – which meant refreshing and of course watching more ads to deliver more ad impressions… Nice one 7. Utter cash grab. And don’t even get me started on McDonalds being the ‘Official Restaurant parter of the Olympic Games’. Who comes up with this shite?
Great article. Will be interesting too see if anyone from Seven respond.
I got my Olympic need from Google and Twitter.
Thank you for the article and shining light on what was an absolute disgrace of an offering.
Considering they were already charging $19.95, this really should’ve been ad free.
The app was buggery as hell.
The number of times that you would load a stream and watch the pre-roll ads only for the connection to fail loading live coverage and then have to go through the process of exiting and going back in, to only have to watch the ads again.
I personally used it to watch the basketball games. A lot of times the coverage would just skip backwards by around an hour, without an option to get back to the live coverage. Only “option” was to exit and reload with all the ads again.
Commentary for some games were non-existent.
In some cases, the picture would freeze, whilst commentary would continue. Again, only way to fix it would be to reload the stream and watch the ads again.
Thankfully, some of those ads featured Boomers and Opals players…
You only have to visit any of SWM’s websites, thewest.com.au etc., to understand that this was always going to be the case. It’s money first at SWM, everything else is a long way second.
You can test this yourself. Pick any video on any of their websites. Even 15 second clip pinched from Facebook carries a 30 second ad.
We can only hope international broadcasters come to the rescue soon (talking to you BBC), because no one in Australia is doing any of this well.
attempting to monetise digital….outrageous.
Perhaps the very point of this app was to achieve a higher purpose for the network and, with a once in 4 years opportunity to educate the masses, they could teach us all that digital is a bunch of shyte so that all of us start thinking “thank Heaven we still have TV”. Why else would they have hired Clive?
Just a thought …
Quite frankly the worst Olympic service/coverage I have ever experienced. Ch7 clearly put money before their user experience, simple. Their advertising partners would have been cringing by the end of the coverage. All the house promos didn’t seemed to work for that appalling cake show either by all accounts.
If I was Foxtel I would be rubbing my hands at the opportunity for 2020 having seen a lesson in how not to do it by Ch7. BBC iPlayer was a lesson in how to deliver a user experience without only showing Australian participant sports for the majority of the time.
I also agree that paying $19.95 should ensure the service is ad free. Does that not show how far behind what is happening in market Ch7 are. Have they not heard of Netflix?
Finally I really don’t see why we all expected anything different. Based on their complete lack of originality in creating half decent programmes, why did we think the Olympics coverage across app/TV would be any different. I don’t care how many people watch the X factor, Ch7 and Australian TV programmers/creators really need to take some lessons from overseas as the utter tripe they churn out each year is quite frankly an embarrassment.
Aussie living in the US here. NBC usually has the same disdain for their viewing audience- instead of anything ‘live’, we’re force-fed highlights packages every night. However, the live streams they provided for cable subscribing customers were excellent. Every event was available for livestreaming, and the ads weren’t too obnoxious.