Discovery Plus is navigating the ever-growing streaming marketplace and today’s competitive landscape for subscriber acquisition. While discussing audience-building strategy, Michael Bishara…
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Discovery Plus is navigating the ever-growing streaming marketplace and today’s competitive landscape for subscriber acquisition. While discussing audience-building strategy, Michael Bishara, group senior vice president and general manager of direct-to-consumer for Discovery, noted that “the consumer [is] at the center of everything that we do,” in a Variety Streaming Room presented by Salesforce.
“Being able to deliver a relevant experience is really key,” Bishara told Variety co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton. “It’s every part of that user interface… [We’re] communicating with that subscriber to reinforce that, ‘Hey, your favorite show is on.’ Or ‘Perhaps you would want to dive deeper into this genre or series.'”
Discovery Plus is a growing global platform with an extensive library of content from 14 networks — including Discovery, Animal Planet, Food Network, History, and Lifetime. In Variety’s panel, Bishara and Mark Niemiec, senior vice president of sales at Salesforce, unpacked the streamer’s consumer experience and retention, advertising, data capabilities, international expansion, and more.
“There’s so much money spent upfront on customer acquisition that companies need to find ways to make sure that we’re retaining those customers — and that we’re delivering the best experiences,” Niemiec said. “Every day, there’s more and more and more content… It’s about delivering the right content to the right customer in the right way.”
“When we see a new popular show become available, we see a whole lot of signups. But then once that show ends, and the consumption is complete, we do see customers in some cases drop off,” Niemic continued, addressing consumer churn and patterns in activity driving subscriptions. “I think Discovery is a little bit unique, in that they have such a wide variety of unscripted experiences where I don’t see those spikes as readily as others do — but that is something that we’re watching.”
And, in a world where new content seems endless, Bishara underlined the importance of creating a “personalized, relevant experience.”
“If you’re asking the consumer to jump into a UI [saying], ‘Here are thousands of titles and go find something,’ then that’s obviously a challenge. But the more you can make that experience feel more personalized — from the user interface to even the advertising, assuming that that’s relevant to the experience, to how you communicate — I think that there’s not really a terminal velocity on content,” said Bishara.
Hear the conversation in full above.