Channel 4 to overhaul streaming service

Channel 4 has kicked off a major overhaul of its streaming platform, as part of its Fast Forward strategy to transform into a “genuinely digital-first public service streamer”.

The refit will modernise the platform and incorporate the kind of personalisation features available on industry-leading OTT platforms.

As part of the upgrade, the broadcaster will also move from an inhouse tech solution to third party products and services.

The streaming platform launched in 2006 as 4oD, before rebranding to All 4 in 2015. Finally, it rebranded to Channel 4 last year, to give the broadcaster one brand identity across its digital and linear channels.

The service is free-to-access, but also offers a paid-for option to enable viewers to watch ad-free, for £39.99 a year.

As part of Channel 4’s Fast Forward strategy, the streamer is going to get a complete refresh, driven by a desire to more closely align it to streamers such as Netflix, Prime, Disney+ and Apple.

Channel 4 technology and distribution director, Grace Boswood (pictured left), talked to Broadcast Tech at the recent IBC conference in Amsterdam.

She said: “We’re currently doing a project to transform how we shape our streaming service, which is the future of Channel 4. We built it 20 years ago and were the first to market in the UK with that build. But you don’t need me to tell you that the market has moved on rather far since then.

“Fast Forward has been really galvanising, and there’s a real sense that we want to move into a phase of strategic change in innovation.

“We’re a relatively small player, and to win in this tricky market, we need to be a little ruthless on what consumers really want from us and where they are happy to have more of a basic level of service.”

Boswood said Channel 4 has to calibrate its service against other players with “rather deeper pockets”, and, to enable that, is looking to change its technology estate to no longer rely on building everything itself.

High up on her priority list at IBC was to find partners that could help “amortise the cost and give us a great consumer experience as a fast follower to the leaders”.

Key to this will be to add user profiles to Channel 4. The way the platform is currently managed is a prohibitor to developing features such as this, due to the clunky processes involved.

Boswood explains: “We can absolutely develop profiles now, but it’s a lot of technical work to get to this outcome. We would have to do it through our big screen devices, to dotcom, through mobile, and across all those different operating systems.

“If we move to a platform-based model, that functionality already exists and therefore it’s more of a configuration and customisation job.”

The way personalisation features might be implemented on Channel 4 could also help differentiate it from other streamers. “What will be different to others is obviously the content, but also through tone of voice, and through how we are going to implement personalisation of recommendations,” says Boswood. “That’s the stuff I’m really interested in.”

The timescales and initial scale of the roll out of changes to Channel 4 streaming are yet to be decided. It might be a massive, wholesale facelift in looks and functionality, or something that’s drip fed to users.

Boswood explains: “We need to make a strategic decision as to whether it’s a soft onboarding so it almost looks the same and we then incrementally improve, or whether we do a big switch.

“When I was at the BBC [Boswood was formerly COO, BBC Design and Engineering], we turned the BBC Sport website yellow and I’ve never had more of a deluge of cross sports fans in my whole life.  And all we did was just turn up the colour a bit.”

Whether it arrives in a big fanfare, or a more modest fashion, Boswood says, “What I do know is that whatever that transition strategy, the end point is a streaming service that has more of the stuff you’d expect from a modern streaming service. And then a little more on top as well.”