What's Your TV Doing to Your Business?

I've spent the past two decades in television/video production, cutting-edge marketing, mobile app development, and media communications. My work now is a culmination of my past, but centers around one thing: the TVs that are inside of businesses. There's a reason I'm so passionate about them. What's on the TV can be a "make it or break it" for a business. I'm not being overly dramatic with that statement. As you will see in this article, what's on the TV can truly make a difference, affecting revenue generation, return visits, and online reviews.

If you have a TV in your business, this article will give you a thorough understanding of what your options are.

What's on your TV(s)? Do you know? Do you care? Well, you should.

Your TV can be a Boon or a Goon.

Having a TV can be a big boon for your business, but with the wrong programming it can turn into a negative disruption to your visitors.

Televisions are at their lowest prices in history, and as a result a growing number of businesses are putting them up in their lobbies, cafes, lounges, and employee break rooms. I even saw a 50" TV in the super market the other day for under $300. Getting a TV is easy, but finding the right programming to display is the tough part.

Most businesses owners/managers don't give it much thought and opt to get a cable/satellite subscription like they have at home. But this presents some great risks, and even worse in my opinion- a great loss of potential. This article details what I've observed over the past few years working closely with businesses across the country, and should be helpful for any business operators that have TVs inside their businesses.

The Risks of TV

The main risks of careless TV tuning fall into 3 categories: Upsetting your customers, spotlighting your competitors, and playing things that you lack the rights to display.

We've all heard the phrase "what you don't know can't hurt you," but in reality, the exact opposite is true. Not knowing what's playing on your business TV can come back to haunt you. Unless you're in control of what's on your TV, there's really no telling what your visitors might be exposed to.

1. What's on TV Can Upset Your Customers

The News: News stations used to be the business go-to for television. But news content has recently become more inappropriate,  depressing, violent, and graphic. People in waiting areas don't want to see how many people died in a shooting. They don't want to see endless political commentary, graphic images of injured or fearful human beings, or a story about something bad that happened close by. Nothing says "I'll think twice about coming here next time" than highlighting the bad aspects of society.

Entertainment Channels: Channels like the Food Network, HGTV, and E! tend to be tame by comparison, but no less risky when displaying inside a business. Visitors view them as boring, repetitive and lacking variety. And sometimes they are just as inappropriate as the news. The photo below featuring a sign for "Live Nude Girls" was taken at a high end mall in a New York Suburb. The mall management figured that the E! Network would be filled with fashion and entertainment news, and was shocked to find out that they were promoting underage drinking and teen sex on a Sunday afternoon by showing the movie SuperBad. It was, super... bad.

Medical Specialty Networks: In the case of hospitals, clinics, or medical offices, sometimes what's on the TV isn't a standard TV service at all, but rather a looping promotional display of medical videos and information. These programs are detailed, informative, yet very often graphic, anxiety driving or depressing to waiting patients. Cross-sections of the human body, graphic imagery of a clogged artery, or a bold adventure down a 3D-rendered infected colon are not what visitors want to see.

People have never been more sensitive to the smallest things than they are today; they've also never been more able to express those fleeting feelings of frustration over social media and online reviews.

A bad waiting experience can affect your visitors' future decisions to return, and worse can lead to bad reviews that may keep others from your business as well. Something that someone sees on your TV, which has nothing to do with your business, can be the reason they go online and rant about their "bad experience". Which can obviously result in fewer future visitors.

2. Your TV May Be Promoting Your Competitors

If your TV is there for your customers, you need to make sure you aren't only concerned about the programming, but also the commercial messaging. There is nothing more embarrassing than showcasing a competitor in your establishment.

But it's not just the embarrassment, it's future customer actions that you have to worry about. Imagine that you are a customer in a restaurant eating your meal. On the TV, you see an ad for a competing establishment offering better prices on similar food. While the ad may not keep you from your current purchase, it could very well give you an alternative idea for your next meal- instead of coming back to the restaurant you are in (as seen in the video below).

As silly as the quick video we prepared above may seem, the effect is very real. Regular TV exposes customers to competitors when they are most impressionable. As a business owner, you would never welcome a competitor to walk into your business and hand out their coupons, offer better deals, or speak directly to your customers. So why allow it to happen through your TV?

And you may assume that the above scenario doesn't happen very often, or that people simply wouldn't notice. But it does, and they do. I was enjoying a meal with my family in a local Wendy's, drinking a soft drink, when I saw an ad for the same soft drink at a lower price... from McDonald's. Right on Wendy's own TV (as seen in the below video).

As a business owner, manager, franchisee, or franchisor, this sort of thing should not be allowed to happen. But most people don't realize that there are alternatives out there that allow the business to have more control, and that allow them to take advantage of tremendous marketing upsides.

3. Displaying Content that You Don't Have the Necessary Rights To

I will go into more detail with this point later in the article, but simply put: playing content that you don't have the rights to display can put you at a legal risk. This can have an even greater financial impact on your businesses than upsetting customers or highlighting your competitors. "Innocently" playing DVDs, Netflix or even YouTube on your television could create an unintended difficult situation for you.

The Potential of TV

This is the exciting part! When programmed well, TVs can make customers feel at ease, have positive experiences, learn about additional products and services they will want to buy, and have a greater general appreciation for the business. What people see on TV can really affect emotions. The TV shapes customers' impressions of you and what you provide. The TV can let your visitors understand more about who you are and why you do what you do. It's a great way to tell your story.

There's also no better way to provide inexpensive entertainment for your visitors than through television. From TV programs in a variety of categories, to interactive games, social media and weather/information, you can truly craft something that will help visitors happily pass the time. We've found that it's all about creating an engaging variety of content.

Generating Revenue from Your TV

As important as retaining your customers through good programming, is the potential you have to generate additional revenue through those visitors. When you introduce a custom system or channel to your TV you are also opening up a host of revenue opportunities. The primary is through customer education. With image, video, and text communications on-screen you can educate your visitors on reasons to return, and up-sell them on products and services they can purchase from you. We've seen this as the greatest revenue driver for our clients.

In addition to promoting your own wares, you can place meaningful advertisements for local businesses to generate additional cashflow. There are plenty of non-competing businesses in your area that would love to talk to your visitors. You can open the door to this by selling ads on your own TV screens. Pick well aligned businesses, and either charge a monthly fee, or barter with them for products or services that are of value to your business. There are a lot of ways to be inventive with this. For instance, we've seen car dealerships advertise for local restaurants, and get food in exchange for the ads, allowing them to host monthly staff parties at no cost to the dealerships.

Controlling Your TV ≠ Making a Looping Display

What's worse than bad content? Bad content that repeats over and over again.

Looping content can make time feel like time is moving slowly- which is generally the opposite of what you are trying to achieve. It probably wouldn't surprise you to hear that many people cite repetitive (or looping) television programs to be a major factor in their perception of long wait times.

Most custom systems loop. This is because their designers have built their systems on a "playlist" framework. This means they run just like your iTunes, playing down the list of videos until they reach the end of a limited list, and then they start right back at the beginning again. This is one of the reasons they don't work so well.

It's Relevant TV's system is quite different. Instead of a playlist, we've built a relevance engine through artificial intelligence (AI) that constantly brings new content into the TVs throughout the day. We never show the same content in the same order, which creates a much better environment for the waiting visitors.

TV is, and will Always be, About the Audience

No mater who the audience is, whether it be your customers or employees, one thing is constant- no one likes watching pure company messaging. Your customers and employees both need something "for them" to keep them engaged. But what do they want to watch?

We conducted a number of focus groups and one-on-one interviews in order to understand what people like to watch. The results we consistently different, showing that not everyone enjoys watching the same things.

So what channel is most appropriate then?

A non-traditional one. The best channels for groups of people in businesses or public locations are ones that are made up of a variety of different content. By maintaining constant change on the television, you are able to attract more visitors to watch the screen more of the time.

"Who Cares? No one is watching our TV anyway."

If you feel this way, it's even more urgent that you take a look at what's on your TV. People do notice what's on your display, and while they may not continue to watch if you have nothing of interest to them, they do generally at least look at it at the start of their visit. If your customers are buried in their phones you likely just don't have the "right stuff" on the screen.

Mainstream Streaming Services (Hulu, Netflix etc.)

Free TV streaming services, or even the mainstream paid subscription streaming apps, might seem like the perfect thing to put on your business TV. They work for you at home right? Why not at work? Don't be fooled. If you're not careful, that free, or low-cost subscription could be putting your business at risk for getting sued by big companies and powerful TV networks.

Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video are the 3 of the most popular paid-subscription services out there. They're usually what comes to mind whenever someone thinks of TV/movie streaming; and for around $10/month per service, why wouldn't they come to mind? Unfortunately they aren't for businesses. If you look up the Terms & Conditions for TV streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video, you'll see that all of these subscriptions are for personal-use only. This is because the services themselves have licensing agreements with content owners that limit their use to private.

You might think, "well I have a private business" or "who will ever notice?". Content owners are beginning to notice. We've seen a growing number businesses reaching out- restaurants, dental offices, car dealerships- that have previously received cease and desist letters from law firms representing content owners. It's just not worth the risk.

The Truth Is They Weren't The Best Fit Anyway

Beyond the threat of lawsuits, these streaming services are not a perfect fit in the same way standard cable/satellite TV services fall short. The programming is too long, there is no ability to message your visitors about the things you want them to know, and you are unable to move between channels automatically throughout the day.

Streaming YouTube Videos onto Your Business TV

This requires a little IT finagling; but with the right know-how you can generate a playlist of videos taken directly from YouTube, or similar video-hosting websites, and stream them on your TV for visitors to see. Is this safe, or legal? Yes, No, well maybe?

It all depends on whether or not the video is yours, or if it isn't, that you have the expressed permission to use it. Picking some random videos off of YouTube that you like and putting them up on the TV carries the same risk as showing Netflix or Hulu if you don't have each content owner's permission.

Popular Movies & DVDs

Unless you've paid the licensing fees, you are not allowed to play mainstream movies or DVDs in your business for the same reasons you can't stream services like Netflix and Hulu. DVDs you buy in stores or on Amazon are licensed for personal-use only. Ever notice the $250,000 FBI warning at the start of the disc? You can enjoy the movie on your own, or you can watch it with friends and family in a private setting - that's about it. Putting "Finding Nemo" on the TV in your business or waiting room is gambling, hoping that the wrong person doesn't see it, which could lead to a very heavy fine.

Free Custom TV Solutions

There are several "free" TV solutions out there. But if you're using a TV service or platform that's free, sooner or later you're going to feel the cost of it - even if you didn't put a single cent down. Some typical characteristics of free services include:

• Lots of Ads: If the service you are provided isn't charging you for the content they provide, they’re getting the money from someone else. That someone else is the one who often ends up having the most control over what’s on your TV.
• Bad Content: The content that comes with free services is often outdated, uninteresting, unsettling, or of poor quality. The providers of your free service pay as little as they can to procure cheap content that they can play over and over again, forever. In the end you’re left with the bottom of the barrel, or the least amount of effort your provider has to put forward in order to hold up their end of the bargain.
• Slow or No Updates: Providers of free TV services are busy serving the clients that pay them, a.k.a. advertisers that are running ads on your TV. As a free user, you rank lower on their list of priorities, and therefore updating your individual TV is often something they’ll “get around to doing,”... eventually, maybe.

DIY Solutions

There are a number of DIY solutions out there for putting slideshows or even videos up on your TV. Many of the major HDTV brands are including this functionality simply by plugging in a USB stick or SD card. This is also the way a growing number of restaurants power their electronic menu boards.

While putting a photo or video loop on your screen is easy to do these days, crafting an effective television network is not something you can do on your own. You need assistance, and the backing of experts to make it work the way you want to. Keeping the TV content interesting and engaging for your customers is something you'll need help with.

Think of creating a your own TV channel like creating your own pottery. You can dream up and even craft some of what you want the final product to look like, but you need the resources of a ceramicist to help you finalize your creation- putting pottery in your home oven isn't going to cut it. And just as most people don't have access to a kiln to fire and finish their pottery, they also don't have relationships with top TV networks and video producers to create a full TV channel solution in their businesses.

So, What's on Your TV?

Take a long look. What's there, and what is it doing for your visitors and your business? I hope that after reading this article you understand the great potential your TV has to help, and some of the pitfalls you can avoid.

If you'd like to explore a custom option that will best fit your TV(s) please feel free to schedule a phone appointment with me at this link: Schedule a phone call.

Is there a TV option that you are or have utilized that I didn't cover? Please let me know in the comments, or feel free to reach out via email: [email protected].

Jonathan Krackehl is the CEO of It's Relevant TV, a highly customizable TV platform that includes licensing for over 500,000 TV programs, real-time social media integrations, and built-in promotional tools that help businesses take control of their televisions.