Telewizja Polska: Channeling data insights to transform the viewing experience
About Telewizja Polska
Telewizja Polska is a Polish public media service organization. With over 3,000 staff and 30 nationwide and regional TV channels, it provides free, high-quality programming, promoting ethical, artistic and intellectual values.
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About Bettersteps & Bluerank
About Bettersteps
Bettersteps is an agency specializing in web and application analytics.
About Bluerank
Bluerank (including Full Stack Experts) specializes in customer journeys for global brands.
Telewizja Polska had insufficient viewing data for its digital programming. Turning to Google Cloud gave it the insights needed to increase its number of viewers and drive up total content consumption.
Google Cloud results
- Analysis of user journeys shows impact of changes to content and features, helping to increase content consumption
- Machine learning models enable personalization of content, improving viewer retention
- Analysis of live-streaming and traffic enables scaling of resources to cater for viewing spikes, without loss of quality
Public television broadcaster modernizes with Google Cloud
Public television broadcaster Telewizja Polska's mission is to promote Polish culture, arts, history, and values to the widest possible audience, for free. Dedicated programming targets audience groups such as children, teenagers, and women, through digital terrestrial television, online, and streaming platforms, with inclusion, rather than purely commercial considerations, being the broadcaster's guiding principle.
However, the arrival of global streaming giants HBO Max and Disney+ in 2022, and SkyShowtime's launch in 2023, are adding to Poland's already crowded television market, threatening Telewizja Polska's market share. International Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) services currently capture over 70% of the Polish market, with US-produced TV series now more popular among young Polish viewers than homegrown series. Meanwhile, a distribution deal between Disney+ and Cyfrowy Polsat has also strengthened the offering of one of Telewizja Polska's main commercial competitors.
For Telewizja Polska to continue to reach the widest possible audience, it is important for the broadcaster to be able to compete on the same footing as the data-driven streaming platforms.
As Piotr Zimak, Head of Efficiency for Internet Platforms and Services at Telewizja Polska, explains, "At Telewizja Polska, we were used to having access to granular data from our TV audience figures. What we really needed was to have the same quality of data for our online services as we already had for our linear channels."
Before turning to Google Cloud, Telewizja Polska was dependent on an external data analytics company for digital viewing insights. It was able to analyze basic viewing metrics and the success of individual apps and websites, but with 300 websites, 10 apps, two streaming platforms and numerous smart TV and multiscreen services, Telewizja Polska was unable to achieve the level of analysis it required.
"With the growing importance of digital TV, we needed more advanced analysis of user events," explains Zimak. "We wanted to be able to analyze user paths on multiple platforms and use data to personalize content. We reached a point where it made more sense to choose a new comprehensive solution such as Google Cloud, than to rework the current one."
"With the growing importance of digital TV, we wanted to be able to analyze user paths on multiple platforms and use data to personalize content. We reached a point where it made more sense to choose a new comprehensive solution such as Google Cloud, than to rework the current one."
—Piotr Zimak, Head of Efficiency for Internet Platforms and Services, Telewizja PolskaPassing the painstaking public procurement process
Zimak's team knew that their new infrastructure must be an all-in-one solution, with analytics and visualization tools, advertising solutions and data storage, as well as AI and machine learning. Having had positive experiences using Google Tag Manager and Firebase, Telewizja Polska went on to test Google Analytics and Ad Manager as part of a proof of concept, confirming Google Cloud as the solution of choice.
However, the highly formalized Polish public procurement process meant a raft of additional requirements had to be met. Local Google partners, with considerable experience of working with public sector companies, helped Zimak's team to navigate the process, particularly when it came to security concerns.
"The public sector in Poland is still skeptical about cloud solutions," Zimak explains. "So it was difficult to convince the organization to agree to them, particularly when it came to data security and user consent. Our local Google partners were able to explain how secure Google Cloud's solutions are, which helped the decision-makers to overcome their hesitation."
Those same Google partners helped Telewizja Polska to implement an end-to-end data collection process, working closely with Zimak's team to standardize data and create video-content tracking plans, as well as helping to establish good governance and secure access-management policies.
When an issue arose with video-data analysis during the proof-of-concept phase, Google partners Bluerank and Full Stack Experts realized the problem was caused by a variation in standards across viewers' TV devices. To solve the issue, they began using the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol, resulting in far more input data.
Google partner Bettersteps then helped to standardize the data for Google Analytics, used BigQuery to analyze raw data, and created automated Looker reports, as well as helping Telewizja Polska to foster a culture of data analysis across the organization.
Discovering the detail in the data
As Telewizja Polska began to collect all the data from its vast array of websites and apps and store it centrally in BigQuery, Zimak's analysts were then able to use it to give powerful insights to staff across the organization.
"Where we were previously unable to view detailed information about user activity in our digital channels, we now use Google Cloud to monitor the number of users per platform and analyze cross-platform user journeys," says Zimak. "This means we can see the impact of changes we've made, like new functionalities or content rotation, and make decisions about what's working and what's not, which ultimately helps to increase the number of users playing videos and the total content consumption."
With Looker being used by 200 employees at Telewizja Polska, digital data insights are now driving decision making across the organization. Visualizing content performance metrics, for example, allows the acquisitions team to make informed decisions about what content to buy, translating into a higher uptake of Telewizja Polska's SVOD platforms, and ultimately more viewer engagement and higher retention.
Giving viewers more of what they want
Telewizja Polska has also been able to use Google Cloud to develop its content personalization features, applying machine learning models to combined customer data from a wide range of sources to ensure viewers are shown content tailored to their tastes and viewing habits, again improving viewer retention and increasing the number of viewers and viewing time.
Personalization of content has also allowed Telewizja Polska to begin to personalize its ad campaigns. By integrating Google Ad Manager with Google Analytics data on video consumption by user segment, Telewizja Polska has been able to automate digital advertising campaigns personalized to each viewer, with a view to ultimately driving up advertising revenue.
Improving the quality of live-streaming events
Another area in which data analysis has enabled Telewizja Polska to improve its services is in the quality of its live-event streaming.
"Major sporting fixtures attract a large spike in viewers, which means streaming quality can suffer," Zimak explains. "With our old setup, it was difficult to analyze live-streaming quality effectively, but now we can with Google Cloud. During the Qatar World Cup, for example, we could continuously analyze traffic and streaming quality and scale up resources quickly to cater for spikes in viewing, without any loss of quality."
"With our old setup, it was difficult to analyze live-streaming quality effectively, but now we can with Google Cloud. During the Qatar World Cup, for example, we could continuously analyze traffic and streaming quality and scale up resources quickly to cater for spikes in viewing, without any loss of quality."
—Piotr Zimak, Head of Efficiency for Internet Platforms and Services, Telewizja PolskaThe transition to a data-centric organization
With Google Cloud enabling Telewizja Polska to put digital data insights at the heart of its strategy, the broadcaster now plans to make more use of machine learning and AI to build sophisticated data modeling to understand more about viewers' buying habits and how to retain them. It also plans to use its growing wealth of viewing data to become the first broadcaster in the region to launch free ad-supported streaming TV.
For Zimak, it is this modernization of Telewizja Polska's digital offering that is enabling it to remain competitive in Poland's increasingly crowded media market.
"With Google Cloud, we can now use real-time data to efficiently shape the viewing experience for our viewers," says Zimak. "It's exactly the competitive advantage we needed to ensure that Telewizja Polska can continue to get our high-quality content to as many viewers as possible."
"With Google Cloud, we can now use real-time data to efficiently shape the viewing experience for our viewers. It's exactly the competitive advantage we needed to ensure that Telewizja Polska can continue to get our high-quality content to as many viewers as possible."
—Piotr Zimak, Head of Efficiency for Internet Platforms and Services, Telewizja PolskaTell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Telewizja Polska
Telewizja Polska is a Polish public media service organization. With over 3,000 staff and 30 nationwide and regional TV channels, it provides free, high-quality programming, promoting ethical, artistic and intellectual values.
About Bettersteps & Bluerank
About Bettersteps
Bettersteps is an agency specializing in web and application analytics.
About Bluerank
Bluerank (including Full Stack Experts) specializes in customer journeys for global brands.