Atmosphere, formerly Chive TV, bills itself as a first-of-its-kind content streaming platform for DOOH networks. Atmosphere owns and operates original ambient TV channels for a variety of venue types. Leo Resig, CEO & Co-Founder, recently talked with Mel Stott about how Atmosphere allows businesses with digital signage to switch from expensive cable TV subscriptions to less expensive but more venue-friendly content programming.
Atmosphere screen in a bar
When you joined DPAA a while back you were known as Chive TV. You have since re-branded as Atmosphere. When was this done, and why?
We launched CHIVE TV as an OTT app three years ago. Since then, we’ve proved the tech worked, high-speed wi-fi is ubiquitous and there’s a product-market fit. We have established that there is a massive addressable global market for our product, solid audience measurement (via Nielsen), an ability to monetize and, most importantly, people like it.
In other words, CHIVE TV ended up being the proof of concept for a larger roll-up of ambient TV channels made for different businesses.
The platform that houses these channels is called Atmosphere. DOOH networks get access to Atmosphere and all 10 of our ambient TV channels for a small monthly fee.
Atmosphere is ambient TV for businesses with digital signage.
CHIVE TV is a known brand and people trust theCHIVE to entertain and make them laugh.
On the other hand, the larger opportunity is fixing TV for business, which we feel is broken. Unless it’s a live sporting event, TV programming for business should not have audio. However, almost everything currently playing in businesses was made for home use, so owners simply turn off the sound. We all know that closed captions are not the answer either.
What kind of content does Atmosphere produce?
Today, Atmosphere has 10 ambient TV channels, all made for different types of venues. Most channels, including CHIVE TV, which features user-generated content, work great in different types of bars, restaurants, hotels and cruise ships and those are the industries we are going after hardest.
We also have Alpine TV for mountain bars and Beach Bum TV for coastal bars. Shugazing TV is a channel of ‘oddly satisfying’ content we created for cannabis dispensaries. Happy TV is stocked full of cute puppies, cats and kids and is perfect for salons and healthcare offices. We even have a luxury channel called Rare TV for higher end restaurants and private aviation services.
How do you procure this digital signage content? Do you pay the sources for the content?
Our team of video curators and editors sources, clears and packages all content. We also make sure it is family friendly. The type of content ranges from trending videos on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram to beautifully produced content from our partners at Red Bull and GoPro.
Yes, we pay for a healthy amount for the content and the rest comes from user generated videos from theCHIVE. Many quality video creators give us their content for free. They simply want name recognition and more followers on Instagram or YouTube.
The rest is a special sauce. We’ve been curating and packaging video content for over 10 years and we’ve gotten really good at it.
Who is Atmosphere’s target audience?
Depends on the venue. Beer and liquor advertisers love that they can reach consumers at a point of purchase at bars and restaurants. CPG brands, auto brands and telecom brands like to reach gym goers and we have a channel called Motiv8 TV for gyms and health clubs.
Where can we see Atmosphere content?
The same way that music in retail is ubiquitous, we aim to acquire screen-share in every business that has TVs, customers and dwell time. From banks to amusement parks to paint shops to oil change shops, we have a channel for every industry, every customer, every mood. We help enhance the atmosphere of business through contoured TV programming.
What is your business model? Do you charge venues to use your content?
Atmosphere’s business model is similar to that of SiriusXM. They curate music into genre-based lifestyle music channels and sell consumer and business subscriptions. Atmosphere curates ambient videos into genre-based lifestyle video channels and we sell consumer and business subscriptions.
The big difference is our content costs are much lower and fixed than are SiriusXMs. We clear a piece of content once and we typically get perpetual, global use of the content rather than always having to pay-to-play.
We just started charging business venues $20/month to access Atmosphere and all of its channels. And we’re continually adding new channels without raising the price. Since Atmosphere streams via consumer streaming devices such as Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire, we also offer subscriptions to consumers, for $3/month –with ads.
Do you sell ads? If yes, do venues get a share of the ad revenue? How does your digital signage module work?
Businesses can also opt into a digital signage feature that allows them to login to their account and upload house ads that play within the content stream. The digital signage is our SaaS feature and is an additional $50/month fee.
We do not offer an advertising revenue share with most businesses, unless they have hundreds or thousands of locations. We are providing a valuable product at an inexpensive price. By contrast, restaurants and bars pay an arm and a leg for cable subscriptions. And by the way, Comcast or DirecTV or Dish don’t share any ad revenue.
I should mention that in April we closed a $10 million Series A financing round. Austin-based S3 Ventures led the investment with participation from Capstar Capital. The funding will go towards ramping up B2B distribution, technology, data and monetization.
Are you able to measure campaign performance for your advertisers?
Absolutely. We have full attribution, audience targeting and retargeting capabilities. Through our partnership with Dstillery, we can act as the advertiser’s ‘OOH DMP’. We send mobile advertising IDs seen at our locations during a specified time period to a third-party vendor, like a Foursquare, to do the measurement. We can either do this on our own or work with the client’s preferred attribution vendor.
For audience targeting, we can take an advertiser’s first-party data from their DMP or CMP and layer on a lookalike audience. We then index that larger audience against our network to see which venues are the best match.
In addition, we can retarget users on mobile who were seen at our venues during a specified time period. This can really amplify the impact of an OOH campaign – mobile click-through rates can be 3-4x higher when run as retargeting for an OOH campaign.
To learn more about Atmosphere, visit: https://atmosphere.tv/
For information about DPAA, go to: https://dp-aa.org/
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