Staged, scripted or fake, reality TV has real money. Moreover, it has an audience engagement that parallels popular sports leagues. Statistica reported that TV viewers who typically watch reality talent shows in the U.S. are 36.6 million. The last season of American Idol (Season 15) had witnessed 10.96 million viewers while Big Brother UK’s 2016 edition had 6.02 million viewers. In Asia, the figures are way more whopping. The Voice India 2016 Finale was watched in over 180 countries reaching 500 million viewers.

Despite this size and numbers, there lies a completely untapped potential of Reality TV that entertainment and sports channels are yet to see.

Reality shows can be gamified for a continual fan engagement

Reality TV shows have annual seasons. Most channels think of dividing the whole year into various categories of seasons say for adults, kids, women’s only – so as to engage audience consistently. But that also requires an equal amount of production cost. However, there’s a way to get ROI on these shows without this production cost. TV channels can create fantasy games around their reality shows. Through fantasy games, they can bring those millions of viewers onto their digital platform and keep them engaged indefinitely even when a particular season is running and beyond that period. .

Benefits of creating fantasy games around reality TV

Continual recall value
When you build a fantasy game around a certain season of a reality show, your reality stars can remain in the memory of viewers for a longer time. With every channel adding a reality show almost every month now, it’s hard for your stars to stand out. There can be different variations of fantasy games on reality shows, which can keep viewers engaged with your stars and shows throughout the year. Reality stars get their gamified avatars that help them become individual brands.

Popularity and viewership
Fantasy games platforms etch out the show more deeply into the minds of viewers. The competition inspires them to play against friends and acquaintances, the rewards motivate them to keep playing and sharing their achievements on social media. This most naturally adds to the popularity and viewership of reality shows.

Add-on revenue generation
Fantasy games on reality shows offer a variety of options for revenue generation. You can choose to offer certain paid levels of fantasy games. Moreover, you can earn from display ads, digital sponsorships on your fantasy games website. This platform may also be used for promoting and selling show-related merchandise and memorabilia.

Niche branding
One of the biggest challenges that television channels face today is the pressure to sustain popularity and serve a larger audience each time. They mostly succeed in achieving this by massive promotion exercises that are often riskier investments. Moreover, they also have competition from various other reality television shows and channels that are doing similar things. Therefore, when they think of gamifying their shows, they can get an easy edge over others with far less investment than their usual promotion exercises and better ROI.

Reality television is here to stay but it has its own share of pitfalls. Unless entertainment channels think something extremely unique, reality shows may also face a dearth of novel ideas. If you are up for building a sticky fantasy game platform with the purpose of a deeper fan engagement, let us talk.