Author Topic: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers  (Read 4642 times)

Online SteveD

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SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« on: July 27, 2020, 09:32:56 PM »
One thing that has been interesting Comic-Con this year is that we have more insight into the popularity of all the panels that were presented.

If you think about how everyone attends panels at a normal Comic-Con, they would normally sit through one, or two, or many earlier panels to see the one they want.
I'm sure we've all been at a panel in Hall H where one panelist will comment on how so many people came out to see their panel, while in fact, most were there to see Marvel or DC later in the day.
This year, however, watching from home, we had the ability to choose to watch only the panels we wanted to see and skip those that we were not interested in.
We now have the opportunity to look at some real popularity numbers. So I went ahead and compiled a list of all the panels from each day along with the number of YouTube views given for each panel.

What I found was overall, the two most popular panels viewed during SDCC@Home, by a significant margin, were The Vikings and The New Mutants panels, followed by The Walking Dead panels, and The Constantine Reunion panel.

Here is a snapshot taken on Monday July 27 at around 6PM PDT of the viewing numbers for all the SDCC@Home panels for each day of the Con.
Thoughts? Surprises?

Wednesday Panels
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Thursday Panels
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Friday Panels
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Saturday Panels
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Sunday Panels
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The IGN Official Panels - By Popular Demand
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eta: Added IGN Panels
« Last Edit: July 28, 2020, 01:13:40 PM by SteveD »

Offline Miclpea

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2020, 09:40:10 PM »
Steve, you are truly amazing! Your data analysis is spot on! Don’t stop!


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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #2 on: Today at 06:30:07 PM »

Offline AzT

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2020, 05:41:04 AM »
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Views on YouTube, which hosted the vast majority of Comic-Con’s panels, were scarcely better. Average views for Thursday, which have had the longest period for people to watch them, are hovering around 15,000 per panel. On the one hand, that’s over double the capacity for Comic-Con’s biggest live venue, the famed Hall H. On the other hand, 😬.

In terms of YouTube views and social media impact, by far the best performing panel for Comic-Con@Home was for “The New Mutants,” 20th Century Studios’ long-suffering Marvel Comics adaptation which has had its released date pushed four times since April 2018. To date, the film’s panel has logged just over 208,000 views on YouTube since July 23, thanks largely to the decision to debut a first look at the opening scene for the film within the panel itself, and it was the most discussed movie panel on Twitter, generating 7,700 tweets.

Offline TardisMom

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #3 on: July 28, 2020, 08:00:00 AM »
Thanks Steve, great info!

I'm really surprised that Vikings was so popular, their fans are dedicated!  I'm curious, does YouTube count additional viewings on the same device as additional views?

And The Mutants clearly has a eager audience for when it finally opens!

Offline NCDS

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #4 on: July 28, 2020, 08:20:49 AM »
I don't know that it was a failure, it does tell us that people go to the convention for more than panels.
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Online SteveD

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2020, 08:37:15 AM »
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I don't know that it was a failure, it does tell us that people go to the convention for more than panels.
I'm not sure how SDCC@Home could be considered a failure, it was just different.  It certainly wasn't a true SDCC experience, but I don't think it was meant to be.
I could even see Comic-Con International setting up a separate event in the future, like Comic-Con@Home, that could offer another avenue for content providers to exhibit their work aside from attending Wondercon or SDCC.

Offline kmy

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2020, 09:49:52 AM »
I was really surprised by how negative that Variety article came down on the panel watch counts! I think they'll continue to go up for at least a few days since people didn't necessarily feel the pressure to watch everything during the four official days of SDCC.

Offline frgx

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2020, 11:34:36 AM »
Numbers go up if you add the IGN counts.

Offline chocolateshake

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2020, 12:08:07 PM »
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Numbers go up if you add the IGN counts.

They do.  That's a consideration.  These panels aren't just available on one channel.  Many were made available on multiple channels.  For example the Star Trek panel.  If you only consider the CCI channel, it's 63K views.  But it's also available on the IGN and CBS channels.  On IGN it has 19K views.  On CBS it has 5.1K views.  Furthermore, CBS is cutting it down into separate panels.  For examples they cut out the Picard section to be it's own panel.  Just the Picard portion of that panel has 11K views.  Adding all those up, instead of 63K views it has 98.1K views.

It's even more complicated than that.  Since Youtube has an algorithm to decide what it considers a "view".  Just because someone watched the whole video doesn't mean it will be counted as a view.  Since it can be classified as a low quality view.  On the otherhand, someone can watch 10 minutes of a hour video and that can be considered a view.

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I'm really surprised that Vikings was so popular, their fans are dedicated!

I only watched 3 panels through to the end.  Vikings was my favorite.  Not only did they put at least a little effort into it, they were even excited to be there.  They seemed truly disappointed that they couldn't attend SDCC this year.

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I'm curious, does YouTube count additional viewings on the same device as additional views?

I don't think so.  Those are considered low quality views.  Even if the same person watches a video multiple times on different devices, it's considered low quality and thus doesn't make the cut.

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I don't know that it was a failure, it does tell us that people go to the convention for more than panels.

Of course not.  It's for the offsites. ;)  At least it is for me.  Last year, I think I only went to one panel.  Most of my paneling is on Hall H Sunday.  Last year I couldn't get in in the morning so I gave up.

I wouldn't call it a failure.  But I wouldn't call it a success either.  While it was happening, I was disappointed to see how few views the panels were getting.  Even the most widely viewed panel has a meager number of views by Youtube standards.  People with small Youtube channels have more views every time they put up a new video.

The content just wasn't very compelling.  Just recording a video conference and replaying it doesn't do it.  It would be acceptable if it was live and thus reacted live to the viewers, but the vast majority were not.  Worse, CCI turned off comments on the videos.  That took away any shred of a shared experience.  Watch good live streams on Youtube and you'll see the viewership actively participating with the content creator.  Sometimes those comments are so many that they fly by faster than can be read.  That's a successful stream.

I really don't see why the panels were prerecorded.  Most were just replays of video conferences.  For prerecorded videos, they weren't compelling.  If they are precorded, then there is enough time to make them good.  The production values were low.  Content creators put up compelling high quality content on Youtube everyday.  They do it self trained while isolated at home using a laptop.  You'd think that a big studio could at least match that.  Instead of just hitting record in a video conferencing app, they could have had the participants record high quality footage of themselves.  Then that footage could have been edited together to look like at least a TV quality panel.  So many of the panels were so blurry that I couldn't even tell who was who.

In the end, I didn't watch much of @home.  I got distracted by the recommendations from Youtube for the channels I normally watch.  That content was more compelling.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2020, 12:39:46 PM by chocolateshake »

Online SteveD

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #9 on: July 28, 2020, 01:18:50 PM »
I added in the IGN numbers for comparison. Of course these views had a few extra hours to accumulate, but I consider it close enough since there's no money involved.  ;)

Offline TardisMom

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #10 on: July 28, 2020, 03:58:38 PM »
I just looked again and honestly I think the numbers are fantastic! I mean, 53000 views for Charlize Theron, just her talking to a moderator?  She would have been "filler" in Hall H probably, and 6600 people would have seen her.  And that's the highest number ANY of these panels would have gotten.  Also we need to remember that often more than one person was watching each panel, for instance my daughter and I watched together on the big tv.   

Offline chocolateshake

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #11 on: July 28, 2020, 04:50:12 PM »
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I just looked again and honestly I think the numbers are fantastic! I mean, 53000 views for Charlize Theron, just her talking to a moderator?  She would have been "filler" in Hall H probably, and 6600 people would have seen her.  And that's the highest number ANY of these panels would have gotten.  Also we need to remember that often more than one person was watching each panel, for instance my daughter and I watched together on the big tv.   

Anyone can watch many of the comic-con panels on Youtube every year.  That's what I do after comic-con to salve the post comic-con blues.

Here's the Witcher panel from last year.


Offline mark

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #12 on: July 29, 2020, 03:59:11 PM »
My main takeaway is how many more people got to see the smaller panels at the tail end of the counts, many of these panels would have had 20, 50 people under normal circumstances. Plus, unlike the marquee panels, these don't tend to get press coverage or put online afterwards. Would be nice if CCI could make these available, categorize and promote them in the future.

Offline perc2100

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #13 on: July 29, 2020, 04:10:15 PM »
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My main takeaway is how many more people got to see the smaller panels at the tail end of the counts, many of these panels would have had 20, 50 people under normal circumstances. Plus, unlike the marquee panels, these don't tend to get press coverage or put online afterwards. Would be nice if CCI could make these available, categorize and promote them in the future.
Absolutely!  Comic-Con @ Home was awesome for smaller panels, I think.  I was talking to someone online who hosted a panel that likely would've been in a small upstairs ballroom (it was, like, a niche of a niche of a niche type of panel IIRC), and on Monday am his panel had almost 8k views!  For someone who likely would've gotten, _maybe_ a couple hundred live, he outdrew anything that would've physically been in Hall H!  That's incredible!!!

Offline perc2100

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Re: SDCC@Home Panels By The Numbers
« Reply #14 on: July 29, 2020, 04:30:29 PM »
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Views on YouTube, which hosted the vast majority of Comic-Con’s panels, were scarcely better. Average views for Thursday, which have had the longest period for people to watch them, are hovering around 15,000 per panel. On the one hand, that’s over double the capacity for Comic-Con’s biggest live venue, the famed Hall H. On the other hand, 😬.

In terms of YouTube views and social media impact, by far the best performing panel for Comic-Con@Home was for “The New Mutants,” 20th Century Studios’ long-suffering Marvel Comics adaptation which has had its released date pushed four times since April 2018. To date, the film’s panel has logged just over 208,000 views on YouTube since July 23, thanks largely to the decision to debut a first look at the opening scene for the film within the panel itself, and it was the most discussed movie panel on Twitter, generating 7,700 tweets
.
 ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)

A few things:
1) I will abide by 'family rules' and not say explicitly what I think of this, and other articles I've seen that have been pretty scathing....
2) Understand that the vast majority of legit, professional journalist (especially from major outlets and large online outlets) typical _LOATHE_ having to cover Comic-Con.  I know several writers, varying from Rolling Stone to a myriad of online entertainment websites, and _NONE_ of them like Comic-Con: almost all of them hate covering Comic-Con.  It's a TON of work, little fun (though the drunken parties at night are insane, or at least they used to be when I was younger and not attending every day w/my kid - note: I'm NOT talking about me, I only 'worked' SDCCI a few times and I didn't mind it, though I didn't work as hard as most of the folks I know), and it's essentially time away from their families, away from home, off their routines, and starting early in the morning to fairly late at night working almost non-stop.  Smaller outlets, people who do it mainly for fun and not as their primary job, are much different (I was in that class), and are more fans than pro journalists.  But most of these reporters are not fans of Comic-Con, and some of them (people I know for sure, likely others I don't know personally but it feels that way in their writing) look for any excuse to eviscerate SDCCI/CCI
3) I can't fathom looking at those numbers and thinking SDCCI @ Home was "A Bust"  I suspect the vast majority of those view numbers posted exceed almost every room they would've been in!  That's a win!!  Add to the fact that CCI put on a virtual Comic-Con with _hundreds_ of pre-recorded panels, in a relatively short amount of time!  They canceled SDCCI in mid-April, giving them just over 3 months to put everything together
4) Also realize most of these larger outlets _ONLY_ cover the big-room panels: Hall H, Ballroom 20, or maybe Indigo Ballroom.  Most of these journalists only care about the big sexy panels that appeal to the broadest audience.  The problem with that mindset in 2020: Hollywood has been shutdown, no one knows when US theaters will _really_ be able to open, studios have no idea when they'll be able to release films in the US, and thus their marketing departments don't want to spend money, while their profusely bleeding cash w/little to no revenue for at least a quarter of the year.  I mean, for an example, WarnerMedia posted $7.4 billion in quarterly revenue, down 12.2 percent. Operating income fell 24.3 percent to $1.7 billion.  That's a substantial loss, and that was in MID APRIL (and at least USA and parts of Europe were up-and-running for a lot of the 1st quarter).
That translates to not a lot of the big sexy Hollywood panels that most major media outlets report on, almost exclusively: meaning many of these writers are coming from the wrong place
5) It sounds like many of these negative articles are from writers who seemingly thought Comic-Con @ Home would be a replica of in-person Comic-Con!  I have no idea what they've been doing the last 4+ months while we've lived virtually, but of course the 'audience connection' is going to be lacking.  No one ever said this would be a replacement for SDCCI, just that it would be _something_ instead of nothing.  Again, that type of writing is coming from the wrong place.

I voiced my thoughts, but I also realize that's _ME_, not necessarily the situation.  I think CCI did an amazing job, offered a 100% free virtual experience that it looks like hundreds of thousands seemed to participate in, and offered panels that seemingly got more eyes virtually than likely would've gotten in-person.
Now, does one want to make an argument that "NEW MUTANTS would've likely gotten hundreds of thousands of views with the same footage released after a Hall H presentation," then OK: but again, that's comparing non-pandemic apples to pandemic oranges - different time/situation!

IDK; I'm in a salty mood over a myriad of real-life stuff so maybe that's why I'm kind of aggressively pissed about these negative reviews.  I think the numbers think of themselves, and they seem solid to me