Parrot Analytics is a technology company that measures global supply and demand for entertainment content.[1][2][3] Parrot Analytics’ technology has been developed by a team of data scientists and entertainment executives from DreamWorks Animation, Sony Pictures, MGM Studios and MIT Media Lab.[4]
The company measures how much entertainment content is wanted by audiences around the world in today's attention economy; it has developed a globally standardized system to quantify global entertainment content popularity.[5][6][7] Parrot Analytics tracks and maps global content across all markets and platforms at scale.[8][9] The company’s audience demand data is used by producers,[10][11][12] showrunners,[13] studios,[14][15] talent,[16][17] television executives[18][19] and fans[20] alike.
Journalists, academics, executives and industry insiders use demand data to analyze the globalization of content,[21][22] content supply and demand,[23][24] streaming business models[25][26][27] and programming trends within the entertainment industry.[28][29]
Parrot Analytics demand data has also been used to write about entertainment industry dynamics,[30][31][32] performance prediction modelling,[33][34] the monetization of content,[35][36] issues of race, diversity and inclusion[37][38][39] and the impact of COVID-19 on viewing habits.[40]
In 2019, Parrot Analytics introduced the The Global TV Demand Awards as the most comprehensive global “people’s choice” award show, based on the company’s global audience demand dataset,[41] sparking commentary from industry executives, analysts, producers, talent and talent agencies.[42][43][44]
Parrot Analytics’ demand measurement system incorporates a global audience behavior dataset and employs AI, machine learning, pattern identification and contextual techniques to synthesize petabytes of data from 249 countries into meaningful insights for global entertainment brands.[45][46]
The system captures the modern-day entertainment and streaming consumer landscape of over 2 billion people globally that access the Internet to search for, read about, comment on, view, discuss and share content.[47] These demand signals are then weighted and combined on a daily basis. [48][49]
Parrot Analytics sources and cleans audience demand signals that the company collects from search engines, social media, piracy downloads and streaming traffic to create an aggregate, weighted metric that can be translated into a daily audience demand value for a TV show in a territory. The audience demand for a show can be thought of as the total market demand; audience demand data is country-specific and platform agnostic.[50]
To calculate how much audience demand a TV show has anywhere in the world, the company looks at all the places where people are watching TV shows (such as streaming/downloads), talking about TV shows (hashtags, liking, sharing) and researching about TV shows (reading about shows, writing about shows, etc.)[51][52][53]
Parrot Analytics filters out the audience demand signals and weighs up each signal based on their importance.[54] All signals are weighted against a consumer's effort, so that the more time and effort it takes to watch a show, for example, the higher the contribution that signal has to the overall demand value in that market.[55][56][57]
Parrot Analytics works across the media and entertainment industries. Global audience demand data helps solve problems from content creation to marketing and distribution, with demonstrated high correlations between the company’s demand data and SVOD/OTT subscriber growth and retention rates.[58]
Parrot’s methodology is based on a content genome approach to showcase how entertainment content becomes successful. Internal factors include genes such as the plot, cast, director, themes, etc. External factors include genes such as windowing and access, franchise demand, affinity to other content, marketing effectiveness, a show’s global travelability, release timing as well as audience sentiment and virality.[59]
The company conducted research for the British Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, as part of the British Film Institute’s launch of the Global Content Fund.[60] Parrot Analytics is also retained by the Canada Media Fund.[61][62][63]
Parrot Analytics data has been cited in Bloomberg, The New York Times, Axios, Vox, The Wall Street Journal and many more global publications. Parrot’s data has also been called “imprecise” in some articles.[64] Content measurement for content on streaming services is difficult because companies aren’t transparent with data. Parrot Analytics is a source for journalists, academics, and industry insiders trying to determine the success of a show, movie, or special.