Helping A Counter-Culture Classic Engage New Audiences through Linear Streaming
Night Flight Plus is an iconic digital streaming platform that began as a 1980s TV show famous for its offbeat and avant-garde content.
The original Night Flight featured music videos, underground films, and lively discussions on art and society. Today, Night Flight’s streaming service, Night Flight Plus upholds this counter-culture spirit by curating rare and unconventional programming that appeals to viewers yearning for an alternative to mainstream media.
With a dedicated fan base eager to revisit its retro roots, the Night Flight team looked for a technology partner that could help them develop a full-fledged digital service, modernize their streaming infrastructure, and expand the reach of its content library across digital through engaging viewing experiences.
The Challenge
Increase Fan engagement with a vast content library
When developing its streaming service Night Flight Plus, the small but mighty Night Flight team had to manage over 7,000 hours of both original and licensed content.
"Running a full streaming service with a limited team seemed daunting," explains Thomas Mullarney, Night Flight’s EVP of Content and Streaming. "We needed to maintain weekly content releases, manage thousands of hours of video, and create an immersive viewing experience that honored Night Flight's legacy – all without the resources of a major network."
While Night Flight Plus began as a way to stream a vast library of on-demand content, the team wanted to evolve their offering and present their programming in a new way that would not only engage fans, but also preserve the show’s tradition of discovery.
The team needed a streamlined approach to distribute fresh weekly programming and looked to recreate the “live TV” feel of the original show digitally in order to better engage a growing audience. Operating with just a small group of key individuals, Night Flight also had to ensure high-quality output with a limited staff. The key was to find a solution that was user-friendly, yet robust enough to handle consistent content updates and rapid scheduling changes.
The solution
Create 24/7 Digital Linear Channels that Replicate the TV Network Experience
The team turned to Zype to power Night Flight Plus, allowing them to engage counter-culture audiences with both a lean-back linear streaming experience and a rich library of on-demand content in one platform.
Night Flight amplified engagement with their streaming service by launching a linear channel experience - Night Flight TV (NFTV). Using Zype Playout to program and schedule their digital linear channels, Night Flight created a ground breaking and innovative channel, NFTV: Night Flight Original Episodes, that successfully recreated the original show’s Friday and Saturday night atmosphere. Delivered directly through the Night Flight Plus service, NFTV gives fans a nostalgic, “lean-back” cable-like viewing experience for programming from the original 1980s episodes as well as integrates new episodes that feature modern music from today’s indie labels.
Adding a linear channel to their product offering gave Night Flight the opportunity to create eventized experiences for fans, such as double features and staged event nights, allowing the team to maintain the show’s distinctive flair, and capitalize on high viewer engagement.
After the launch of their first linear channel, Night Flight saw a dramatic increase in time spent watching the service: “Our linear channel allowed us to increase engagement from 3 minutes to 20 minutes on average” says Stuart Shapiro, Founder of Night Flight.
After witnessing the success of their first linear channel, Night Flight added two additional playout channels: NFTV: Cult and Horrorthon, a Horror and Cult films themed channel, and most recently, NFTV: Independent and Arthouse, spotlighting early independent features of some of today’s most celebrated directors, art house essentials, and new independent cinema.
Easy Video Management, Monetization and Delivery with Zype’s Comprehensive Software Stack
In terms of content management, Zype’s Streaming Platform allows Night Flight to easily manage its videos and subscribers. Zype’s intuitive CMS makes it simple to import, manage, and catalog thousands of hours of media content. Zype’s integrated CRM and automated webhooks enable Night Flight to manage subscriptions and to trigger workflows based on changes in their subscriber database. Zype’s extensible API allows Night Flight to easily operationalize their content management allowing their small team to easily manage their extensive library.
Zype Playout makes it easy to manage the programming and delivery of all three linear channels with its intuitive drag-and-drop scheduler UI, ability to program content in either a calendar or horizontal timeline view, and ability to create programming blocks for efficient scheduling. Zype Playout’s ability to provide a network-style EPG that incorporates real-time programming data helps them deliver a network-like experience on digital. The ability to execute last-minute scheduling updates thanks to Zype Playout’s flexible architecture crucially allows the Night Flight team to be nimble and make programming changes on the fly.
Zype’s powerful analytics provide the Night Flight team powerful content and engagement analytics so they can track how viewers are consuming content across all streaming endpoints in real-time, and allow the team to optimize any programming schedules as needed based on current data.
"The Zype platform's ease of use and flexibility lets us focus on curating great content instead of wrestling with technical challenges” notes Mullarney.
Night Flight points to Zype’s responsive customer support as an added benefit, noting how the platform’s team has worked side by side with them to ensure smooth last-minute schedule changes and troubleshoot unexpected issues.
"The responsiveness of Zype's customer support has been invaluable," says Mullarney. "They've helped us troubleshoot and implement last-minute changes, ensuring our content launches go smoothly."
Thanks to Zype’s tools for robust content management, digital linear playout, flexible scheduling, and a high-quality streaming and delivery infrastructure, Night Flight continues to deliver a weekly stream of fresh and nostalgic material to its devoted fans with options for viewing formats.
“Zype’s comprehensive platform helped Night Flight transition its beloved TV brand into a modern digital streaming service without losing the counter-culture identity that made it famous,” says Shapiro. “The ability to produce three live channels with different subject focus has added unique value for our subscribers. The partnership with Zype allows us to maintain an ambitious release cadence and recreate the authentic communal spirit of the 1980s original, proving that a beloved classic brand can thrive in today’s competitive streaming landscape.”
“Zype’s comprehensive platform helped Night Flight transition its beloved TV brand into a modern digital streaming service without losing the counter-culture identity that made it famous. The ability to produce three live channels with different subject focus has added unique value for our subscribers."
- Stuart Shapiro, Founder of Night Flight
Night Flight used Zype Playout turn their robust video library into thematic, digital linear channels that added value to their subscription packages and increase engagement time with their platform.
To learn how Zype Playout can help you expand the impact of your content, request a demo today.
