The First-Ever LGBTQ Channel On Sky, OUTtv UK Launches With Brand Advance Behind It.
We recently saw the launch of OUTtv UK & Ireland, a LGBT channel dedicated to showcasing LGBTQ+ talent and content making it the first LGBT channel available on Sky. OUTtv is already available in other European countries and as is it arrives here in the UK we talk to Chirs Kenna CEO of Brand Advance, a creative marketing agency, who is working with the channel to connect various brands with the diverse LGBT community as well as creating content for the channel. Chris who is raising two children from two different cultural backgrounds, one Caucasian and one of Black descent, urges brands to do more to ensure that they are more inclusive and tells us how he is going to use his gobby mouth to promote the rights that he enjoys here as a gay man himself, elsewhere around the world.
What part have you and Brand Advance play in the launch of OUTtv UK?
As the CEO of Brand Advance, I’m really excited about OUTtv UK and Ireland. It’s really great because we can expand on our LGBT home networks and obviously our digital platform offerings. But now we can bring LGBT lifestyle tv broadcasting to the homes of about 40 million people who have Sky which is where the channel is on.
How will you ensure that OUTtv UK stands out from all the other platforms aimed at the LGBT community?
The OUTtv Europe team have had that in hand and have been trying to get into the UK for a while, where we stepped in was to bring that channel as an offering to brands in the UK. It’s all very well bringing a channel into the UK representing a demographic but if brands are not willing to spend on that channel then it is not going to stay around for very long. We are looking to forward to this year even though the whole world has quite literally decided to stop spinning and brands have also decided to pull on some of their spending but we are all still optimistic. There is still a good reason even in this climate for brands to be reaching into the living rooms of the LGBT community and to be engaging in this new contextual environment, that environment being a channel with content geared at that community.
What is Brand Advance’s purpose in connecting brands with diverse audiences? How do you manage to do this?
I’ve got a mixed-race kid and a white kid and advertising, brands and the whole media landscape as it stands right now doesn’t necessarily speak to both of my kids equally. That is not the sole reason for Brand Advance and I certainly don’t think that is the only reason for our growth recently. The world is made up of different communities and even this pandemic that is going on right now has in a way made us into one world. I think it’s more physical distancing and social connecting rather than social distancing. The world has become a smaller more intertwined place and Brand Advance wants to make sure that within this new world, the new normal, brands are still spending on the media that is representing each of these different communities globally and also brands can show that their campaigns resonate with everyone.
Gone are the days when a coca-cola advert with a £10 million spend one video could speak to the whole world and get them invested in the brand. Coca Cola have moved on from that of course. However, brands that think that’s how it still works are not going to succeed in this new world. Both of my kids are culturally different although they have lived together all their lives, the media they consume is culturally different and because their dad is gay, the media I consume is different from them. So clearly there are three different people in one family unit that you need to speak to differently. Really, we want to make sure that brands are speaking to everyone, brands are respectful, are authentic, address all cultural nuances and do what they are supposed to do which is include everyone. A brand’s purpose is to get itself out to as many people as possible, a marketer’s purpose is to engage as many people as possible with that brand. The only way to do that is to include every community and to spend in every community.
What sort of shows can we expect to see on OUTtv UK?
One of the good things about OUTtv UK & Ireland is that it is going to educate its viewers whether they are of the LGBT community or allies. The channel will educate in that it will bring the different family dynamics like mine, same-sex dynamics and it will show the mindset and the way of living from different facets of the LGBT community it will bring all of that into one square space in the living room. Most of all it will show you the joy, glitter and glitz of the LGBT community. You’ve got RuPaul’s Drag Race from all over the world on the channel, but we’ve also got the serious documentaries. Brand Advance make documentaries and have made series documentaries for OUTtv. A 2nd Series of Queer Street is coming to OUTtv UK where you can delve into the lives of people who work and play around the LGBT community. You can get under the hood of people like myself LGBT business owners and get more of an insight into the publications and platforms that speak to this community. I hear a lot when I am out at events and around a lot of places about heteronormality, where the LGBT community is said is trying so hard to make it feel normal to be LGBT. The LGBT community doesn’t need to fit in, we are normal. OUTtv UK is not joining the EPG of Sky in all its channel companions in order to fit in. We don’t need to fit in, we are as you are, the only difference is sexuality or gender assignment, or none gender assignment.
I think OUTtv UK will show the best of our community and our lifestyle and even show some of the worst people that can be in every community because it’s always good to have channels that are balanced because the world isn’t such a glitzy and glamourous place. I mean look at it right now. OUTtv UK will educate, entertain, inspire, make you laugh, make you cry and that’s what channels need to do. That’s what that my TV screen does for me whether it’s Marvel, I’m addicted to Disney plus at the moment or whether it’s David Attenborough on Wildlife. I just sit there laughing or crying but rarely do I see something different. OUTtv UK will bring to people something that they have never seen before and I think throughout this isolation what we really need is entertainment. We all know the LGBT community is certainly one high up there for entertainment. I think OUTtv UK has come at the perfect time and hopefully, it can bring some joy and happiness into isolation.
How do you feel about the current status of the statutes in this country protecting LGBT rights? Do you think more can be done?
I can only speak from lived and learned experience as I do not speak on behalf of the whole community. I think the rights we have are pretty good, there is always going to be some dickheads in the community and people in other communities that will be homophobic, racist and they are always around and there is not a lot we can do about that. I think with regards to the rights of marriage, our legal statutory rights throughout different parts of the law, hate speech laws etc, I am quite happy. With other countries around the world, they could be better and I hope that they do get better but for me I am very lucky to live in the UK, to live a bit of a privileged life with all the rights that everybody else enjoys. I think from my cushy little privileged life in London it’s now my duty, the whole community’s duty, and my company’s duty, as we are representing the LGBT community whether from a commercial space or not, it is our duty to champion these rights in countries where they are not. We are privileged to be able to commercialise these different demographics and help people bring their voices to life by putting brands’ money into them. After that, we also have a duty to make sure that the same statutory rights that we enjoy here in the UK are enjoyed elsewhere around the rest of the world. I am very gobby and I like to think that I can get shit done and I’m going to help achieve this in every way I can before I leave this earth. Hopefully, I’m already helping in some sort of way with the work I do.
OUTtv UK is on channel 330 for £9.99 a month, with annual subscriptions to the service costing £99.
