Fandom is the new moat and a new measurement challenge
Article 16 of 26 in series: The Great Reach Reset
Fandom is increasingly built across platforms rather than within a single channel. As media brands extend from content into social media, streaming, live experiences, commerce and communities, audience measurement needs to understand how reach and repeated engagement build relationships across the wider media ecosystem.
Among the many discussions about measurement, monetization, and the future of media at this year’s egta CEO & Top Execs’ Summit, one presentation stood out to me.
It was a session on fandom by Marion Ranchet from Streaming Made Easy.
At first, fandom may seem like an unusual topic for a conference attended primarily by broadcasters, media executives, and advertising leaders. But the more I reflected on her examples, the more I felt they touched on something important about where our industry is heading and what it means for audience measurement.
Marion highlighted three very different success stories: Bluey, FIFA, and the Sidemen.
One is a children’s television programme. One is the world’s largest football organisation. One is a creator collective that started on YouTube. Yet all three have built something that extends far beyond content and advertising itself.
More than content and advertising
Take Bluey. What started as a children’s television programme has become a global phenomenon. Today, the Bluey universe spans streaming, merchandise, licensing, books, live experiences, games, and social media. Its success is no longer defined only by how many people watch it, but also by how deeply people connect with it.
The same can be said about FIFA, although in a very different way. For decades, the match itself was the centre of the fan experience. Today, the match remains crucial, but it is only one part of a much larger ecosystem. Ahead of the 2026 World Cup, FIFA is investing heavily in platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, recognising that fan engagement increasingly happens through highlights, creators, behind-the-scenes content, tactical analysis, reaction videos, podcasts, and social communities. Fans no longer engage with football only for ninety minutes. They engage with it throughout the week, across platforms and formats.
Then there is the Sidemen. What began as a group of creators making YouTube videos has evolved into a diversified media business spanning streaming, merchandise, hospitality, live events, subscriptions, and branded products. Their success is not simply built on content production. It is built on a loyal community that follows them across platforms, formats, and businesses.
What fascinated me about all three examples was that they challenge a traditional view of media success.
Bluey, FIFA, and the Sidemen operate in completely different parts of the industry. Yet they are all creating value in remarkably similar ways. They are extending audience relationships across platforms, creating multiple opportunities for engagement, and turning passive consumers into active communities.
The strongest brands are no longer just building audiences. They are building communities.
Reach still comes first
For decades, the media industry has been built around reach. The ability to reach large audiences remains the foundation of how broadcasters, publishers, platforms, and advertisers create value. Reach drives awareness, fuels growth, and remains the starting point for every successful media business.
That has not changed.
What has changed is not the importance of reach, but the way audiences engage. Whether it is a Bluey fan moving between streaming, merchandise, live experiences, and social media, a football fan consuming everything from live matches and YouTube highlights to TikTok clips and podcasts, or a Sidemen fan following content across platforms, events, and commerce experiences, the audience journey has become fundamentally cross-media.
Fandom is no longer built in a single place, but through repeated interactions across platforms and over time a reality that makes it particularly interesting from a measurement perspective.
This is why I do not see fandom as an alternative to traditional audience measurement. I see it as a reminder of why audience measurement matters.
Fandom creates a measurement challenge too
As media consumption fragments across television, streaming services, social platforms, podcasts, gaming environments, and live experiences, understanding total reach and frequency becomes more important, not less. If anything, fragmentation increases the need for a shared view of audiences across media.
Fandom does not appear out of nowhere. It starts with exposure. It develops through repeated engagement. And over time, for some brands, it evolves into loyalty and community.
That makes incremental reach and frequency essential. Without reach, nothing starts. Without frequency, there is no fandom. And without understanding how audiences move across platforms, it becomes very difficult to understand how relationships with media brands are actually built. This is where cross-media measurement becomes critical.
It helps the industry move beyond looking at platforms in isolation and towards understanding audience behaviour across the full media ecosystem. Where are people reached? How often are they reached? Which touchpoints reinforce each other? And how do audiences move from discovery to deeper engagement?
The presentation at EGTA left me with a simple reflection: The media industry has spent decades becoming exceptionally good at building audiences. The next challenge is understanding how those audiences move across an increasingly fragmented media landscape and how, in some cases, they become communities.
That is not just an advertising challenge — it is a measurement challenge too.
This article is 16 of 26 in our series: The Great Reach Reset
About this article series
In a fragmented media landscape, reach is no longer a simple KPI - it is a strategic growth lever. In this article series, AudienceProject explores why advertisers are not failing at reach, but at measuring it properly, and why incremental, deduplicated cross-media reach has become essential to driving penetration, controlling frequency, and unlocking sustainable growth.
You might also like:
Why better media planning isn’t about finding the winning channel
What Coca-Cola can teach us about brand growth today
Why marketing measurement needs to catch up with media abundance
Why advertising measurement needs to move beyond Total TV
How brands grow in the era of AI
How AI is changing marketing and why measurement needs a new role
Signup for the AudienceProject newsletter
Industry relevant articles, truth-revealing studies, exiting new product launches and random thoughts from brilliant people - directly in your inbox. Free of charge and no spam guaranteed!