With the streaming market gaining momentum and a swathe of new competitors over the last years, premium entertainment network Showtime decided it was time to renovate – building two new streaming apps for Roku and Xbox One.

If you’ve ever watched TV shows like Dexter, Billions, Yellowjackets or New Blood, you’ve used Showtime, an American entertainment network owned by Paramount. It’s known for its exclusive and critically acclaimed original TV shows, blockbusters and world-famous Pay-Per-View (PPV) sports events.

For the last six years, Showtime and UIC Digital have worked together to take its applications through an evolution of continuous improvement, aiming to remain at the forefront of streaming technology. Building on this trend, our collaboration focused on expanding Showtime’s reach, delivering its award-winning content to audiences on all new Roku and Xbox One applications.

With the streaming industry exploding in popularity and new players entering the market Showtime recognised the importance of reaching wider audiences across platforms. And not only this: it sought to create a rich Pay-Per-View section dedicated to Showtime’s sports fighting events, increasing both audience engagement and opening new revenue streams as a result.

Behind-the-scenes

We designed and developed Showtime’s new Xbox One app from scratch. Collaborating with Showtime’s internal team, we first got under the skin of the channel’s target audience, using research to understand their likes, dislikes and what they were looking for from a streaming app. We analysed the demographics, content preferences and most wanted features. Then we created a design and development strategy off the back of this research, defined by the features and requirements we found in user research and those needed by the client. It included an intuitive user interface, optimisation across devices to give smooth performance and, of course, Xbox One platform compatibility.

Over the next six years, we released multiple iterations and platform updates to keep Showtime at the bleeding edge of app technology. This continuous evolution also kept Showtime in line with new tech, changing user expectations and industry trends. Showtime’s new Pay-Per-View feature for fight nights was particularly well-loved, with a seamless integration, streamlined in app payment process and unwavering high-quality live streams.

For Roku, the project was a little more challenging – something we always relish, as a team. We inherited the existing codebase from another agency, and so we pulled it through a thorough code review to understand its architecture, functionalities and areas for optimisation. It was an opportunity to use our technical expertise and adaptability to turn something else into something better. Using our analysis, we created a detailed plan to refactor and improve the code one step at a time as we focused on different sections of the application to also integrate new features. That way we could work methodically through the technical debt and increase performance whilst introducing new features. Despite its complexities, we were able to transform the existing app into a more stable, responsive platform for users.

It’s Showtime

Overall, the project was challenging in different ways; on the one hand a blank slate and endless possibilities that needed refining, and on the other a tight brief set to an older architecture that showed our ability to adapt to different coding styles, and retrofit existing applications to shine in the modern technological age. Both applications then went on to improve customer satisfaction, shiny and new, with an easy-to-use interface and plenty of features that kept Showtime at the top of its game.