RTÉ will for the first time put an entire series on the RTÉ Player before it is broadcast on television. The School, a three-part mockumentary about the staging of a primary school nativity play, will be available on-demand on the Player from tomorrow, six days ahead of the broadcast of the first episode on RTÉ 2 on November 23rd.

The move, which echoes similar tactics employed by UK broadcasters, signals the next stage of a wider RTÉ strategy to prioritise the online delivery of television content aimed at younger viewers. It also comes ahead of the launch of a next-generation RTÉ Player in the first quarter of 2018.

“It is part of our strategy to build Player as a destination in its own right for watching fresh content,” said RTÉ head of online Aoife Byrne.

The School is made by CCCahoots, an improvisational sketch comedy troupe from Cork, and was commissioned by RTÉ head of comedy, music and talent development Eddie Doyle. It begins with the appointment of a new principal to a Co Cork primary school just weeks before its nativity play, and is billed by RTÉ as a family-friendly show for anyone who looks back fondly on their own schooldays.

Single episodes

RTÉ has previously premiered single episodes of programmes online, but it has never uploaded a full home-produced series ahead of broadcast for viewers to watch at their own pace.

This year, the broadcaster added archive box-sets such as Fade Street, Popstars and The Clinic to the Player, while it has also stepped up the number of short-form online-only commissions such as exercise workouts from Amanda Byram, recipes by Sophie White and interiors series The Good Room with Caroline Foran and Jo Linehan.

Ms Byrne said this short-form content tended to be “sticky”, meaning viewers who clicked into one video tended to stay on the RTÉ Player and stream more content. Some 60 per cent of Player usage comes from mobile devices.

The new version of the RTÉ Player will include some features, such as personalised content recommendations, that will only be available to signed-in users, but sign-in will not be mandatory to access the Player.

‘Personalised experience’

“We want to be able to give users a more personalised experience and to get that you will have to sign in,” Ms Byrne said.

The core audience for the RTÉ Player is 25-35-year-olds, she added, indicating that the Player has a natural “affiliation” with RTÉ 2 programmes.

It is understood that a greater emphasis on the digital distribution of content is one element of RTÉ’s five-year strategy from 2018 to 2023, which it recently submitted to the Department of Communications.

The move would be in keeping with broader trends in the audio-visual industry, which has seen younger audiences come to expect that television content should be available for “binge-viewing” on-demand and across devices.