RTÉ Player was losing an important audience to Netflix as it was the number one destination for 18–44-year-olds to watch content. This audience was not considering RTÉ Player when they wanted to watch content. The main reasons for this were that 18–44-year-olds were not aware of RTÉ Player, or they believed it was just a catch-up service. We needed to show this audience that we were so much more than a catch-up service. We had a vast library of original Irish content and great international content as well.

Our concept of Knockout Entertainment was devised to pitch the Irish content against the International content to show the audience the breadth of content available for them to stream on RTÉ Player. It was designed to be a fun, irreverent approach that would encourage 18–44-year-olds to get involved in the ‘Battles’ and vote for who they felt was the ‘Most Annoying Housemate’, the ‘Toughest Boss’ or the ‘Best Gossip’ through Instagram polls, TV, Radio and Social trailers, MPUs, Home page takeovers and marketing emails.