Digital signage has evolved. Features like LiveTV integration now let businesses supercharge audience engagement. In today’s digital landscape, it has become an essential tool for connecting with customers, sharing updates, and enhancing brand experiences. From restaurants to retail stores, digital displays are now common, yet many businesses are still not using them to their full potential.
Incorporating LiveTV is one of the most impactful ways to make digital signage more engaging and useful. Below are the benefits and ways you can use LiveTV with digital signs:
What is LiveTV?
LiveTV allows businesses to incorporate real-time TV broadcasts (news, sports, entertainment) into their digital signage displays, creating dynamic content that keeps viewers engaged. This can be achieved via traditional cable or satellite TV, using IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) on private networks, or through web-based OTT (over-the-top) streaming platforms. Live TV can be shown full-screen or alongside other digital content, creating a dynamic and versatile display. This feature is commonly used in environments where real-time information is valuable, such as restaurants, corporate offices, retail stores, and health clinics.
Restaurant & Bar Use-Case
Restaurants and sports bars can use LiveTV to entertain patrons and boost engagement. For instance, a sports bar might display live games to create a lively atmosphere that encourages customers to stay longer and order more. One study found patrons spend approximately 36% more and 87% stay longer when live sports are shown.
Psychology Behind It
Motion grabs attention. Research shows moving visuals attract about 4× more viewers than static content. By incorporating LiveTV, digital signage leverages this effect to draw in customers naturally. Unlike displays that focus only on products like menu boards or looping promotions — LiveTV offers content that feels organic and inviting. Because it doesn’t feel like a sales pitch, viewers are more relaxed and open to surrounding content. This is what makes LiveTV so effective. It keeps customers engaged with sports, news, or entertainment, thereby solving the common problem of people ignoring screens.
When the broadcast isn’t as interesting, viewers’ attention shifts to nearby promotions or messages. Even if customers don’t act immediately, LiveTV content boosts recall. Studies show viewers remember ~80% of video content vs ~20% for static displays. This increased recall makes later purchases more likely. This is especially powerful in places where people aren’t actively shopping but still have spending potential, like waiting areas, lounges, or dining spaces.
Dedicating 60-70% of the screen space to LiveTV keeps viewers entertained without overwhelming them with ads. The result? Longer screen engagement, stronger brand awareness, and increased influence on future purchases — all without feeling intrusive. By blending entertainment with strategic messaging, LiveTV makes digital signage not just noticeable, but truly effective.
Benefits
LiveTV offers a hassle-free way to keep digital signage relevant and engaging without constant content updates. By combining live entertainment with strategic messaging, it naturally holds attention while reinforcing brand awareness.
- Always Fresh, Minimal Maintenance: Traditional digital signage requires frequent content updates to stay relevant, but LiveTV automatically keeps screens dynamic and engaging. Since the content feels more natural, not like a hard sell, viewers stay relaxed and become more receptive to adjacent messages.
- Maximize Exposure: LiveTV’s movement and real-time content naturally attract viewers, solving the common issue of people ignoring screens. The longer people watch, the more exposure they have to nearby promotions, making them more familiar with your brand and increasing the likelihood of future purchases.
- Adaptable to Any Audience: With a simple channel switch, LiveTV allows businesses to match their content with their audience, whether it’s sports, news, or entertainment without needing custom content.
- Drives Buying Decisions: LiveTV seamlessly blends entertainment with promotions, making advertising feel less intrusive and more natural. Customers absorb brand messaging passively, making them more likely to recall offers and act on them later. In fact, digital signage content has a recall rate around 83%, far higher than traditional ads. By keeping promotions in a context where customers are already engaged, LiveTV enhances the impact of digital signage marketing.
- Enhance Customer Experience: When people are entertained, they stay longer, giving your messaging more time to influence them. LiveTV makes waiting areas, lounges, and dining spaces more enjoyable, reducing perceived waiting times by up to ~35% while keeping customers engaged.
Healthcare Use-Case
Clinics and hospitals can integrate LiveTV in their waiting areas to improve the patient experience. For example, displaying news, health programming, or calming entertainment helps reduce perceived wait times and stress. Digital signage in healthcare settings has been shown to distract and inform patients, making the wait feel shorter and more pleasant.
Combining LiveTV with Digital Signage
Using LiveTV with digital signage opens a range of possibilities for engaging your audience in a variety of ways. Since it naturally captures customers’ attention, it becomes a highly optimized space for marketing opportunities.
Here are some ways to combine LiveTV with digital signage:
- Interactive Features: incorporate live polls or trivia to directly invite viewers to engage. By inviting customers to engage in real-time, you foster a deeper connection with your brand. This interaction can increase time spent at the location and improve brand recall.
- Targeted Promotions: show real-time product or service promotions that are relevant to the live content. For example, $5 off for snacks during a game. The real-time factor in the promotions makes customers more likely to act upon them.
- Dynamic Advertising: display new offers or other ads that may appeal to the audience during a certain time of day. For instance, new cocktails are on a 20% discount in the evening.
- Value-Adding Content: conveniently show helpful content, such as a weather forecast, to enhance the viewer’s overall experience. This can create positive brand recall as the customer feels a sense of care from the brand.
Where to Place LiveTV?
Showing cable TV content is most effective when clients are not actively making a purchase, as they are more likely to engage with what’s on-screen when they have downtime. Strategic placement plays a key role in ensuring that LiveTV enhances rather than disrupts the customer experience. For example, placing LiveTV at the direct point of sale, such as the checkout area, can be counterproductive, as it may distract customers from their transaction, slow down the process, and reduce engagement with promotional materials or impulse-buy opportunities. LiveTV’s movement and real-time content naturally attract viewers, helping to solve the common issue of people ignoring screens. Studies motion content is about 81% more effective at grabbing attention than static content.
✔ Best Locations | ✖ Avoid These Areas |
Waiting lounges | Checkout counters |
Dining areas | Transaction points |
Lobbies | Staff-only zones |
Hospitality Use-Case
Hotels can use LiveTV in their lobby displays to enhance guest experiences. A hotel screen could stream news or travel content while also showing welcome messages or promotions for on-site services like spas, dining, or events. This creates a professional and inviting atmosphere, while also encouraging upsells and reinforcing brand presence.
Final Thoughts
LiveTV is more than just entertainment — it’s a powerful tool that enhances digital signage by making screens more engaging, relevant, and low-maintenance. By capturing customer attention naturally, it ensures that brand messaging, promotions, and announcements receive more visibility without feeling intrusive.
Ready to take your digital signage to the next level? Incorporate LiveTV today to create dynamic, engaging screens that keep customers informed, entertained, and connected to your brand. Contact our digital signage experts to learn how LiveTV can transform your business and marketing strategies.
You can learn more about NexSigns’ Digital Signage solution and connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and YouTube to get the latest info on digital signage!
