Has TV Had Its Day?

UK TV ad spend is expected to fall by 30% between 2007 and 2010 in real terms, and is closer to 19% when the changes are measured with inflation included according to a report by Enders Analysis.

By the end of this year, TV ad spend is expected to have fallen to £3.3bn, from £3.5bn last year. By 2009, TV ad spend is predicted to have fallen to £2.9bn and by 2010, to £2.8bn.Online growth and the appeal of online media, as well as the analogue to digital broadcast shift, are all structural changes cited for the decrease in TV national advertising revenue by Enders.Further structural change could follow as the funding gap between the BBC and the commercial broadcasters grows, fuelled by poor economic conditions and a gradual shift to more personalised media consumption in the digital age.

Reports rightly point to Internet advertising spend overtaking the £3.5 billion spent on ‘traditional TV’ for the first time next year; however in a sense, it is actually TV which is taking over the internet.

New formats and viewing occasions are being created where previously these options simply didn’t exist. Through the development of ITV’s online video service, 4OD and BBC’s iPlayer consumers are now devouring online video with a phenomenal appetite. Project Kangaroo is a much anticipated joint venture between ITV, Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide which will see the creation of a single site where consumers can search and enjoy content from all three broadcasters. The launch was scheduled for September 2008 but due to scrutiny from the OFT this has been delayed till later 2008, possibly early 2009. This will undoubtedly put the traditional players in a position of strength as they can combine content in one place for users to select what they watch, where they watch it and how they access it.

The scale of growth, and the ubiquity of audience, means that there are real, substantial and tangible commercial opportunities in this area, harnessing the known entertainment capacity of TV to the bespoke, dynamic, interactive functionality of the web.

2008 could well be seen as a watershed year for television as a whole, a year when the nation’s favourite form of entertainment gave definitive proof of its health in a new media landscape and demonstrated its ability to evolve and offer outstanding value for money.

Does You Tube Hold the Key to the Future of TV?

News Corporation and NBC Universal are attempting to upstage YouTube through a video site called Hulu. It only shows professional television shows and films but is forecast to draw level with Google’s You Tube in US advertising revenue next year. This suggests traditional media companies can make money online without having to relinquish control to Google, similar to the music industry doing it to Apple, whose iTunes music store dominates the digital music market. It also shows the difficulties other social networks might have in generating revenues from their amateur content.

Google paid $1.65bn two years ago for You Tube and it is by some distance the most popular online video destination, with 83m unique viewers in the US in September, compared to Hulu's 6m, according to Nielsen, but Screen Digest claim Hulu's advertising revenues are growing more quickly. Neither company breaks out its advertising revenues but Screen Digest, forecasts that in 2008 YouTube will generate about $100m in the US, compared with about $70m at Hulu. Next year both sites will generate about $180m in the US. An analyst states that YouTube is in a very tough place as most of the user-generated content is worthless or illegal. The next 18 months will determine whether or not it was just an expensive mistake for Google.

Advertisers prefer to associate products with well-known entertainment brands, said Tracey Scheppach, video innovations director at Starcom, a media agency. "YouTube hasn't done a great job justifying why advertisers should migrate online." Shorter, amateur clips make up the vast majority of YouTube videos. Hulu's hit shows range from The Simpsons to The Office , from media owners including NBC, Sony, Fox and Viacom. YouTube executives argue that their real opportunity lies in making money from the massive audience for the site's user-generated videos. But they have also stepped up efforts to bring in more professional content. But many large media groups, including Disney, Viacom and NBC Universal, have been wary of adding their content to YouTube.

The ultimate argument here is about who will have the right content to attract he advertising budgets. Tried and trusted professional content will always be less of a risk for advertisers as they know they will not end up around an amateur clip with the potential of unsuitable content for their brand. It is feasible that the content is actually the critical piece in the jigsaw but it also has to attract the audience. The traditional Media players, if they combine, could become more of a force in this space in the future but they must also understand that they have to move away from traditional broadcasting of content and be prepared to interact with the audience to make it a success in the new world of entertainment.

Image search and the revolution of advertising ecosystem

The key word of information search should no longer limited using “text”; “image” could be another source in the future. Imagine, while you are watching a movie on the TV, you appreciate the presetting style of it. Just press the bottom and “google” it, you can find out all the profile of the director and his relative works. Extend this idea to adverting, the audience can search the furniture in the soap drama that which company design it, how much of it and where you can buy it. Further step, press the bottom and you can purchase on “TV”. The TV will be a virtual retailer, and the price of the advertising will change from “how much per second” to "how much per unit sold”.

So what is the future for TV?

There is evidence that the future of TV, if reliant on advertising revenues, is in danger. Articles by Bloomberg and the world advertising research centre indicate that TV revenues are declining. HSBC’s Chief Economist tries to suggest that media companies hold firm through the cyclical down turn in the market, but it is not that simple as the media marketplace is also going through a structural change and advertising spend was already migrating from traditional media to online.



The current economic situation is actually speeding up the need for media companies to re-align their cost bases to the future revenue opportunities based on a changing media mix, ITV is no different as Rupert Howell, ITV's managing director, brand and commercial explains in this article. Changes include current director of television Peter Fincham stepping into the new position of director of television, channels and online. ITV’s broadcast arm will form a joint unit with web properties like video-on-demand service ITV.com, social networking site Friends Reunited and Project Kangaroo, currently under development with fellow broadcasters Channel 4, Five and the BBC. ITV's online revenue from January to September rose by 6% to £25 million, with the number of unique users rising from 4.8 million to 5.9 million. The company's executive chairman, Michael Grade, argues that its web-streaming business is becoming a "channel in its own right. With content at the heart of our turnaround strategy, it now makes sense to integrate fully all our platforms to ensure the very best of our content is available to viewers wherever they wish to view it.”



According to Ad Age the US ABC and CBC networks are spending millions on research to make two arguments: Online-video ads have a bigger impact than TV ads and therefore deserve higher ad rates than TV, and that consumers don’t mind the intrusion. Their initial research from Magid Associates shows consumer recall of an unskippable ad online is 50% compared with 18% for an unskippable ad on broadcast TV. We say - Further evidence from world leading players in the commercial field that online video advertising works, and does so better than traditional TV advertising.