The future of traditional television and the impact on advertising
By Ruben Gersons, CTO of Screen⁶
We love the Internet: it’s personalised, on-demand and interactive. It’s incredible how fast we’ve grown accustomed to these paradigms, demanding them in everything we do. Next day delivery? Not fast enough! Newspapers? Not tailored to suit my interests!
So what about traditional television? It’s not personalised, not on-demand and not interactive. Nielsen determined that, although the amount of time spent in front of the TV has declined only slightly, the way we consume TV is changing drastically. Specifically, younger generations feel confined with the take-it or leave-it content on TV and are choosing video-on-demand (VOD) or YouTube over regular linear broadcasting. People aged 12 to 17 spend half the amount of time watching traditional TV broadcasts compared to people over 65. In contrast, the younger generation spends twice as much time watching video on their mobile devices as the latter group.
Advertisers and TV networks feel challenged by these changes. If people are moving away from linear broadcasting how can they still get their premium quality TV ads across? If people are shifting their attention to their mobile devices when an ad slot starts, how do advertisers continue to reach them?
The first step will be to accept these changes and not try to fight them. The main reason why people are still watching traditional TV is that it is almost the only way to get access to premium live content such as football* matches and talent shows. Why not distribute this content over the Internet (and I don’t mean just the live TV apps that cable companies now often offer to their clients, but through any publisher or app owner that the TV channel wants to work with)?
Yes, it changes a lot, for example the way we measure GRPs, the way we book our campaigns, and so on. But it will satisfy consumers and it will open up a lot of new opportunities to advertisers and TV channels.
People will still continue to use the TV (the big screen) for watching premium content, but it will be an integrated experience, connected with everything else that they do online using their phones and tablets.
While most are wondering when the Internet will come to television, I believe the real question is: when will traditional television come to the Internet?
Advertisers and TV channels will benefit because TV programmes broadcasted over the Internet allow advertisers to track their TV campaigns in the same way as they are currently tracking their web, mobile, social and video campaigns, allowing them to optimize campaigns on the fly. It will allow for personalised TV ads, conversion attribution across your TV and adword campaigns, retargeting of users on TV when they’ve abandoned your online shop, and so on…
I think that if we look back in a few years time, the changes won’t look as drastic as they may look today. We will still be spending time watching the same content as today on the same screen as today, but the way it is being distributed and monetized will have changed significantly.
