Lindsey Clay appointed president of The Global TV Group

The CEO of UK TV marketing body Thinkbox, Lindsey Clay, will take on the role as the first president of The Global TV Group.

Founded in 2013, The Global TV Group is an informal grouping of TV broadcasters, sales houses and trade bodies in Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia and Latin America. To date it consists of 14 industry associations.

“I’m honoured to be The Global TV Group’s first president,” Clay said, who has been chief executive of Thinkbox since 2014.

“The TV industry, so used to being nationally-focused, needs to work together more internationally to tell the incredible story of its cultural and business-transforming power, and its rapidly accelerating technological capabilities. Viewers and advertisers have never had it so good. A great story is there to be told.”

According to the latest global adspend forecasts from Zenith, linear television advertising is expected to remain more-or-less stable at a 0.7% growth each year until 2021, propped up by investment from digital-native challenger brands.

This follows the release of figures provided to Thinkbox by the UK commercial broadcasters last week, which revealed that the biggest investor in UK television advertising is online businesses, with Amazon increasing its spend on TV by 21% last year. UK television ad revenue totalled £5.11 billion in 2018.