ISBA Boss Lays it on the Line for ITV
Speaking at the MediaTelINSIGHT Media Guardian Future of Digital TV Seminar this morning, Bob Wootton, Media Director of ISBA opened with a broadside at ITV.
“Anyone who can read BARB can read that it hasn’t (improved). It lost 6% of audience last year and it lost about 10% this year, if you look at some of the demographics that advertisers favour most, it’s in freefall, with double digit losses… starting with a two.”
“ITV’s got some serious issues, and the best answer that ITV seems to have at the moment, is just when many advertisers seem to have realised that more advertising per hour is not necessarily the done thing, ITV’s going for this.”
“At the moment I am not optimistic for ITV. Now, a lot can change. The management can change, ITV’s attitude can change. It’s all about driving the viewer, but at the moment ITV is driving its business very well, but its not driving its business forward it’s selling the family silver.”
From the audience, Johnathan Lewis, Head of Digital at ITV, responded that Wootton’s remarks were imbalanced.
“We are trying to grow ITV 2 and ITV3 as fast as we can; our combined viewing share is stable. Digital is obviously the only area for growth.”
Wootton accepted the comments about digital growth, but felt that senior management at ITV was doing the company no favours. Mick Desmond stopped talking about managing decline until recently, now he is talking about it again; Charles Allen said that he was going to overturn disfunctionality.”
He added: “I did start by talking about what advertisers wanted, and although these new channels and new audiences have some value to them, what they really miss is the big slots.”
Despite the falling audiences, Wootton conceded that advertisers would remain very reluctant to move money out of ITV even if the performance continued to dip. Based on MediaTel Insight’s survey, where media agencies predict multi-channel hitting 33.9% by 2007, he said:
“Speaking for the advertisers, so speaking from a very commercial platform – that’s in terms of increased supply – that’s very bad news because the supply is so fragmented and many advertisers are still weighted in terms of audiences.”
On the other terrestrial commercial channels, Wootton was a little kinder.
“I see Channel 4 as very stable, its done pretty much everything right and very few things wrong , but it does face threats to its funding, which is why it’s beginning to look for government funded money, then there’s a debate opening up there as to whether the licence fee fund should be top sliced in some way.”
“Five is almost below the radar for me , because, to the advertisers , 5 is really a trading commodity. It’s something that balances the books, it offers good audiences, it’s doing well…..but is it a must watch channel for many?”