Pro-Active Audiences To Affect Advertising Models
In the next five years the TV audience will take a far more pro-active role in the content that is shown, with advertisers having to adjust their revenue models to keep up with the changes in the industry, according to predictions outlined by ITV at the Broadcast Live conference.
Perhaps inevitably, ITV also see the proliferation of broadband and increased internet speeds as being able to offer the opportunity for more user-generated content which, coupled with their biggest shows, will provide “unique targeted marketing opportunities” for advertisers.
A major part of these advertising opportunities will be increased interactivity, with contextual “hotspots” allowing users to interact with the advertisements shown on websites. Through the use of these hotspots, with viewers clicking on desired items, broadcasters will be able to create ever more comprehensive consumer profiles. ITV predict that by 2012 50% of ad revenue will come from outside ITV1. However, David Muir, chief executive officer of The Channel at WPP Group, also speaking at Broadcast Live, said that a threatening business model for broadcasters is broadband becoming more dominant, particularly as it allows for easier access to publicly shared media. A study by BIGresearch recently showed that new media usage is growing fastest among 18-24 year olds, with their early adoption of technology causing problems for advertisers marketing models (see Youth Market Corners New Media Arena)
The second major opportunity which ITV predicts broadcasters will face in the coming years is mobile TV, whereby a new viewing window has been created. However, rather than only showing content designed for other platforms on mobile, producers and broadcasters should be looking to create programmes specifically for the medium, with Henry saying that one of ITV’s goals was to “find the mobile equivalent of Coronation Street.”
The third opportunity, as content becomes more interactive and new advertising models evolve, will be transactional, with the propensity of viewers to interact with what is on their screens fundamentally changing the way content generates revenues. Henry sees the ITV sites which show more user-generated content as being less based on the transactional model, like eBay, and more like the craigslist website, saying: “We want the traffic, we can monetise it in other ways.”
User-generated content is forecast to take up more and more of people’s viewing time, with the ITV Local website getting dwell times of 40 minutes for its primarily locally generated content. The trial in Brighton has had over 100,000 users checking on advertisements from local businesses as well as news and weather.
The move towards more user-generated content and interactivity is a trend which Muir sees as inevitable, saying: “As people start to move on from terrestrial you will start to see consumers move from a world in which they are much more passive to a world in which they are actually manipulating media.”
A recent report from PQ Media forecast that advertising expenditure on user-generated content will rocket over the next four years (see User-Generated Content Adspend To Rocket)
Muir also predicts that another challenge will be the response to younger television viewers whose viewing habits have changed from those of previous generations. According to Muir, statistics show that people born in the 1960s, or even in 1985, watched 20% more television than those born in 1989, and therefore producers and broadcasters will have to find new ways of delivering content to them.