Ad Opportunities To Grow With Broadband Video
Nielsen Analytics has released a new report which reveals that advertisers and television programmers are finding new and more lucrative advertising opportunities with broadband video.
Larry Gerbrandt, general manager and senior vice president of Nielsen Analytics, said: “By researching controlled broadband access, this study concludes that programmers have the opportunity to create new revenue models to benefit content owners and their affiliated stations.
“Such ad-supported models are uniquely adaptable to the broadband environment and are potentially superior to existing models because they can take full advantage of the digital environment.
“With broadband streams, for example, fast forwarding through commercials can be disabled making it more likely the consumers will watch the spots and possibly interact with them.”
The study, Whatever, Whenever, Wherever: How Broadband is Redefining the Economics of Television, shows that despite growing numbers of prime time television shows being streamed (or pre-viewed) on network web sites, or the increasing popularity of user generated content (UGC), there has been no measurable negative impact on traditional television viewing.
Video on PCs and iPods actually is expanding the audience of traditional TV programs, supported by the fact that total TV usage was at a record high in US households at 8 hours, 14 minutes a day during the 2005-2006 TV season according to Nielsen Media Research data. Household viewing has risen more than an hour a day over the past decade – or more than a half hour more per person.
Gerbrandt added: “Advertisers and programmers using broadband have a unique advantage in the increasingly competitive advertising world.
“Ad models can be customized and managed in a broadband environment, and interactivity can be embedded into the program in such a way as to enhance engagement which does not take viewers away from the enjoyment of the program.
There is a general consensus, says Nielsen Analytics, that viewers prefer short web-served ads, though the market is split between 15-second and 30-second pre-rolls per program segment.
Furthermore, because broadband video offers levels of interactivity and viewer engagement not possible in a traditional TV spot, that argues for a higher CPM.
But television – especially the ad-supported kind – works according to a very different revenue model, and systems such as broadband streaming and downloading, could represent a new frontier to be explored and exploited. However, the posting of copyrighted content to web sites still presents challenges that remain to be litigated.
Nielsen Analytics quotes a study by Scarborough Research which says that broadband consumers tend to have high speed web access virtually 24/7 – at work, at home and increasingly across an array of portable devices such as laptops, PDAs and mobile phones.
While only about 9% of US adults report spending 20 hours or more a week on the internet, this number nearly doubles, to 17%, among those with broadband access at home.
A recent report from JupiterResearch found that 37% of broadband consumers are interested in having TV programming delivered to their PC (see 37% Of Broadband Consumers Interested In PC TV Programming).
Meanwhile, a report from eMarketer estimates that there will be 136.1 million Europeans online in the five largest European Union countries and advertisers will spend $7.5 billion to reach all Western Europeans, up 25% from $6.0 billion last year (see Western European Online Advertising To Reach $7.5 Billion).