Dawn Airey Issues Attack On “Sleepwalking” Broadcasters
Britain’s terrestrial broadcasters are acting like lemmings and are “sleep walking its way to long-term oblivion”, according to the managing director of Sky Networks, Dawn Airey.
Speaking at a Royal Television Society dinner, the broadcasting boss criticised the nation’s terrestrial broadcasters for failing to pre-empt the demise of the 30-second advertising spot, stating: “The technology is going to get more and more sophisticated. Sooner or later you’ll be able to take your favourite programme and download it onto the TV equivalent of an iPod and watch it on the Tube, all of which starts to erode the value of the airtime that paid for that content in the first place.”
Airey also stated that too many terrestrial spin off channels, such as E4, BBC 3 and ITV2 were chasing the same audience demographic. The result, Airey claims, is the mass cannibalisation of the 16-34 year-old audience. “All they end up doing is cannibalising each others share and each others ad revenue” she said.
However, Dawn Airey’s speech was not the first outing for concerns over the future of advertising in a digital age. Earlier this month Ofcom chairman David Currie stated that advertisers must develop new ways of reaching consumers if they are to survive in the digital age.
Also speaking to the Royal Television Society, Currie warned that the growth of multi-channel television, personal video recorders and high-speed broadband would change the way advertisers do business.
Currie said that, in the near future, the uptake of non-linear, content-on-demand technology would create an entirely new broadcast landscape where the viewer, rather than the broadcaster, will decide what type of media is consumed and how (see Ofcom Boss Warns Advertisers Of Digital Dangers).
However, research recently released by OMD Snapshots claimed that advertisers are rapidly adapting to the next generation of personal video recorders and are coming to see new interactive media, such as computer games, as an important marketing channel.
The research, entitled The Living Room Of The Future, questioned marketing directors on their attitude towards new technology and the changing ways in which consumers react to the various products which are brought into the home (see Advertisers Are Adapting To PVRs And Interactive Media).
Sky: 08702 40 40 40 www.sky.com
Recent Television Stories from NewsLine Hallmark Launches Campaign To Push Police Dramas Former Five Boss Enters Bidding War For Hallmark Channel Elstein’s ITV Bid Boosted By Hallmark Link
Subscribers can access ten years of media news and analysis in the Archive