The next round of TV innovation in the UK is being “held back” by the failure of the UK’s free TV platforms to invest in data and ad tech systems, according to Decipher.
In a newly released report, ‘The Failure of Future Ad Tech in the UK’, Decipher says the desire of UK broadcasters to develop their own individual ad tech systems is “self-defeating” and “hampers the development of TV platforms in which they are shareholders” – ultimately handing advantage, in free-to-air (FTA) advertising, to big US agency groups and their ad tech teams.
“Broadcasters can’t win an arms race against the platforms and the media agency groups,” said Nigel Walley, MD of Decipher, explaining that broadcasters need to pick sides and let platforms and media agencies fight it out.
“If I was a broadcaster, I would be picking the TV platforms because they are inherently interested in TV,” he said. “However, in the UK the broadcasters’ arms are tied by the fact that the free-to-air platforms aren’t building anything.”
The report, which will be launched at the Future TV Advertising Forum in London today, calls for the creation of a single, unified ad network – optimised for TV – to service Freeview, Freesat and YouView in the UK, alongside their constituent broadcasters.
Decipher puts forward the notion that an ad network should deeply integrate into each of the three platforms, whilst supporting the development of the next generation ad tech platforms in each of the FTA broadcasters’ web, tablet and TV players.
The report also makes the case that the UK’s pay-TV platforms, BT, Virgin and TalkTalk, must share some of the blame in the suffering of the entire UK ad tech market, given their failure to invest in TV addressability.
According to Decipher, Sky is now the only “mover of note in the UK and the other platforms have effectively given up on the right to help the market define itself.”
The proposal includes the idea that BT and TalkTalk should be offered the chance to use the new ad network, integrated with their own CRM systems, as part of the YouView relationship. But it makes the point that, if they choose not to, “the commercial broadcast partners who have bankrolled their YouView based set-top boxes, should compel them to match the innovation so that addressability is available for them to use on those platforms.”
For addressability in TV to take off properly, the reports says, it needs to be consistently offered across all platforms.
The report also questions whether the BBC’s role at the heart of the FTA platforms is part of the problem – something Walley says is becoming “destructive”.
“Their lack of interest in the evolution of the advertising market is blinding them to the danger of those platforms not having clear data strategies,” he said.
“The BBC has to step back and let the platforms, and their commercial broadcast partners, innovate around data and advertising, otherwise they will end up handing the crown jewels to Martin Sorrell.”
