The impact of PVRs on television advertising has been greatly over estimated, according to Ford Ennals, chief executive of Digital UK, who was speaking at MediaTel Group’s ‘Future Of TV’ Seminar yesterday.
“We’ve always had ad skipping – it’s called changing the channel. To say that ad skipping is the end of advertising, which I hear, is nonsense,” he said.
“We’re scaring clients off and we’re forcing them to look at the new, sexy media because they want to make sure that they are seen by their board as being pro-future technology. They’re very keen on any advertising that can be measured and I think that’s why some of the new mediums will appeal.”
Ennals believes that negativity is partly to blame for the perceived cloud of gloom over the industry, saying that it should do a better job of saying the future is positive and that “there are opportunities, ad skipping isn’t the big issue that people talk about, the PSBs aren’t in terminal decline,” he added.
Journalist Ray Snoddy felt that PVRs could potentially have an effect on advertising but believes the devices won’t have a huge impact on viewer behaviour. “The NDS boxes actually have the power to prevent you from fast forwarding through the ads,” he said. “This facility is just not being used but one day it might be.”
Clare Salmon, director of marketing and commercial strategy at ITV, felt that if there becomes a compelling consumer desire to have an ad skip function, that the manufacturers would meet this demand by producing devices with such a function available.
On the subject of Ofcom’s potential relaxing of product placement restrictions in programming, Jim Marshall, chairman of Starcom UK, did not believe that the relaxation of these rules would be the “beginning of the solution to television’s commercial problems” despite wanting Ofcom to act.
Salmon also felt a loosening of the restrictions would be helpful but felt that it needed to be done sensitively. “It needs to be done in such a way that it doesn’t feel like a tour through a supermarket, it feels like a drama or a piece of entertainment and so the balance has to be right,” she said.
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