The Changing Face Of TV
The concept of television is transforming beyond the traditional “box” in the sitting room, to a digital device that is available on mobile phones, accessible on PCs, available on-demand and at consumers convenience.
Studies of these new technologies indicate that these new devices are changing TV viewing behaviour, with industry opinion believing that advanced television users are more likely to watch TV out of scheduled times and avoid more commercials.
eMarketer states that if by 2010 half of households avoid 50% of all television commercials, then tens of billions of TV advertising money would be lost.
However, advertisers have already begun looking into ways to combat this problem, with research from Starcom pin-pointing ways in which advertisers can overcome the problem of viewers fast-forwarding through adverts, revealing that viewers will pause to watch adverts if they are eye catching and relevant to them (see Strong Creative Helps Negate PVR Ad Avoidance).
US PVR manufacturer, TiVo, is combating ad avoidance by employing technology in which commercials can’t be switched over, with seven advertisers in the US already signing up (see TiVo Reveals Adverts That Can’t Be Skipped Through).
The new technology will see a logo, phone number, or other “call to action” pop up in the right-hand corner of the screen, even if users choose to fast-forward through traditional commercials.
eMarketer claims advertisers have started to shift their adspend to online media consumption, in an attempt to reach the internet television audience.
Ben Macklin, senior analyst at eMarketer and author of the report explained: “Online entertainment is compelling because internet users can access the content they want when they want it. The viewing experience on a PC is still far inferior to the TV, but bandwidth and technological improvements will inevitably solve these issues.”
Macklin asserted the opinion that the future of the internet and television will merge together, saying: “We continue to live in a parallel universe where the PC/internet world is separate from the TV/broadcast world, but their future is inexorably intertwined.”
According to Informa Telecoms & Media’s Mobile Entertainment report emerging new markets, such as mobile TV, user generated services and personalisation, graphics and visual themes, are forecast to contribute $11 billion in revenues to the global mobile entertainment market by 2010 (see Global Entertainment Market To Reach $42.8 Billion By 2010).
