The ability to avoid TV commercials through the use of PVRs (personal video recorders) is costing UK advertisers £30 million a year, according to a new white paper produced by media analyst Big Picture.
The growth in the penetration of PVRs, such as Sky+, has given a significant number of TV viewers the opportunity to skip commercials during ‘live’ and recorded programmes and Big Picture estimates that advertisers are losing around 1% of commercial impacts. As total UK adspend on commercial channels is more than £3 billion, over £30 million is being wasted on adverts the viewer will never see.
Simon Andrews, founding partner at Big Picture said: “Ad avoiders are a real issue. Once people realise that the PVR captures live TV they choose to start viewing a few minutes into the programme. They rewind to the beginning of the programme and then fast forward through each ad break.”
He continued: “In Sky+ households 45% of viewing is timeshift, but homes with just a VCR watch next to no ‘timeshift’ or recorded programmes. We’ve seen this in our own research and Starcom in the UK reports similar findings.”
Research from Starcom, issued in November last year (see PVRs Penetration To Reach 30% By 2010) indicates that, by 2010, a third of the UK population will have access to PVRs, providing viewers with the ability to skip commercials. The agency forecasts that penetration is set to reach 21% by 2008, and 34% by 2012.
Starcom’s report also stated that, while viewers with PVRs tended to watch more commercial television (up 17%), 77% of them skip adverts. From this data, Starcom predicted that by 2008, advertisers will have lost 6% of commercial impacts.
Last May, satellite giants BSkyB, admitted that more than three-quarters of Sky+ viewers skip through adverts when watching recorded programmes (see Ad-Avoidance High Amongst Sky Plus Viewers), with 76% of users not watching commercial breaks.
However, Big Picture has highlighted new approaches that advertisers can take to counteract the problems posed by the uptake of PVRs. Andrews explains: “We think smart advertisers will respond in two ways – by challenging their agencies to create advertising people enjoy and respect; and by investigating how they can best use the new opportunities of branded content – be that on TV, on the mobile or on broadband. Now people have the power to choose whether they give you their attention, advertisers need to earn that attention with content that people want to watch.”
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