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Straight talking on TV 
Tony Philpott on the first of a series of seminars tackling broadcast
and print issues
The Media Dialogues is a programme of events which will focus on three principle media - radio, TV and press. Starting with the Television Forum, the aim of the debate is “to create a platform for good debate about the future challenges and opportunities facing each communication channel”. With the IAPI Media Conference in a coma and agencies left bereft of a stage on which to tease out industry issues, such events have a following. The debate, sponsored by Initiative Media, was conducted with a format in which each of the eight speakers were given ten minutes in which to present their papers. The speaker then replied to questions from the floor and a more general open forum then ensued. If there was one core message to be gleaned from the debate it was this: TV is changing and consumer viewing habits are changing with it. Given new technologies such as Sky +, which enable viewers to record and control station output without a VCR, there is a general consensus among terrestrial and satellite networks that advertising will be profoundly affected by this type of technology. The way airtime is bought, the way it is audited and its very content will alter dramatically within the next five years as market penetration of Sky + and similar innovations reaches saturation and liberates viewers from strictures of programme schedules. It is a good thing if you are a viewer, but not so good for advertisers. Superficially, there’s nothing new here. Similar predictions were made with the advent of the VCR. While these predictions did not come true the same can not be said for a technology that allows viewers to manipulate live television and to quite literally become their own programme schedulers. What will happen to the commercials? Indeed, will there even be a place for advertising in the traditional sense? While each speaker extolled the new technology as being liberating, it was also noted that adult global viewership had dropped by six per cent and younger audiences had declined by a whopping 21 per cent. Will the downward trend be accelerated by the new technology, or will it reverse the trend and bring lapsed viewers back into the fold? No one seemed to have the answer; mainly because audience data is becoming difficult to pin down. From this point on an absolute viewership figure for a particular programme might not translate into advertising reach. If the media is unable to accurately measure it, then how can they possibly place a value on it? While universally acknowledged by all speakers as a powerful medium, TV advertisers are becoming uneasy. Leo Moore from Diageo made a robust and pointed reference to TV media costs when he contended that they were rising, while audiences were declining – so advertisers were in fact subsidising the medium’s loss of market share. Moore went on to declare that the current situation, in which advertisers are essentially held captive by broadcasters, will change radically in the coming years. The tables will be turned and past inequities will be not be forgotten. It did not sound like an idle threat. More significantly, Moore went on to suggest that not only will advertisers eventually gain the upper hand but they will also have an input into programme content. It was uncertain whether he meant product placement or a type of editorial/creative influence. If it was the latter, then will we find ourselves watching an episode of Coronation Street in which the cast make positive comments on their Guinness as they drop into the Rovers to catch up on the latest marital indiscretion? It seems if TV ads are indeed on the way out, then such endorsements might remain the only outlet for extolling brand virtues. Michael Murphy from Channel 6, soon to be Ireland’s newest TV channel, spoke about “passive” channels. These are the channels which do not directly target Irish audiences but instead “spill” into our marketplace. Murphy estimated that such channels routinely take €50 million out of the Irish marketplace and with no effort. No doubt with Channel 6 being “active” channel, Murphy sees hope in gaining a large slice of such revenue. What does all this mean for agencies? Well, for one thing, it would appear that they should brace themselves for a client backlash in the near future, and perhaps more significantly, they should re-evaluate their approach to creative and executional matters. Assuming that in the next five years most viewers will be able to routinely by-pass commercial breaks, then the answer may lie in originating campaigns which are so compelling that they become as watchable and as unmissable as the shows they interrupt. That will take not just a gargantuan creative effort on behalf of the agencies, but it will also require an enormous attitudinal shift from clients. A less hands-on approach to creative concepts, a greater trust in the ability of agencies to address the market with breakthrough creative, these changes in approach just might salvage some of the eroding potency of TV advertising and reverse the trend predicted at the forum.
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