Just what is television?
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Thinkbox, defender of commercial television, has been, well, defending the medium. In doing so, Tess Alps, chief executive of the TV marketing body, raises some interesting points on the definition of television.
Alps was responding after Marketing Week reported in one news story that commercial television is on the rise year-on-year, while another article looking at online video in the same week, mentioned television viewing figures are falling.
So Marketing Week has decided to open the debate and ask: Just what exactly is television? And perhaps more importantly, are advertisers thinking about television in the same way as you do?
When you talk about television as a whole, should online video count as television? Is content on the internet television? Is content on mobile phones still TV?
Lots of questions there to think about but conversations Marketing Week has had with marketers and advertisers suggest that both advertisers and consumers view content across these platforms very differently.
Alps argues that we should not think about TV being “in competition” with the internet, but some broadcasters vying for advertisers’ cash might see the internet as competition, especially when budgets are being shifted from one medium to another.
For example, in our 30 July issue, Will Harris, marketing director of Nokia, talked of how there had been a “leaking of [his] budget” away from above-the-line ads to digital channels. He went further and called this “massively positive” in his view.
If we turn our attention to the issue of television viewing ratings for a minute, there are also many conflicting figures that can be used to argue that television viewing figures are going up, or going down. Again, it all depends how you define TV.
According to BARB figures in a Thinkbox press release, issued to the media last week, commercial broadcast television viewing had a record six months of 2009. The average UK viewer watched 16.7 hours of commercial TV a week, up 9.9 minutes a week compared with the same period last year.
But at the same time, the BBC is losing viewers with its share falling (source BARB), despite the fact the Beeb’s channel portfolio has increased over the years to include BBC3 and BBC News 24.
Thinkbox itself points out that total broadcast television viewing in the first half of the year was 26.2 hours a week, in line with the same period last year.
Alps asks: “Could Marketing Week please decide if it agrees with all the evidence that normal broadcast TV viewing is in good health or not?” Well, if you count normal broadcast television as the BBC and commercial, the figures are mixed.
It also depends on how one defines normal broadcast television. BARB figures show that live terrestrial television viewing figures are declining.
For example, in 2008 live television viewing accounted for 85% of all television viewing, but this is predicted to fall steadily.
By 2018, BARB predicts that live home viewing will only account for 66% of all television viewing. Nobody is denying that this is still two-thirds of the market and will continue to be important to advertisers but telly-watching has changed, and will continue changing over the next decade, according to these predictions.
The introduction of digital television has meant that viewing figures have been spread in a thinner layer across a broad range of channels.
Many households have hundreds of shows to choose from at any one time, so the terrestrial channels have not been able to generate the same level of market share for quite some time.
Just looking at BARB’s share of total viewing figures will tell you that. ITV1’s viewing share in June 2009 amounts to 16.2%, while in 2000 it amounts to 29.5%, and in 1998, ITV had 31% market share. If you look at ‘other viewing’ from outside of commercial terrestrial television and the BBC, this has risen from 13% in 1998 to a rather healthy 42.2% in June 2009.
BARB is also looking at the future of television and its changing landscape. It readily admits that the way the population is watching telly is changing dramatically and it is looking at how data for this can be captured.
BARB is also looking at how television can be measured beyond the traditional television box. At the moment, its figures don’t take into consideration other mediums.
We can all hopefully agree that consumers love content. Content has not lost its appeal at all. We just consume it in a vastly different way than we did in 1980, or even in the early 2000s.
So just how shall we define TV going forward? Is it in the traditional sense, that black box (or flatscreen) in the living room; does it include content watched on mobiles; content online; or all of the above and more? And the most important question of all - how are advertisers and marketers defining television?
Marketing Week would love to know what people think. Join the debate and comment below.
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Readers' comments (8)
Tess Alps | Wed, 12 Aug 2009 8:12 pm
Leaving aside the vexing issue of language for a moment, let me re-iterate my problem with the central thrust of the comment to which our letter was reacting, to the effect that online video is causing TV viewing to decline. It’s not, however you look at it. It is a very common, but inaccurate assumption, and we find ourselves having to correct people frequently, so please don’t feel bad about it. If you now want to caveat what you wrote fair enough, but it was reasonable of us to assume that by ‘TV’ you meant broadcast TV, the bit measured by BARB, not one slice of it (eg only the BBC) or only one platform (eg analogue). The very worst you could say about broadcast TV based on BARB’s figures is that it is extremely stable. The IPA Touchpoints 2 research – using a different methodology from BARB – shows TV growing. Ofcom’s latest communications report also says TV viewing has been growing.
Our press release was very specific. We talked about record viewing for commercial broadcast TV. We have learned to be specific because there is a great deal of change happening in the world of TV. Over and above the growth of commercial broadcast TV, the broader medium of TV is growing via the likes of iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD etc. As we said in our press release, we are astonished that web-based on-demand TV has not yet made inroads into time spent with the BARB measured bit of TV. At some point it probably will, and on-demand TV will replace a portion of our linear viewing. But the overall world of TV will be larger, the opportunities for advertisers more varied. In fact, it seems that easy, free, web-based TV catch-up services are part of the reason broadcast TV is doing well, because they stop people falling behind the broadcast schedule.
And so we come to your challenge to marketers to define TV. TV is the word people use for professionally made, immersive, audio-visual content – whether viewed on a TV set, on a mobile device or on a computer screen. In fact almost any device with a glass screen and speakers can be used to watch TV. If you ask ordinary people what they’re doing when they watch The X Factor, Peep Show or Lost online they’ll say they’re “watching TV…on the internet/my computer”. We think it’s very revealing to listen to what consumers call things and important to respect them.
Consumers tend to use ‘video’ when they mean either amateur, user generated audio-visual content or chunks of very short-form audio-visual content (like a music video). They, like us, see no conflict between the word TV (the content) and the word internet (the technology). Putting TV online doesn’t turn it into video just as, if you have your mail delivered to you via donkey, plane, bike, the internet or on foot, doesn’t stop it from being mail. It has just used a different delivery system. TV is essentially about content; the web is one of the many ways we can now deliver it (alongside digital satellite, digital terrestrial, IPTV, cable, DVD even). This will become a moot point when our TV sets are fully broadband integrated and the delivery technology will be invisible to the viewer. They’ll just choose between on-demand or linear broadcast TV. They won’t care what technology is bringing it to them. Non-broadcast media companies like to use the word video for some reason; maybe it’s an ownership thing. We see that YouTube has just announced that ‘long-form video’ such as Coronation Street will soon be available from them. Erm… I think they’ll find that it gets called TV by viewers. What are they going to call films online: ‘even-longer-form video’?
Finally, the internet really isn’t in competition with TV because the internet is not a medium but a vast and fabulous technology; the internet is a platform for many activities, including many media and some of these – search, email marketing, social media, online newspaper banners etc - of course compete with both broadcast and online TV advertising, though all the evidence shows (not least our joint research with the IAB) that TV plus all forms of online marketing are the most effective media combination that exists. Online brands know this only too well; this year’s stand-out marketing is probably for comparethemarket.com where broadcast TV combines brilliantly with inventive social media and search.
That’s why when people talk about advertising money going to ‘digital’ (an even more vexatious and confusing word) or the internet (which is what they usually mean by ‘digital’) it includes money going to the growing opportunities around online TV, which is one of the most dynamic media online. Digital is not the opposite of TV.
Defending TV is only one part of what Thinkbox does, though regrettably necessary as you can see. What we prefer spending our time doing is helping advertisers use TV more effectively, guiding them through the future and inspiring them to try all the many new ways of using TV, in all its forms.
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Tim | Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:21 am
A passionate defence, but one that misses the point altogether. TV viewing has declined over the past few years and shows no signs of improving. The exceptions to the rules tend to be the family shows, but even these do not match the figures from decades before - it's a clear sign if any, that consumption of media is radically changing and TV advertising is now less commercially appealing. Understandably, Thinkbox want to change this. But, it's a sign of the times when even the real broadcasters are looking to monetise their online offerings as their core offering and use these to boost their ad coffers - even more telling, is the decisions made by major production companies to use MSN and YouTube - both not TV operators, but vide vendors, is evidence if any were needed, that TV has to think digital in order to reinvigorate the industry - not just talk positively about figures increasing in a recession...
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Simon Collins | Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:38 am
I read this with interest. In my business, TV works well and we are using it increasingly. I outline why and how here on our blog: http://www.cashcade.co.uk/2009/06/29/why-does-online-gambling-love-tv-advertising
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Tess Alps | Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:30 pm
@Tim I am passionate only about the facts. Please read my response above properly. Broadcast TV viewing has categorically NOT declined over the past few years. I think you might be confusing the viewing to any individual channel with the overall numbers. Obviously, the share of viewing to the original analogue channels has declined as we have gone from four to hundreds of channels. But the overall amount of time spent watching normal broadcast TV has not declined, and commercial broadcast TV has increased. The audience is still there, you can reach more people overnight with TV advertising than ever and it’s now at 1980s’ prices. What’s not to love?
Of course TV companies are looking to monetise content online, both on their own sites and with aggregators; it would be ridiculous not to when watching TV online is so popular. But this is not yet denting broadcast TV viewing, as I thought I had explained. It is complementary. TV companies are of course thinking ‘digital’. How can they not? Over 90% of people now have digital TV. In 2012 there will only be digital TV (ie via digital broadcasting - nothing to do with the internet). The digital broadband opportunity is in addition to this.
TV advertising is not less commercially appealing. Broadcast TV in fact increased its share of total advertising last year, albeit in a difficult market, declining by 2.9% (according to Ofcom) versus an overall market decline of 5% (which included strong growth in internet advertising, some of which was online TV). TV has been proven to be the most effective ad medium pound for pound by PwC. The IPA Marketing in the Era of Accountability study found that campaigns which included TV were the most effective, and that those which combined TV and online were the most effective within those. They also found that TV was becoming more effective, in part because multi-channel TV is making targeting on TV more efficient but also because of deflation. These are major, impartial studies. We need marketers to know these facts rather than have a plethora of unfounded assertions thrown at them constantly.
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Tess Alps | Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:36 pm
@Simon - I’m delighted that TV is working for you within your overall marketing mix. Most people who actually use it, rather than theorists, find it a positive experience.
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Tim | Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:49 pm
Tess, very impressed with your response and the facts you produce to back it up.
Am particularly startled by your final sentence - "We need marketers to know these facts rather than have a plethora of unfounded assertions thrown at them constantly."
I couldn't agree with you more and perhaps it is worth Thinkbox paying attention to this need. You see I'm a marketer who believes that digital is the new evangelic approach - an area worth investing in - and not just the internet as you think - but an array of interactive technology.
When we come to discussing which media we would consider online - we do not call it TV, we call it what it is - VOD - or video on demand. Marketing personnel and their related titles should stick to these definitions - after all, we can't call sites that are called MSN Video or YouTube TV sites.
Can I suggest that rather than worrying about what TV is and how ratings should incorporate which channels and which websites should be measured, Thinkbox should work more closely with the marketing press to ensure that TV remains on the agenda of our creativity. You only have to read the HP piece in MW this week to see that CMOs are already beginning to wonder about the value of CPM in TV ads.
So I ask MW and Thinkbox, why dont you find a way to ensure that marketers know the facts. This isn't something that just media specialists should worry about, but all marketers - agencies and clients. Do you accept your challenge??
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Tess Alps | Fri, 14 Aug 2009 9:55 am
@Tim Challenge understood and accepted.
This all started because we tried to do exactly what you suggest which is make sure the marketing press have the facts about broadcast TV. The debate about the definition of TV was their idea and one I'm only too delighted to take part in.
I suspect that nobody would disagree that the linear broadcast bit is definitely TV (rather than 'offline video'!). And those were the numbers in dispute. We can all choose to think about online TV how we want. All TV is video but not all video is TV. If you talk to real viewers they certainly don't use the term VoD. They say they are watching TV on their computer/the internet/online - yes, even if they are watching professionally made TV via on Bebo or YouTube. It's all fun though, isn't it?
Would you like us to come and see you and bring you all the facts about all forms of TV? We like doing that. Email me at tess.alps@thinkbox.tv
Have a good weekend.
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Tess Alps | Fri, 14 Aug 2009 3:38 pm
I'd just like to make it clear that I don't offer to come and visit any old anonymous bloke with whom I strike up a conversation online.
Tim, if you are shy, just register on our website at www.thinkbox.tv and then you'll get regular (though infrequent) updates on TV and info about free training, events and research etc
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