Evelyn Rothblum, EVP Advertising, Partnerships & Distribution, Italy and Germany at Sky, emphasised that both Netflix and Disney are great partners for the Pay TV platform provider (which is also a broadcaster and a multichannel sales house). “They are aggregated into our [Pay TV] offer. We want to integrate their content to ensure people find all the content they love. It is great to see new players offering advertising but it will take a long time for some of those services to achieve the same reach as Sky in the UK and also in Italy and Germany.”

Panel moderator Thomas Bremond, SVP & Chief Revenue Officer, International at FreeWheel, (which provides comprehensive ad platforms for publishers, advertisers, and media buyers) wanted to know how we should characterise Netflix within the Total TV marketplace, and if it is viewed differently to BVOD or other AVOD. “Netflix is television,” declared Kelly Williams, Managing Director, Commercial at ITV. “They make professionally produced, long-form content, so they are part of the TV ecosystem. They’ve been around for a while, competing with us for audience, but we also make content for Netflix, so they are a great partner to work with.

“In advertising they will be a competitor, but we are in a great place to compete with them. We have a big linear business with a mass reach proposition combined with a fast-growing addressable proposition, and we make most of our own shows [thanks to ITV Studios] so we have a strong creative offer, with the ability to integrate brands into our shows.”

ITV, Sky, OMD and YouTube were speaking on a panel titled, ‘TV’s Serendipity moment?’, which focused on the evolution of the Total TV marketplace and how the industry offers cross-platform audience scale while also offering simplicity to buyers. Philip Miles, Managing Director, Video & Display Sales, UK for YouTube, highlighted the contribution of his company, including as a platform for hosting content from channel owners (like Channel 4, which started to make its long-form content available on YouTube this year).

“Up to 30 million people watch YouTube on a television set per month in the UK,” Miles declared, adding that “40% of BVOD is consumed off the television, according to Thinkbox research last month.”

He was making the point that “consumers are cross-platform and watch where they want to watch”. Miles confirmed, “We are seeing interesting partnerships with broadcasters – with YouTube as a partner distribution platform.” And on the question of delivering large-scale, cross-platform audiences and making that easy for advertisers, he said, “We have moved into a new phase where we have to think more about converging the world of linear [broadcast] and digital.”

Miles said YouTube can deliver incremental reach for advertisers as viewing patterns change, and has the ability to leverage targeting to drive mid-funnel and lower-funnel objectives. He referenced YouTube Select (which surfaces a diverse mix of content packages called ‘lineups’ that are contextually linked, like beauty & fashion, entertainment, technology, sports, etc.) as a way to create scale for buyers, and he pointed to global reach on the platform and consistency across markets, coming back to the theme of making life simple for buyers.

Bell emphasised the need to understand the differences between screens and platforms and viewer receptivity to advertising in the different environments – pointing out that targeted audiences on smaller screens can be just as valuable as mass audiences on a large television – albeit traded differently. “From a planning perspective, you have to stick to the principle of ‘Who are the audiences and what mindset are they in, and how do you buy into them, and through what platform, and then how do we measure those cross-platform audiences?”

Bremond asked Bell if it is easier to buy from non-broadcaster digital platforms or from classic broadcasters like ITV. “A digital person [within the agency] will say ‘yes’ and a television person will say ‘no’,” she observed.

“The challenge is that everyone is coming up with a better way to buy on their platform and every platform is simple in its own right, but it is not simple to buy across them, and we have to think holistically. Everyone is innovating, but I hope we have reached peak complexity because I need a bit more convergence through DSPs and single points of purchase.”

Williams acknowledged that digital platforms have made it easy to buy video and said ITV is trying to make television easy to buy, pointing to the investment in Planet TV (the ITV programmatic platform built specifically for television, where ITV owns and controls the programmatic value chain). “This is a self-service platform that every agency can use, and it allows them to exploit our first-party data – using clean room technology to match advertiser data with our data in a safe way. We hope that more of the television industry can use this, and we are hopeful that other broadcasters will join Planet V over the next year or so.

“So that’s what we are doing to compete with Disney and Netflix,” he added, referring to a discussion about how these companies are taking their subscription-with-advertising VOD audiences to market and their tech partners.

Williams added: “The big challenge in the next couple of years is convergence, as more television is delivered over IP. For the next ten years we are going to have to play two roles, with linear [broadcast] and addressable [streamed] and we will have to converge the ad-tech and the sales.”

He confirmed that ITVX, which succeeds ITV Hub, is about moving from a catch-up service to a streaming destination [an objective that includes a massive expansion in the catalogue and a focus on streaming-first drama launches], but that ITVX is also about building ITV’s addressable future. “We are trying to build a big streaming audience and ensure it is incremental and does not reduce linear [broadcast].”

Williams added: “Planet V is the front door for addressable and in future it will be the front door for ITV as we converge everything.”

Asked to sum-up the near-term challenges, Williams flagged regulation for public broadcasters in the streaming world, given their value for local culture and independent trusted news, and his particular focus was on prominence – ensuring some privileges in the same way that broadcasters are guaranteed prominence in broadcast EPGs.

Focusing on changes he wanted in the next year specifically, Williams asked for more collaboration among TV providers, using CFlight (the Comcast/Sky led cross-platform measurement solution that Sky, ITV and Channel 4 have now aligned around) as an example of what can be achieved when working together. “We should compete really hard on content and collaborate on technology and measurement,” he told the Future of TV Advertising Global audience in London.

YouTube’s Miles also gave a nudge to any regulators in the room, stating the value of YouTube creators to the UK production sector – with thousands of jobs now involved. “The television future has to include online platforms and online platforms have a really important role to play in supporting creativity in different markets,” he argued.

His one-year horizon prioritises measurement, which he described as critical to the industry. “It is challenging to make sense of this world [of multiple media touchpoints] but we have to commit ourselves to solutions.” Referring to efforts to establish common and comparable measurement between digital and television, he added: “This is one of the reasons we support Project Origin.”

For Sky, Rothblum had earlier noted how it was harder to sell the concept of addressable TV advertising in Germany and Italy because of a focus on linear in those markets. “They are not looking so much for that targeted advertising product on television — it’s more about digital,” she observed, comparing these Sky markets to the UK where her company has helped drive some scale for addressable.

“Italy and Germany are following behind and it is more about educating the market and working with advertisers to show the value. We know there is value, from our experience in the UK.”

And what does Rothblum want to see change in the next year, especially? “I agree that the focus is on measurement. We must also make it easier to buy audiences. There has never been so much great content for consumers to watch, so we must help advertisers and agencies find the audiences that are watching that content, in an easier way.”

Bell at Manning Gottlieb OMD had already listed some challenges during the course of this panel, including the need for two different skill sets to cover linear [broadcast] TV on the one hand and the addressable/programmatic marketplace on the other – and the need to converge those. “But when we do converge those things, it gets really exciting,” she added.  The talent shortage on the AV (television, rather than digital) side of the industry is also a problem, she admitted.

Then there are two priorities for 2023, for Bell, the first of which is solving the measurement challenges [e.g., cross-platform] without losing sight of effectiveness. The second is the continued delivery of content to excite viewers, which means sustaining the creative economy. “I need content to enable mass reach for my clients,” the agency CEO concluded.

However, approaching CTV media buying in exactly the same way you would with digital formats such as display, could have some detrimental impact affecting access to premium video inventory.

Critical conversations are now happening backstage about the best ways to deal with the convergence of the digital and TV landscapes. In our recent panel session at the Future of TV Advertising Global event we posed the question: CTV is Great, But Can TV (Really) Re-Invent Itself? By exploring the growth of CTV to date and the expectations broadcasters now face, we focused on what needs to happen in the next season of TV’s evolution.

The rising star

There’s no doubt CTV has made a name for itself. US ad spend for CTV grew by almost 60% in 2021 to total $14.4bn, making it something of a blockbuster. Meanwhile in Europe, 84% of marketers who participated in a FreeWheel survey* expected advanced TV spend to rise in 2022, with CTV in particular growing in double-digits in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany.

Now, the industry needs to prepare for what this growth means, as the rise of CTV will have significant ramifications for all stakeholders. In fact, for the value of premium video inventory to truly shine, some points must be carefully considered:

• The promise of “unique” demand: Many think that simply connecting platforms, selling premium video programmatically, and enabling header bidding will attract new buyers who are keen to purchase TV inventory similarly to digital display. In practice it’s more complicated and requires a collaborative approach between the buy and sell sides. For example, broadcasters that can make additional first-party data available to inform marketing decision-making will boost their appeal to media buyers.
• The call for supply path optimisation (SPO): There has been much discussion around SPO which attempts to minimise the many intermediaries and ensure the most direct access to publisher inventory. This has been a key TV strength, and while SPO might be needed in a complex and nebulous display environment, it hardly does in a premium context. Broadcasters such as Channel 4, ITV, or Sky have built their own advertising platforms and operating their private exchange prevents the dilution of value and ensures that buyers have an almost direct, transparent and optimal access to their inventory. In a sense, the TV industry invented Supply Path Optimization.
• The pot of gold at the rainbow’s end: There is often a view that, if display-like buying (ease of auctioning and high competition) can also be brought to linear TV, then broadcasters, through premium scarcity, stand to profit with CPMs remaining high. While this may look appealing, it goes against basic economic principle, as the fundamental behind programmatic trading need to change to be embraced by the TV industry and one must talk more about standardization than competition.  

   

  How will the narrative progress?

  Central to harnessing digital-like capabilities is data. In an industry that may soon be lacking identifiers (IDs), first-party data holds renewed importance. As Katie Coteman, Vice President, Advertising and Partnerships at Discovery says, “we need to have much more of a direct relationship with our consumers”, following not only the need for privacy-compliant data, but also how audiences are engaging with premium video content across platforms such as CTV, broadcaster video-on-demand, and subscription video-on-demand.

  To navigate a fragmented market, broadcasters require technology that enables data connections while protecting both consumer privacy and the value of first-party data. In the words of Paola Colombo, General Manager at Publitalia ‘80, “defining the rules of the game, the standards for addressable TV” are vital steps for market growth. Alongside standardisation, the ad industry needs a sustainable approach to identity resolution, data sharing, and data usage rights in the TV landscape.

  Against a backdrop of consistently developing user privacy regulations, it will be necessary to create tools and frameworks specifically designed for the future of TV. Broadcasters must ensure they continue to lead the way in building new and effective techniques, as well as trusted relationships. Veriça Djurdjevic, Chief Revenue Officer at Channel 4, shared how the broadcaster’s business strategy encapsulates this approach, through “shifting how we think about ourselves in terms of ‘pivoting to digital’, to ‘[prioritising] digital growth ahead of linear ratings’.”

  Although CTV has accelerated the evolution of the TV landscape, it is so much more than just a digital screen. It shares the premium quality, high engagement levels, and immersive content of TV, making it a standout performer when combined with its strong potential for data-driven capabilities. By building solutions that enable the use of data at scale, retaining ownership of their assets, and generating value for both buyers and sellers, the ad industry stakeholders can transform the premium video ecosystem and ensure that TV and CTV work in symbiosis.

  * ​The study was conducted between 23 July and 2 August 2021 with 577 marketers surveyed (comprising primarily of advertisers and agencies) in key European markets:  Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the UK, in collaboration with independent research company CoLab Media. Details available here.

   

Virginie Dremeaux, Vice President of Marketing and Communications International of FreeWheel commented, “The research findings reinforce the continued positive trend toward advanced TV identified in FreeWheel and CoLab’s 2020 survey, with a third of TV ad budgets reportedly being assigned to advanced TV channels in 2021 compared to a fifth last year”.

Breaking down advanced TV advertising spend into VOD, CTV and OTT spend, the study reveals that UK advertisers expect an increase across the board over the next year, by +15.1%, +8.8% and +14% respectively, while agencies forecast an increase of +5.2%, +9.5% and +6.2%.

While both UK advertisers and agencies foresee dedicating more budget to advanced TV, they rank the key drivers behind the spend growth slightly differently. 53% of agency respondents chose linear TV reach extension as a main factor, and 50% ranked ad effectiveness. Advertisers focused on advanced TV’s targeting capabilities across audiences (66%) and platforms (56%).

Across all UK marketers, the ability to measure ROI remained of signal importance – with 42% of those surveyed affirming it as a major factor in securing buy-ins, and 39% ranked the ability to gather data to optimise campaign performance in-flight, as highly important. Agencies and advertisers differ slightly in the weights they assign to the drivers that will unlock further budget, with agencies (47%) more concerned with access to deterministic exposure data as a basis for measurement, and advertisers prioritising data integrations (41%) and trusted third-party certification (37%).

Despite these minor differences, Virginie Dremeaux highlights the shared conviction among UK marketers, about the indispensability of advanced TV for advertising: “Critically, there’s increased recognition from both groups of advanced TV’s potential to reach highly engaged audiences in premium video environments through effective ad campaigns. With greater education and experience, I’m confident advertisers and agencies can continue to achieve the return on investment they need from these channels.”

Methodology: The study was conducted between 23 July and 2 August 2021 in key European markets:  Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the UK, in collaboration with independent research company CoLab Media. In the UK, the survey was completed by 102 marketing decision makers or influencers – 40% of respondents comprised advertisers and 29% agencies, with the remainder being media owners or others. A variety of agencies took part in the survey, from small independents to larger conglomerates: 27% of the agencies surveyed in the UK had over 500 employees.