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.

ITVX will replace ITV Hub and ITV Hub+. The plan is for ITVX to launch in time for the FIFA World Cup finals, which start in late November. ITV wants to double the number of monthly active users (MAU) on ITV streaming over the next five years, but another key KPI is total consumption, with Kelly Williams, Managing Director, Commercial, at ITV, looking to “double or even triple consumption over the next five years.”

ITVX is effectively a new build streaming service – it is based on completely new technical and UX architecture, underpinned by “a significantly enhanced data capability.” Greater personalisation will be one of the most obvious consumer-facing benefits. Deep Bagchee, Chief Product Officer at ITV, promised a destination for discovering content that includes a much richer visual experience. “The more you watch, the more accurately ITVX gets to know you so we can personalise the product experience,” he explained. Children can create their own viewing profiles, in an example of the personalised UX features.

There is scope for dedicated show/events spaces within the new user interface and the FIFA World Cup Quatar will provide an early example of what is possible, where ITVX viewers will find World Cup related content including interview highlights and companion shows. The World Cup will also be the perfect introduction for a service that is partly designed to bring lighter TV viewers to ITV and then persuade them to stay. In the words of Williams: “People will come in and think, ‘This is a better and stronger service proposition’.”

The launch of ITVX is part of ITV’s previously announced strategy to increase its share of on-demand and streamed viewing while maintaining super-scale live audiences for advertisers – with the linear broadcast channels still central to the share-of-time and share-of-ad-revenue ambitions. The company confirmed: “It has become increasingly clear this year that live channels are incredibly important, whether people are watching broadcast or streaming versions. That will be a significant differentiator [for ITV and ITVX]. Viewers are increasingly choosing to watch live TV in a streaming environment,” said Williams during a briefing to media buyers.

ITV has promised an enhanced live experience via ITVX that includes better discoverability – partly driven by better search engine optimisation and by social sharing of big, live television moments.

Chris Goldson, Director of Commercial Marketing and Pitch Development at ITV, added: “We will be doubling down on live streaming as a differentiator, harnessing daytime, soaps, news and sport to ensure we continue to be the biggest game in town for those valuable mass audiences.”

The company will also leverage its own deep library of programming to feed series-stacking and boxset binge-viewing habits in the VOD space, and ITVX will provide a casual linear zapping experience for streamers via FAST channels (as well as standard linear channels). The FAST channels will be a themed curation of shows and other content, played out on a linear schedule. ITV says the common denominator for what goes in one of its FAST channels could be genre, an actor (e.g. you could have a David Tennant themed channel), cultural moments and calendar events, or they can be based upon a specific programme – with The Only Way is Essex, The Chase and Real Housewives offered as examples.

“FAST channels are big in the U.S., and we think we can be very strong in this space,” Williams declared. There will be 20 FAST channels on ITVX at launch and the broadcaster likened their curation to ITV putting together a Spotify playlist that they think their viewers will love. The FAST channels can be added and removed with ease, based on viewer demand, harnessing digital data smarts. The broadcaster aims to introduce a new FAST channel to ITVX every week.

ITV has also announced a significant increase in content investment, taking spend from £1.1 billion to £1.35bn per year, with streaming prioritised. The extra money will be used to attract harder-to-reach, [for TV advertisers] lighter TV viewers to the broadcaster. In total, ITVX will have 15,000 hours of content at launch versus the 4,000 available on ITV Hub today. ITV will welcome third-party content into ITVX. All of this justifies the broadcaster’s assertion that ITVX will be a streaming destination [rather than a catch-up service].

Goldson talked about bonfires and fireworks within the programme mix, with ‘bonfires’ being the always-on programming that keeps people coming back, underpinned by a wider choice of on-demand titles. ‘Fireworks’ are the programming launches, exclusives, series drops and “special moments” that create a big bang. The ‘bonfires’ will include a collection of feature films, with 50 films available on the service at any one time, regularly refreshed. ITV named some of its partners, including Warner Bros, Disney, NBCU, Sony and StudioCanal. “We expect to show 500 films for free in the first year alone,” Goldson revealed. “We will have extremely well-known franchises in their entirety, for free, in one place for the first time.”

ITV used the launch event to stress that ITVX is first-and-foremost an ad-funded service and that ITV’s future is all about free-to-air television. Because the service will include an ad-free subscription tier under the same roof – bringing what is currently ITV Hub+ into the same integrated platform – and because ITV at the same time announced that a lot of content will premiere in ITVX up to nine months before it goes onto broadcast linear TV, some assumptions were made that ITV was shifting further into the paid domain as a strategic objective. In fact, as you can read here, the new exclusive streaming windows apply to the free-to-view tier on ITVX as well as the paid version. The strategic shift embedded in the new windowing is not from free to paid, but from broadcast towards streaming.

One of the first ITVX exclusive premieres, this autumn, will be the flagship four-part drama Litvinenko, with David Tennant playing the lead role of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian Federal Security Services and KGB officer who was murdered in November 2006 by polonium poisoning, creating a security and diplomatic crisis.

As part of the new windowing strategy, every episode of a new series will also be dropped onto ITVX as soon as the programme airs on ITV broadcast television (if it is not premiered ahead of broadcast). “Viewers could watch all the remaining episodes that same night,” Goldson pointed out. “We tested this with five dramas last year and it brought in new viewers and added incremental viewing, so we are going to do it with 20 series in Year One of ITVX.”

Speaking about the strategy to give ITVX a 6-9 month exclusivity period on a significant amount of drama and documentary programming, Goldson said this content will receive a second surge of viewing when it is finally unleashed on the linear broadcast channels. “This is an opportunity to bring in new and younger audiences with refreshingly different types of ITV content as we are unshackled from the linear schedule,” he declared. Streaming-first Sci-Fi, Indie and Documentary programming is expected to bring new viewers to ITV.

The paid tier on ITVX will include content that is exclusive to subscribers plus the full BritBox experience including programming from BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5 (the UK’s other major ‘terrestrial’ broadcasters).

Rhys McLachlan, Director of Advanced Advertising at ITV, doubled down on the message that ITV is all about ad-supported television. “ITVX is an AVOD-led proposition; it is advertising funded front-and-centre. There is a subscription tier, with ITV Hub+ and BritBox being integrated into ITVX, but if you de-duplicate those subscribers, we have about one million subscribers. We have modest ambitions in this [subscription] area.”

Emphasising this point, Williams said ITV is “perhaps looking to double the subscription base over five years.” He declared: “It is not true that we are looking to take on Netflix and Amazon – this is about being a premium AVOD service. The premium tier is a small add-on.”

It is worth noting that ITV Hub+ – the current ad-free subscription streaming offer from ITV – is only ad-free for on-demand content, with live programming still carrying ads. This model will be carried over to the subscription ad-free tier of ITVX.

Speaking to advertisers and agencies during the ITVX briefing, Kate Waters, Director of Client Strategy at ITV, emphasised that ITV serves the whole country and [for the purposes of market research] the broadcaster has now defined the national audience into various viewing types, including those primarily looking for tentpole and flagship live entertainment and drama, and those described as VOD-first consumers who are looking for content that drives social conversation, and who skew younger. Another group are later adopters of digital technology who tend to also focus on British content, and yet another group are the streaming subscription stackers who are looking for quality rather than quantity of content. ITVX is designed to serve everyone.

McLachlan said ITVX will increase ITV’s addressable market, increasing the breadth and diversity of the audience as well as encouraging more people to watch more content. ITVX advertising will be 100% traded through Planet V. Advertisers can expect all the targeting options they are used to within ITV Hub, but McLachlan promised that targeting will also be turbo-charged, with more permutations possible by taking content multiplied by audience multiplied by context.

ITV AdLabs, ITV’s new strategy, tech and process innovation initiative, is currently developing an ACR-based solution that will read programme metadata to understand what is happening inside shows or films not just at programme-level but at scene-level. McLachlan gave the example of knowing when it is family mealtime within a show. It is this kind of context that he is referring to in the expanded content-audience-context planning options.

ITVX targeting is backed by privacy compliant data from ITV’s 33 million registered streaming users and ITV will use the new service launch to actively engage with consumers to understand more about them. This will be achieved using a fair exchange of value in a GDPR compliant way.

Asked about the likely ad loads on ITVX, McLachlan said there are no hard-and-fast rules, “and as the proposition grows, we will be much more agile in how we schedule breaks.”

In terms of app distribution, the expectation is that ITVX will appear on any platform where you find ITV Hub today.

Photo: ITV has concluded a wide ranging ITVX content deal with WarnerMedia International Television Distribution for programmes including UK premieres of The Sex Lives of College Girls (featured) and All American. More third-party content deals like this are anticipated.

More around this subject

Interested in the future of free-to-view television, the evolution of content strategies (including windowing) and (subscription and ad-supported) streaming strategies? Then check out Connected TV World Summit in May, which also has three sessions dedicated to advanced TV advertising. Full details here.