The television sector has to combine and align – or lose the bigger battle
Following his visit to the Future of TV Advertising forum, Omnicom Media Group’s Peter Horgan outlines his action plan for how to save free-to-air TV, before the industry strangles it into ‘an early grave’.
It’s been nearly three weeks since MCN’s chief executive Anthony Fitzgerald delivered his call-to-arms for the broadcast industry to put aside self-interest, join forces and blow up its legacy systems and thinking at the Future of TV Advertising forum. It’s had me pondering, and as a long-term TV enthusiast, I feel compelled to respond.
MCN’s Fitzgerald: Remove the “transactional impediments” for buying TV
I remain a supporter of television’s top-of-the funnel attributes in driving brand awareness and consideration. Advertisers would struggle in a world where TV was gone or diminished.
But the broadcast sector has challenges – real challenges. The five-point action plan that was put forward needs all stakeholders to pivot toward action, and quickly.
You are protecting your own interests, and your own interests only. The reality is that quality programming exists at a reasonable cost today, and people are willing to pay for it through services like Netflix.
The TV networks dug the graves they’re lying in by failing to adapt with technological change.
Media agencies are to blame as well, as they were the ones pimping out TV to all of their clients in order to chase commission from the networks, thus clogging up already terrible shows with a mind numbing amount of even more terrible ads for Weetbix.
Hey Self-Serving, you seem to be advocating that media agencies run ads on Netflix … which doesn’t carry third-party ads.
I’m sure that if Netflix did there would be a surge of ad revenue that would help reduce its $20b debt.
Also it is interesting to note that as at the end of 2017 it had 117.58m streaming subscribers globally. Given that ‘everyone has Netflix’ Australia must have one-in-five of its subscribers.
But given that Netflix provides no usage data, it would be irresponsible to splurge advertiser dollars on an unreported publisher.