Streaming wars heat up: Broadcasters join the platform party

What is the future of TV advertising in the UK?

At the Future of TV Advertising Global this month, the UK’s top three commercial chiefs sat down together for the first time to discuss whether TV has an image problem amongst buyers, the future of cross-platform measurement and changes in the ad market.

Brett Aumuller, managing director at Sky Media, Kelly Williams, managing director for commercial at ITV, and Veriça Djurdjevic, chief revenue officer at Channel 4, spoke to Adwanted Events chair Justin Lebbon.

Broadcasters are not just broadcasters any more
Earlier in the day, analyst Brian Wieser and other sessions had brought up the idea of TV now being seen by marketers as “old-fashioned” and “not sexy”.

Williams disagreed with this view, explaining he did not think ITV, Sky and Channel 4 should be solely seen as broadcasters.

“We get described as broadcasters, in fact we probably describe ourselves as broadcasters, but I don’t think we are broadcasters. We broadcast but we also stream — we stream on-demand and we stream live TV. We’re producers — we produce a tonne of content,” he said.

“The ITV Studios have the biggest show in the UK at the moment — a number one show on Netflix [Squid Game: The Challenge]. But we’re also platform owners and I think the number one thing we do is just brilliant content whether it’s drama, entertainment, or factual.”

He highlighted that between the three TV players represented on stage, they show every major sport in the UK and fund professional independent and impartial journalism and news.

As far as TV advertising is concerned, Williams thought there had “never been a more exciting time” with ITV, Sky and Channel 4’s “massive” combined weekly reach of 42 million people.

Williams, Aumuller and Djurdjevic were not convinced that those outside of the TV world were aware of all of these benefits and nuances in TV advertising.

“You’ve got to take it back to the advertiser. Every single day in the UK we’re exposed to about five thousand advertising messages. If you want to stand out as an advertiser, you’ve got to be memorable,” Williams stated. “Advertising is a competition for memory and memory is all about emotion and that’s what we deliver.” Media Leader