Television Week Takeaways: What Is the Future of TV?

With platform expansion, shifting viewer patterns and an overabundance of available content in various forms and lengths, one could be forgiven for thinking that linear TV is at grave risk or at least due for a major shift in its business model.  The future of TV in its many forms was the focus of discussion during the always frenetic Television Week series of conferences.  I attended several of them.  Read on for the primary takeaways.

Great New Consumer Opportunities
For the average consumer, there has never been a better time to be a fan of video.  There is an embarrassment of riches that can be accessed through a myriad of portals and services.  The challenge though, according to Richard Au, Head of Content Acquisition, Amazon Channels, is "how do you find what you like and discover new content?"

Enter the FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) companies, which are quickly developing an enviable range of video content that is increasingly matched with easy-to-access ad tech for advertisers.  Data plays a huge role not only in the ad tech but also in content curation. Amazon, for example, has developed algorithms that take a look at the content choices of other people who watch similar content.  "We also note what you subscribe to and create a personalized experience and editorial for any new content coming up," Au explained.

Great New Media Challenges … and How to Overcome Them
The advancements of FAANG have created stress on the legacy business model.  David Levy, Executive Vice President Non-Linear Revenue, Fox and Aaron Radin, Senior Vice President Partnerships and Portfolio Products, NBCUniversal, weighed in on the broadcast television model.  "The future of TV buying is to enable audience-based buying at scale through efficient automated platforms," Levy said.  "We need to introduce new measurement solutions beyond cost and reach that properly value attention."

To that end, competitors such as Fox and NBCU have to begin to work together to forge these protocol solutions and build pipelines.  "The keys to success are automation, APIs, data, scalable ad products, markets and measurement," Radin explained.  This needs to be accomplished in an accredited, industry-based manner.  Cross platform solutions are pivotal.  "Google and Netflix have great automated buying options to buy at scale across platforms," he added.  "We need to find ways to present all of our inventory, across all platforms, converging our inventory and enabling transactions."

The legacy model of advertising will be tough to change.  "How do we take 16 minutes of ads in a program and place it in an environment that has fewer ads?" Levy asked.  "We need to get a lot better at measurements including attention, where they are in the funnel, the quality of attention and any change in perception.  If we are just measuring cost and reach we have no chance."

Great Unknowns
As cooperative as the legacy media players might become, there are still the unknowns that can negatively impact the business.  Jeffrey Weber, Chief Executive Officer, ZoneTV noted that we are in this in-between time where new aggregation models for content and channel choice haven't yet settled into an industry standard.  Its hard for consumers to find content that they may like.  Weber believes that operators need to harness the power of the electronic programming guide and help viewers locate the right content at the right time.

Lance Neuhauser, Chief Executive Officer, 4C, said it is important to make the most of every data set.  He stated that, "Social is the largest set of anthropological information now available," he said.  "It is the largest focus group."  He sees that consumers are using ad breaks to engage in social media or texting.  "We need to start from the future and work our way back, and recognize that consumers no longer need to watch ads," he advised. "They can fast-forward, subscribe, pick up their phones, etc."  Linear TV is playing catch up -- and it will be slow.  "You have linear trying to change with 50 years of infrastructure," he added.

Great Advice
The best advice, which was repeated throughout the day, was that businesses need to focus on the viewer and not on the platform.  Re-focusing on the end user can enable a more flexible and successful business model that reinforces a strong future for television.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Advanced Advertising: Content Remains at the Core ... But Data is a (Very) Close Second

How often does one get to go to a sales oriented conference and hear panelists rhapsodize about data? Not in my corporate lifetime as a researcher for a range of television networks. But if you hang around long enough, I guess you see everything come to pass. And so it was at the recent B&C Advanced Advertising conference as part of television week. 

Here are some of my takeaways from the conference:

Data is Out of Research and Into Sales

It is not what all of the panelists said but it was the leitmotif of this and other conferences on media. And that is, Research is there but more and more in the background while Data is being pulled out of the Research function and moved either into siloed departments reporting to the same C-level executive or moved under Sales. What I thought would be a renaissance for Research seems to be turning into a new level of purgatory. Data without Research-applied analytics and Research-derived insights is worthless in my opinion.

Is It Time For a JIG?

This is arguably one of the most controversial and legally risky ideas in our business. But that does not mean that others are not talking about forming an industry wide group to discuss things like standardization, edit rules and metrics. In a common interest group, all would participate so the issues of anti-competitiveness or antitrust should be moot. Linda Yaccarino Chairman, Advertising Sales and Client Partnerships, NBCUniversal fired the first public volley in this battle by asking, “How do we come together as an industry to better measure our product? It has to be more intuitive and we’ve got to get to a place with a uniform currency. The good thing about Nielsen is that it has decades of experience but it is largely self-reported. We need to come together and coalesce as an industry.” Boom.

Standardization of Metrics is Pivotal

Standardization falls along the lines of forming some sort of common interest group to decide, among other things, standard metrics whether for cross platform, advanced advertising or programmatic TV. The standardization and creation of common metrics came up on practically every panel. As Yaccarino explained, “We have to have a common currency and have to measure the efficacy and value of the consumer experience.” When asked what the greatest impediment to the adoption of TV Programmatic was, Brent Gaskamp, SVP Corporate Development N.A. Videology replied, “No standard metrics.” Travis Howe, SVP Client Services and Operations, Invision, noted, “Standardization will be an issue. Measurement will be an issue.” Shereta Williams, President Videa concluded that, “Measurement has to get better, especially cross platform measurement.” But even if we were to all agree, nothing is easy. Frank Foster, SVP GM TiVo Research added a new wrinkle. He explained, “We currently don't have stewardship systems that can handle the new metrics.”

Will Bigger Networks with Higher Ratings Continue to Dominate?

The answer is ‘not necessarily’, but it depends on who you ask.  For Johnathan Bokor, SVP Director of Advanced Media at Mediavest, “In order to get insight into a program or network we need data depth and we are not there yet. We built a system over the past 75 years where big nets and big ratings get the most money. But as you move to an addressable-based paradigm, this type of spending needs to be justified. If your audience is found on the long tail networks, your cost will be cheaper. Large networks will need to prove that they are worth the premium money. We need to look at context of high rated shows. They need to prove that network primetime is worth the premium.” But Lance Neuhauser, CEO of 4C, countered, “The small guys will still have to figure out a way to prove its value.”

In conclusion, the media landscape continues to shift. Definitions of programmatic, advanced advertising and addressable advertising continue to tangent and merge. But some things are eternal:  Make it Easy to Implement and Bring Value Through the Sales Funnel. Marianne Gambelli EVP Chief Investment Officer at Horizon summed it up when she said, “I want research across all media to unlock better value that we can't get our arms around manually.”

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com