Commentary
The TV Haters And TV Advocates Debate
- by Maarten Albarda , Featured Contributor, March 9, 2015
The “haters” are the doomsday scenario fans that have declared TV dead, and long live digital! Then there are the TV-hater contrarians, who argue that TV is still a formidable medium in terms of reach, penetration, ability to engage, etc. Among this group is Ed Papazian, a former agency media research guy who now publishes many industry publications and has commented on many MediaPost articles about TV’s challenges in the U.S. I have been at the receiving end of some of Ed’s thoughtful arguments. Also part of this group is Brian Wieser, a senior analyst at Pivotal, who’s always armed with the latest data points to help you understand the true state of advertising.
I am not a TV hater. I am a realist. My issues are these:
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1. Marketers spend anywhere between 50% and 80% of their budgets on TV, but do not spend nearly anything like that in actual time: time to discuss how to optimize, reinvent or innovate the way they advertise on the medium. They only want to talk cost and CPM.
Marketers spend between 5% and 30% of their budget on digital, but probably spend 65% to 75% of their time talking about digital. Digital is not unimportant, especially if you sell or service your customers directly via digital. But the balance is off, and because of that, marketers tend to think TV is not sexy, not relevant and not that important. And therefore TV budgets are flat or down.
2. Which leads me to my post from last week, in which I tried to explain that the enormous advances that have been made in data and technology have translated only to advances in content distribution (device-agnostic) and sales (programmatic TV ad sales is here). But the way we use all these new opportunities for advertising is still stuck in last century’s advertising model of spots, break bumpers, sponsored messages and product placement. We are also still squabbling about how to calculate reach, frequency and impact for TV (Nielsen, Rentrak, comScore, etc.), as well as the definition of a rating (C3, C7, etc.). So measurement is still stuck in the last century as well.
3. The slow decrease of viewership in mature TV markets is a signal that the TV industry, or perhaps the video industry as a whole, needs to watch, since it’s trending the wrong way. Ignorance is not bliss; just ask Kodak, Betamax, BlackBerry or MySpace. Or perhaps in today’s world, ask Coca-Cola or McDonald’s. The (slow) attrition of viewers is played up large in the media, and fits perfectly with marketers’ narrative that they do not need to spend a lot of time thinking about TV because it’s past its prime.
As an advertising medium, the video content platform is in trouble. The biggest platform is losing viewers (slowly for now) and money (also slowly, but at a greater rate than before, and more consistently than before). The digital alternatives do not (yet?) deliver the same proven impact. That is not a recipe for success, but a recipe with disaster written all over it.
The bridge between legacy and digital will be born from an innovative content distribution platform for broadcast TV with new viewer experience as its interface. If broadcast TV continues it current digital strategy of enabling fragmentation with no clear vision other than "me too", then it is a wonderful recipe with disaster as the end result.
That may be a bridge too far, guys.
The bridge is so close broadcast TV can touch it, they just do not see it. The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
This exact same article should be written about Newspapers and print and specifically Hispanic newspapers. The current media thinking is too focused on digital as a save all and digital as a euphemism for cost-cutting as more important than sales growth, as more important than ROI. media haters should not be media buyers. Those focused on hating TV newspapers and radio for a living should most certainly not be handed the keys to the kingdom bc they will not increase sales. Companies interested in growing their sales and profitability cannot do so without newspaper media. A bottom-feeder digital strategy based on buying whatever digital is cheapest fastest and dirtiest will not drive sales. Cost-cutting as THE media strategy will only drive the agency holding companies kickbacks and fees and will not drive clients sales. digital only is only making a few ad agency kingpins rich and is not driving corp America's sales. Better creative, buying quality digital as part of print buy or TV or radio buy would work better. Better creative; good honest testing of newspaper ROI ( you must buy it to test it fyi haters). Especially non haters should be buying Hispanic media and Latino newspaper creative of us Lovers (non Haters)who care about ROI and sales growth for our clients. A digital cheapest thing I can buy strategy investment alone will not work to drive sales. Companies need traditional TV and traditional print, especially Latino newspapers to grow sales. Also desilo PR and put under paid media solo w paid media budget and buy more media client direct rather than letting agencies and middlemen pocket all the budget without investing in any real media innovation with the media. Stop hating on newspapers And TV and radio and invest in them and good work on them ( editorial integrations, consistent messaging over time) or continue to settle for flat sales and making Martin Sorells (sic)of this world richer for what work exactly? Stop investing budgets in unprofitable companies like YouTube and calling the newspapers and TV and Latino newspapers who are very profitable losers. We in newspaper media and traditional media know how to increase sales how to increase profits by increasing sales. Don't hate us for this; ask is for our help!