There’s still life in TV

The end of traditional TV doesn’t seem imminent just yet; it is a strong medium and will continue to be so over the next few years

Here’s the good news for all who work in TV. Our jobs aren’t about to disappear.

TV will remain the dominant screen for home entertainment for many years to come, until most of us are retired. OK, can we all relax now?

The pathway might not be the same, and there will be additional devices, but basically people are going to continue sitting in groups, enjoying a largely passive experience in their homes, for decades to come.

At a presentation we gave last year, at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit, one gentleman came up to me and said how interesting he found it. Naturally, I thought he meant my powerful insights into TV audiences but it turned out that he was surprised to find anyone still bothered about TV at all.

Yet, when we look at the figures, we find that TV consumption is behind only sleep and work in terms of daily activity… and even that difference may be marginal.

We don’t have historical data for comparison in the region but take the UK, for instance, where TV is watched for just over four hours at an individual level.

What’s most interesting there is that the figure has increased in the last 20 years.

Yes, as PCs, laptops, games consoles and now, mobile devices become ubiquitous, and homes enjoy massive broadband speed, people are watching more and more old-fashioned television.

The second, third and fourth screens

The other argument to predict the demise of TV is that we have all these other screens. Surely, nobody actually watches TV, we just have it on while we surf, chat and look at kittens.

It is undoubtedly true that more and more people use other devices while watching TV, but we’re still exposed to it, which is the important thing for an advertiser. Nobody ever seemed too concerned in the old days about people reading newspapers while watching TV.

Sure, tablets, laptops, mobiles are all present, like moons orbiting the sun of television. In fact, there is evidence that they reinforce and enhance TV viewing.

A study was done during the Olympics last year, looking at how much content was consumed by US audiences. Clearly, a sports event is a prime candidate for TV viewing, because viewers want to use the biggest screen for the best experience. But much of the US coverage was shown in delay or edited, so it was the sort of thing viewers might have gone elsewhere to get live.

What stands out here is that the people who viewed the least were the ones who viewed on TV only. Someone viewing on TV, PC, mobile and tablet not only consumed nearly two hours extra TV, but also got more than four hours of additional content.

The phrase I would apply to this phenomenon is “new markets of time”. In other words, these people are watching [content] on trains, in offices, at cafes, where previously they wouldn’t have watched TV anyway.

TV remains the central focus in this scenario but there is much to be learnt from the way audiences interact and switch between the devices.

Companies such as Second Screen have analysed patterns of usage during TV programmes and found distinct patterns. A reality show like the Idol format will have much tweeting and chat during the acts, to the extent that it provides a reliable indicator of how the voting will go. On the other hand, a drama or series tends to build up and then go quiet during the show, only to explode afterwards.

And don’t forget that the ever increasing size and functionality of TV screens, with connected TVs and OTT services, means they lend themselves to being used in a multi-functional way, so maybe we won’t even use other devices in the TV context.

 Apart from behaviour, there’s another good reason, why the internet isn’t about to take over from TV. It can’t. TV remains the most reliable form of delivery for the consumer and the most efficient for the distributor.

Osman Sultan, CEO of du, has often been quoted at conferences, talking about the need for someone to pay for the highways the telcos are being asked to construct, so we can all get to the supermarket.

We can understand his point by looking at the much heralded 4G developments.

According to technology expert Anders Garfors, deploying 4G to completely cover Holland – a small, flat country – would cost USD 9.2 billion to set up and another $2.3 billion each year to run. It would require 4 million subscribers with an annual spend of $1,150 per year to break even. Good luck with that.

The sheer volume of bandwidth needed to watch large amounts of video online is astonishing, but insignificant compared to what is delivered via broadcast. The BBC has estimated that, at times, BBC iPlayer usage made up 15% of all UK internet traffic and yet, it made up just 1% of BBC viewing. Clearly, the BBC has a public service remit, but for anyone else that’s a lot of development and investment to provide a 1% return.

Broadcasting – one to many – is an incredibly efficient way to distribute content. What’s more, we have a business model which has worked for 50 years.

It ain’t broke and the alternatives aren’t about fixing it, just making it better.