Page 20 - AdNews Mar-Apr 2021

Agenda
“I’m sad to say
I believe print
and cinema will continue to fight an uphill battle.”
Media Merchants media director Justine Butler.
TV performed strongly during the pandemic with a healthy boost to audience numbers, a pattern seen across all media channels excerpt out-of-home. However, this didn’t translate to revenue flowing as brands tightened their budgets in an uncertain economy. In the worst of the pandemic, TV fell 35.6 per cent in May, according to SMI figures.
According to ThinkTV, the total TV industry, which includes regional and metro free-to-air, subscription TV and broadcast video-on-demand (BVOD), was down 10.7 per cent for the full year to reach $3.45 billion in advertising. However, there were early signs of recovery with total TV up 0.5 per cent in the six months to December to reach $1.96 billion.
Cooper says the increase for metro linear TV, 0.6 per cent for the six months to December last year was impressive.
“For a channel that has seen consistent decline for at least five years, to record growth during a pandemic year is quite unmatched — and the early indicators for 2021 is that this trend is set to continue,” he says.
Media agencies note a demand from clients to return to traditional channels as business and consumer confidence begins to lift.
“Our clients have been itching to get their traditional broadcast channels back into the mix and we can already see the effect of adding in that top awareness layer,” Enigma Media managing director of media Justin Ladmore tells AdNews.
“Sometimes when a media plan has 100 per cent digital media there is a sense of not being seen. We switched the traditional media back on and we appeared again.”
But media buyers highlight that while there is a notable rise in TV bookings, they are mostly coming at discounted prices introduced at the start of the pandemic when demand tumbled.
“TV demand in March this year is like what we would only typically expect to see in the latter months of the year,” Media Merchants media director Justine Butler tells AdNews.
“As to how much that demand is delivering revenue, it’s likely mod- erate as advertisers lock in at 2020 discounts that are well below pre-pan- demic levels. So I think we’ll see a normalisation of this as positions move and demand eases as a result”
Justine Butler at Media Merchants expects TV to be back by the middle of this year. “But that will differ by network as I think Seven suffers still from the Olympics and cricket wreaking havoc to their revenue and schedules,” she says.
“Nine will dominate. Ten and Foxtel hold their own. OOH and radio I think will need to wait till the back end lifts of 2021 to feel they are truly back.”
TV networks, particularly Nine, have tried to increase their revenue by taking on tech giants Facebook and Google.
In its upfronts last September, Nine revealed its partnership with Adobe to launch Audience Match, which will help brands match their customer data with the network’s 13 million registered users.
Nine chief sales officer Michael Stephenson described the deal as making Nine the “premium alternative” to Facebook and Google, but media buyers are less convinced.
Butler says that while Nine’s data play is on the right path, it is yet to gain scale of advertisers behind it.
“Vital to the question of how long, or if, TV can sustain this growth or deliver on the promise to take back dollars from the tech giants — this
will all be heavily reliant on the quality of content,” he says.
“The continued impacts facing production, and an onslaught of new, big budget content from Netflix, Apple and Amazon, who seem intent on taking both TV and cinema audiences, will pose a longer-term threat that the FTA
networks have to find a solution to for true growth.”
Anthony Ellis, managing director of Publicis Media Exchange,
says Nine’s Adobe deal represents a big step.
“The ability to leverage in a meaningful and tangible way the
data from their 13+ million sign-ups is compelling, but advertisers will need to see more proof points/case studies before they jump in feet first,” Ellis tells AdNews.