How long does TV have left?
In this blog I will explore the idea the TV might be on its final stretch or maybe not?
When I was a kid we had  3 TV channels, the kids programmes started sometime after 3pm until about 6ish and that was it during the week, then Saturday morning from 6am till around 10am.
TV was scheduled and we followed the TV guides as to what to watch and when. Advertisers had a good idea that there adverts were going to get a good chance at being seen and budgets were spent here as that's where the attention was.
Fast forward to today and it is quite a different story. There literally hundreds of channels and with the ability to record TV and catchup both via the TV and all computing devices and mobiles we watch what we want when we want.
There are of course exceptions, sporting events are still something that generally needs to be watched live, they are community events and knowing your tribe is also watching is part of the experience and is just not the same watching it on demand.
However with general TV viewing habits have no doubt changed and we now expect to watch what we want, when we want, and on whatever device we have in front of us. There are stats already starting to show that people are starting to cancel satellite and cable packages which are costly and replacing them with subscriptions to services like Netflicks and Amazon TV at a fraction of the cost.
So where does this leave both TV and advertisers? With so many channels on TV it makes for very fragmented viewers spread over the hundreds of channels. People are also fast forwarding through adverts so this raises the question of ROI for TV advertising.
I think personally TV has some life left in yet. There will always be a requirement for quality programming and that really in the future can only be funded by advertising. Â Until the content creators are able to be funded and distribute the content via an internet based medium there will be TV, but for how long?
This does leave advertisers in a difficult position as to where to put there advertising money, or does it?
Despite the above TV advertising is still today where the bulk of the budgets at big brands is still going.
My theory on this is that the big agencies out there are still advertising agencies first and this is where they make there money. Sure they do all the other forms of marketing too but are still an ad company at heart.
I still think there will be change in the coming years and even months. Technology enables us to measure most things and at some point the numbers are going to start showing us the real viewing figures and where audiences really are.
So how about you? Where do you watch your content today and what do you think about the future of TV?
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Author- Speaker - Consultant. Passionate about all things digital.