What Is TV?

I was invited over to Thinkbox last week to talk metrics with their Research & Strategy Director, David Brennan.  For those of you who don't know Thinkbox was set up three years ago to market the main UK broadcasters' (C4, C5, GMTV, ITV, SkyMedia, Turner, Viacom) offerings to advertisers.  Not an easy job in the current climate where the prevailing view is that TV is on borrowed time as its financial model gradually erodes.  That said, TV is still big business and will probably be so for a few years yet.  Or as one media Grand Fromage described it to me last year: "Everyone knows the bike is broken, but it's the only bike we've got".  One of ThinkBox's main messages is that people are watching more TV - not less.  Which I can believe.  Another one is that TV advertising, even at PVR-speed, is still very effective.  Which I think is *ahem* contentious.  And thirdly that the TV's future in the joined-up media ecosystem is exciting.  (Thinkbox call it TV's Third Age).  Which makes me think - what is TV?  The landscape is so far removed from any traditional connotations of the family unit relaxing together...

around the goggle-box as to be meaningless.  Let's look at a few scenarios to see how 'TV' is shifting:

• In my home we have a Freeview box with a 160GB hardrive, a small DVD library and a subscription to ilovefilm.  So almost all my viewing is time-shifted. 

• On the way to Thinkbox meeting I saw three twenty-something lads on a train watching football on a PSP.  So their viewing was location-shifted. 

• I have a friend who has no TV but buys a lot of DVDs and watches them on his laptop.  So his viewing is device-shifted. 

• Another buddy has BitTorrent continually 'dripping' into the servers that sit in his flat which are then saved as a 'best of' library on Mac Minis which he loans out to friends.  Which is law-shifting.

• A relative of mine has a 7ft Hi-Def plasma screen in a dedicated room where the only viewing is film and football.  Which is wallet-shifting.

• When it comes to live programming like football, the pub is often the venue for my circle.  Call it venue-shifting. 

• Plenty of people are choosing to take their TV in sociable snack-size packages such as Room Mates on MySpace TV and Kate Modern on Bebo.  A sort of format-shifting. 

• Others have forsaken TV and replaced it with submersive gaming such as World of Warcraft or consoles.  Which is reality-shifting. 

• Then there are consoles which increasingly are equipped to handle films and programming or which have in fact just morphed into TV-like screens.  So, the software is shifting.

• And then there's Slingbox which allows those on the road to call up content from the hardrive in their home and watch it on a laptop.  Which can be time-zone shifting.

• And then 4oD, the million strong BBCi Player and ITV.com - all possibly due to be wrapped up into the new Kangaroo platform.  Channel-shifting?

So, are these all 'TV'?  The purpose of my conversation at Thinkbox was to discuss the changing world of metrics.  But with such a variety of 'TV' focused leisure occurring, the challenge is considerable.  No wonder BARB finds itself creaking under the pressure.  It was designed to measure yesteryear's Eric & Ernie era.  Not a world where Moore's Law allows us to shift TV in multiple disparate directions on a whim.

What's the answer?  Well watch this space.  Thinkbox are reaching out to lots of other organisations, including the IAB, to develop collaborative approaches which may help create metrics that shift and stretch along with the medium. 

However, I left my conversation with David wondering if maybe we will never have a central metrics marketplace again.  In a world where the menu of media is so great and the tastes of the customers so varied, maybe the only approach to metrics is for individual marketeers and brands to carefully select their own tapas, decide what tastes good and add a few spices of their own.  And maybe having found particularly potent flavour combinations or a nice Vino Tinto to wash down their media metrics menus, brands will share their tips to create a marketplace that learns and benefits all.  But, of course, such openness might just be a shift too far.

Comments

[Charles Frith]

Quality post. I've been asking the same questions myself. I even think the whole context of TV is changing. I like it on in the background as a 'radio' when I'm surfing the net (news programs especially) and I question deeply the engagement of young folk who are SMS'ing or just generally paying low attention to content/commercials.

It's TV, but not as we know it Jim!

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Charles. The points you make are now common concerns, aren't they. However, without a decent new metrics system, it's difficult for the industry to make the leap. The only ray of light appears to be the VNU/Arbitron/P&G collaboration - Apollo. But even that seems to be moving very slowly.

[Angus]

Frith, TV as a background radio, great description, that's how I use it.

Nice post, thanks.

[David Brennan]

I love the way the shift in TV consumption has been described - and those shifts are taking TV into places it has never been before. It IS TV but not as we know it - but it doesn't mean the end of the model. I say this for the following reasons;
1. There will always be a market for well-produced, lean back entertainment delivered to all screens, but with the bulk of access still being the main set with the 42" plasma screen and home cinema sound and vision (increasingly HD). If this isn't susutained by advertising, ultimately it will have to be paid for, and given the choice the vast majority of consumers always opt for the former! (BTW, if the model is broken, somebody forgot to tell the consumers, who are spending record amounts on TV technology and access!)
2. We should not underestimate the power of the context - people ALLOW TV ads into their lives because of it and will therefore allow the ads to play out and tell the brand 'story' in ways other media cannot BUT once that brand narrative is set, other media (including online) can work off the back of it to increase their effectiveness (witness the relationship between TV activity and branded search!)
3. People engage with TV programmes (and ads) in ways no other media can compete with - I know, because we have just done a study where we observed people watching Tv in their own homes and after watching over 15,000 commercials in this way,I am convinced that the entertainment value of TV advertising can create engagement unlike anything else - not many media can boast people laughing, singing along, dancing & clapping, talknig about the products being advertised, playing 'guess the ad' games, mimicking tghe voice overs word perfectly....and the list goes on!
4. TV effectiveness has come under intense scrutiny in the last few years and - guess what - it is demonstrably more effective than ever at shifting product and changing hearts and minds. The recent IPA and Price Waterhouse Coopers studies are just the tip of the iceberg
5. And finally, all these new modes of viewing are increasing TV's flexibility, relevance, convenience, control and value - to the consumer and the advertiser.

James - I know you say you watch almost everything in timeshift mode - lots of people say the same thing - but when we discussed TV advertising you seemed to be well aware of too many of them NOT to have been exposed by the broadcast stream. And this leads to my final point - whatever metrics we use cannot be based on claimed behaviour - because it is always wrong and for some activities (e.g. sex and TV viewing) seriously skewed. I think the way is to have a metrics system that is based on consumers not medai platforms, and a range of methodologies to allow us to follow, observe and quedstion those consumers in the most relevant and appropriate ways, but where every media platform is on a level playing field.

Phew - sermon over!

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks for dropping by and joining the discussion David, much appreciated.

The subject is a devilishly complex one but I take your points on board. Sooo the question is, why do you think these messages aren't getting through to the advertisers?

Btw, of course, I am aware of many ads - good and bad - because it's part of my professional business. But trust me (almost) everything is time-shifted and ads are x60. No mistake in my claimed behaviour there ;-).

[James Cherkoff]

I'd be very interested in how other people 'do' TV....? Anyone care to start?

[Ed]

Here's how we do TV: MS Media Center (thought it was dead?) rips all our viewing as it records into formats for other computers and on my aging Nokia mobile. All formats of a show are deleted when we zap the master recording. Almost everything is time-shifted (even big games), and we skip (almost) all ads, except for the Superbowl where we skip everything else. Recently watching presidential debates it has been fun to keep an eye on the back-channel (e.g. on Twitter), and that wider social aspect would be about our only reason not to time-shift.

[James Cherkoff]

Excellent, thanks Ed. Sounds amazing! Anyone else?

[neilperkin]

In my house TV has become steadily less significant over time. We probably watch about an hour a day average but often that's time shifted or it might well be a film on Sky which doesn't have ad breaks. I think it's a little ridiculous to suggest that people have any kind of decent take out from an ad seen at 30 times the speed. When we do watch, we're often on the internet at the same time or reading or talking. Personally I think the degree of attention that people think TV commands is overrated, as seems to be suggested by this recent study by BiG Research which found that only 5.5% of viewers regularly attend to commercials:
http://tinyurl.com/23jndf
TV is undoubtedly a powerful medium but I do believe that that power is eroding significantly over time as a result of changes in lifestyle and culture

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Neil and for the link. Indeed, no one is saying that TV isn't powerful. However, some realism about its role is an important first step in its use.

Who's next? Any Limewire heads out there?