Television Audience Buying: Big Media vs. the Independents

With the 20162017 Upfront upon us and expectations of a healthy season after several years of decline many are crediting new advances in data and technology with fueling new growthamp160Thatamp8217s great news for the industry but as a big proponent of the long tail and independent cable networks who fuel competition and growth of the industry I am concerned that not all cable networks will benefit from televisionamp8217s evolutionIn the earlier days of cable the amp821690s the amp8220long tailsamp8221 of television were the basic cable networks approx 20plus networks at the timeamp160 Working together we found solutions to industry concerns that promoted our progression amp160Consider these two examplesThe Creative Use of DataThrough the CAB and especially through Turneramp8217s Media at the Millennium research we facilitated a reallocation of approximately 500M to cable from broadcast budgetsamp160 The promise was extended reach better targeting and as a result stronger ROITechnological AdvancementsOn the technology front EDI Electronic Data Interchange proved to be a big breakthrough for the cable industry amp160During the amp821690s agencies were required to manually enter the entire inventory they purchasedamp160 When you multiply that by the growing number of cable networks and the ongoing changes that occur agencies were reluctant to assign large shares of budget to cable amp160EDI in early the 2000s facilitated the entry process and a solution was created that eased the way for cableamp8217s growthFast forward to 2016 and cable networks find themselves once again at a milestone due to much needed change to our sales process stimulated by marketers demanding evidence of ROI amp160In todayamp8217s extremely fragmented marketplace there are lots of investment options but few ways to tie them all togetheramp160 At the same time the trend of buying broad reach purely on ratings age and gender is shifting towards targeting a specific audience based on reaching a desired consumer segmentSrishti Gupta President IRA says amp8220I think the understanding of the need to bring data sources other than just age and gender demographics into television is pretty far developed now Many networks are pulling advanced data into their inventory offerings so that buyers can better target their audiencesamp8221Digital remains a key component of many overall media buys amp160However linear television continues to remain kingamp160 The ARF just reaffirmed the power of television with newly released findings on its strength amp160While television is at the early stages of utilizing datadriven solutions along with automation itamp8217s already evident that a renewed love affair with television has begunamp160amp160 Data and automation will boost televisionamp8217s vibrancy once again amp160From Viacomamp8217s Vantage to Turneramp8217s Audience Now NBCU Audience Studio and Fox and Discovery recent initiatives as well every big media company has announced its version of a custom datadriven automated solution Each group has their own proprietary data sets algorithms for targeting audience and optimizing packages amp160Each also happens to have a portfolio of big and small networks that will share in the optimization solutions and be leveraged together to increase revenue amp160amp160Thatamp8217s awesome for them and for the television marketplace in general but the result for a new wave of televisionamp8217s traditional amp8220long tailsamp8221 may not be as positive amp160Independent cable networks usually do not have the financial and manpower resources to build similar data and automated solutions amp160They are also individually smaller in voice and in size which is clearly a disadvantage amp160amp160amp160As stated earlier the television industry has always advanced in part due to competition led often by the long tail networks amp160Cable became a threat to broadcasters through its risk taking creativity and flexibility amp160It was built with the promise of diverse programming and the niche rich audience they offer marketers amp160I applaud the media companies that have addressed the need for datadriven solutions to compete in todayamp8217s media marketplaceamp160 amp8220One stop shoppingamp8221 will work to optimize sales effort for a family of television networksamp160 However the independent cable networks will need to create their own solution that will maintain a healthy level of competition creativity and flexibility for the industry amp160Like the EDI solution of 20 years ago datadriven television should be an affordable solution for all linear television not just the big media companiesImage at top courtesy of Corbis The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageMyersBizNet management or associated bloggersamp160 amp160amp160

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Television Audience Buying: Big Media vs. the Independents

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