TV in 2011

Deloitte has just announced that it thinks TV is a ‘super’ medium and will get even more super in 2011. At Thinkbox we’ve always known that, but it is nice for someone else to say it.

In its recently published report on media and technology in 2011, Deloitte says that TV's 'super medium' status will strengthen in 2011 and that viewers will watch 140 billion more hours of television around the world; 40 million new viewers will start watching; and TV advertising revenue will increase by $10 billion this year.

Deloitte also says that – despite increasingly having the ability to do so – people will still not search for the programmes which they watch, what they watch will continue to be determined by what friends and family are watching; and that the power of the 30-second spot will not diminish.

So things will carry on as usual then? Yes, in the sense that the core TV experience will remain the same – watching professionally made, top quality content on live, linear TV channels on a TV set in the living room with other people to share the experience.

But we will see the trends and technological enhancements that gathered pace last year continue in 2011. Connectivity and mobility will be big themes, with it becoming more commonplace to watch TV on a tablet as convergence becomes a reality. And we will see more and more people choosing to watch catch-up TV services on their lovely big TV screen whenever possible with more opportunities to do that appearing via connected TV sets, connected boxes or games consoles.

The magic combination of TV and social media like Twitter and Facebook will also continue to develop. Twitter says that a large chunk of its tweets are TV related and a quick look at Facebook shows that from status updates to groups, TV motivates a great deal of activity.

At the heart of TV and social media’s evolving partnership is the phenomenon of two-screening – watching TV with a companion screen to hand, such as a mobile or laptop. In our recent Tellyporting research, we found that people who were given smartphones that ‘talked’ to their TVs were keen to respond directly to TV ads on their companion devices - even putting them directly on an online shopping list.

One on-screen commercial development that will unfold in 2011 is the arrival of product placement in UK TV content. It has been on our screens via imported content for years anyway, but now UK advertisers can get involved. We shouldn’t get carried away with it though – and certainly should not allow anyone to even suggest it is a rival or replacement to spot advertising. Product placement is a small but interesting new TV opportunity that works differently from spot advertising for brands and we look forward to understanding more about it and researching its effectiveness.  It will probably have the biggest effect in promoting advertiser-funded programmes within which a brand could have an appropriate presence.

With luck, 2011 will be the year when some of the nonsense talked about TV will finally dry up. In an ideal world, everyone would acknowledge the hard facts that show ad-skipping is really not a major issue, and people would stop trying to position the internet and TV as rivals – or even equivalents – and realise that they are about as complementary as it’s possible to be. Whether this happens or not remains to be seen. But one thing we do know will happen is that TV will remain at the heart of our lives, whether we watch it on a TV set, a laptop, a ‘phone or a tablet, and that it will remain the most effective form of advertising investment available.

Lindsey Clay, Marketing Director, Thinkbox