In an effort to curb the decline in their 16-24 year old viewing figures, broadcasters have been branching out. At some point in the future, BBC3 intends to go fully online. Channel 4 is pushing its rebranded “All 4” into increased amounts of short-form content, featuring tie-ups and licensing deals with brands such as Fosters and British Gas.
Enter social network television: the union of television and social media, in which viewers share TV experiences with other viewers. This presents a number of opportunities for advertisers, as this effectively provides access to a real-time focus group whose engagement with content may be charted through comments and shares. The social media audience is also increasingly multi-platform, maximising potential reach and viewing time as viewers tune into content on the go via their smartphones and tablets.
Given this, it is unsurprising that not only the broadcasters, but even the social media networks have been vying to increase viewer engagement with TV via social media. Eye-watering stats like the 620,000 tweets that accompanied the last half of the X Factor finale, mean that the social media hype that surrounds a programme has become almost as important as the programme itself. The dominance of short-form and the platforms that surround the content also provides an ideal way to integrate and drive engagement with advertisers and sponsors. For example, Monkey Kingdom’s Made in Chelsea spin-off shorts for Channel 4 are sponsored by existing partner Rimmel London, with a Made in Chelsea game being sponsored by online retailer Boohoo.com.
Despite this, it’s important to remain focused on the audience figures for each platform and respond accordingly to trends. The 2015 BARB annual viewing report showed global short-form content revenues were an impressive $5bn, capturing about 10bn hours’ worth of audience per month. This was however dwarfed by the estimated 360bn hours of long-form content watched, generating around $400bn worldwide in advertising and subscription revenues. Short-form may be growing, but it still only carries at most 1-3% of the revenues and views attributed to long-form.
As digital video advertising increases in popularity, so does the price tag, with top social media or streaming platforms now charging prices comparable to traditional prime time TV. The average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) of advertising on network prime time TV is estimated at between $24.76 to $43.06, but CPM on digital video ads is still $25. While some forms of content - in particular sports, entertainment and reality formats – benefit from real-time engagement, for others, the surrounding hype is as much a distraction as a benefit. As the rise in subscription ad-free platforms, such as Netflix and Spotify Premium show, a considerable percentage of audiences are prepared to pay purely to avoid the surrounding advertising.
It’s clear that social media engagement with TV has huge potential for both advertisers and broadcasters. However, social network TV may not be quite the challenger to linear viewing that many anticipated. Despite increasing convergence and the seeming decline of traditional notions of the “channel”, it looks as though there’s still room, even in the 16-24 age bracket, for the old TV box-set.
Rebecca Davis is an associate at Olswang and a contributor to the adtech blog Adtekr, where this article was originally posted. Follow on Twitter @adtekr.
This advertisement feature is provided by Olswang, sponsors of the Guardian Media Network’s Changing business hub
