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Google Ad Revenue To Top UK Broadcaster's
GoingTurbo writes, "By the end of the year advertisers in the UK will have spent more money advertising on Google than they did on the UK's Channel Four TV station. The article suggests we will see the slow erosion of traditional television broadcasting, and with it, the death of the great TV ads of the past. The article offers an alternative possibility for the future of television." From the article: "The US has been forced to contend with heinously patronizing and crude TV advertising for decades, but the UK's advertising industry has managed to create art out of the dirty act of selling. Some of the best short films of the last century have been television advertisements... Even if some of these make the transition... online, they'll lack the spectacle of their TV equivalent."
"The article suggests we will see the slow erosion of traditional television broadcasting, and with it, the death of the great TV ads of the past"
"the death of the great TV ads of the past"
My god!
How will we ever survive without the "great" TV ads of the past?!??!?
The greatness of Google's advertising program is that they are good for any budget.
Just as the PC meant a computer for everyone, Google means everyone can advertise.
So the interesting question is not whether people are spending more on Internet advertising, but whether businesses are spending less on TV.
I, for my part, hope that the answer is yes.
TV is mass media in its worst form, and targets the lowest common denominator.
The roll out of Tivo solutions in the UK have not been nearly as popular as in America. I have noticed since the launch of Tivo in the US it has got to the point where it is culturally referenced in films, tv, media, everywhere - in other words it's practically reached Hoover standard.
The reasons why DVR solutions are of course more complex then the point I am making here, but I would argue one of the reasons is that we have two terrestrial channels that have no adverts (bbc1 and bbc2) and three (ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5) which we grumble about, but honestly aren't that invasive - compared to American television.
With the advent of digital tv we actually have access to a great many more channels, but for the most part all the bbc channels are ad free - it's what we pay a tv license for.
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Shouldn't you be out somewhere being smug and self-righteous in a coffee house or something?
First the kind of advertising you get on the web is very different from the one you get on a TV.
... Things a whole family needs on a day-to-day basis.
Usually what you get on the Web is : Video Games, Movies, IT solution, Websites... Things people who surf are interested in.
And you get on TV : Food, Detergent, Soap, Cars,
Additionnally, TV got some help from the web : Now everytime a major TV serie come out, there is a dedicated website to create a buzz and provide some informations to get more people in front of their TV (Lost comes in mind).
No wonder french president Jacques Chirac has plans for a European search engine called "Quaero".
hilarious
The US has been forced to contend with heinously patronizing and crude TV advertising for decades, but the UK's advertising industry has managed to create art out of the dirty act of selling.
What do this snaggle-toothed limey think he's doing, slandering our great American advertising industry? There is indeed a cream that rises to the top of the business, raising TV commercials above the mere act of shilling.
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The dearth of opportunity to get short films exhibited could explain why Cnet hasn't seen so many.
v al&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=short+film+festi
The one I work seen plenty of attendance growth in the last few years.
YouTube et. al. are all well and good but there's something about a few beers in the bar with the filmmakers, crew and appreciative audience you just can't get with a download.
$200,000 per minute does price plenty of folk out of the market for TV advertising.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
you do know there is no paid advertising on the BBC, right?
I can't comment on current adverts as I'm a Mythtv'er, but the article is right, there were some creative ads in the UK. The Guinness ones come to mind.
However, the majority were total mind sucking crap, which is why I don't watch them any more.
But do I see Gooogle ads? Nope. Adblocked. I think online adverts are more easily blocked than TV ads (especially when we factor in product placement), so although Google do well now, things could change very quickly.
I think the GP was going for funny... However, I can understand your confusion given it really was not funny.
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Some of the best short films of the last century have been television advertisements... Even if some of these make the transition... online, they'll lack the spectacle of their TV equivalent."
What a load of rubbish. Art, indeed. Yes, the high art that is Car Insurance adds and refinancing company adds - I swear, 50% of adds on UK tv consist of these two "products". A nodding dog, a red car... has art really become this?
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
Now, now. No need to be nasty to yourself.
And I'd suggest then that the article is wrong. How about, I don't know, just MORE ADS EVERYWHERE, all the time? Television isn't going anywhere, but it is losing its monopoly on moving images in the home. So the shifting around is going to be natural. That doesn't mean moving images will stop being ad-supported and suddenly everybody will throw away their HDTVs in favor of the 5-inch Youtube player.
TV ads will die when they decide the Superbowl thing isn't working out any more. Convergence is a double edged sword: your technologies are getting in bed together, and so will your advertising. More importantly, it means the diversification of advertising - there is not One True Way that a company must get its name out there. It may be via text ads next to an online video or it may be via a 30-second spot, but either way, the article is predicting ultimately fewer ads. I don't think so. I think it means more ads. More ads on TV, online, in your e-mail, cereal. A big fat OS X logo branded onto my chicken. Lightspeed underwear.
"Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree."
That's right, Ridley Scott started out in adverts. So, no chance of a repeat there then, as advertising and music videos kept "british cinema" alive for many years.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
"the death of the great TV ads of the past"
Let us all mourn the death of great TV ads. Surely something to be missed, along with the previous passing of the Spanish Inquisition, the bubonic plague, the Iron Maiden, and having boiling oil poured on you from cathedral tops by irate bellringers.
Where were you when the voynix came?
It's worth keeping in mind that television in the UK has a very different flavor then in the US. Firstly, the country is geographically smaller, so it's all national. There are no local affiliates. Channel Four is literally channel 4 on the dial for the whole country.
Secondly, the top stations (BBC1 and BBC2) have no ads what so ever, they are funded by a per household tv tax. Only somewhat 'new' channels like Four have ads and they are often regarded as somewhat 'tacky'. Maybe I'm missing something, but all I ever seen to see on UK tv is ads for car insurance and ring tones.
Bottom line is a lot less gets spent on TV advertising compared to the US. My benchmark would be, Google owns advertising once movie studios are spending more on google then on tv.
This type of thinking assumes that *everyone* is plugged into their computers and the Interweb. But this just isn't so. There are and will always be large numbers of people that use the computer very little or not at all.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
(offtopic)
in actual fact though, the BBC do advertise, but only for their own services and products. I direct your attention to the 'radio times' adverts, 'gardeners world' adverts, adverts for new shows coming soon etc etc. I'd rather have adverts and not pay the license; the time between programs would stay about the same.
I, being an American, have never watched TV in another country (watchign TV when traveling, for anythign other then pure news, seems silly to me). Are the commercials in the UK actualy good and worth watching? Commercials are one of the reasons I nolonger watch TV, that and the fact that most TV sucks horribly.
So, tell me, are these commercials really that good? (or is this just FUD?)
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
(even more offtopic)
The BBC are probably bringing in advertising on bbcnews.com quite shortly for non-UK people. At the moment, most of the bill is funded by the propaganda, I mean, foreign office.
Maybe the coffee house has WiFi :D
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
When the UK has the BBC (which broadcasts Dr. Who to Glastonbury (the only things from the UK I watch)), I doubt there is much advertising on TV in the UK.
The BBC news site http://news.bbc.co.uk/ is the best website for new since it DOES NOT HAVE ADS.
On the flip side though, even Dr. Who is really tacky and barely barely worth watching. All good really good high-budget TV series are from the US with the TV advertisment model.
Some of the Channel 4 stuff I've watched always gave me the impression that UK didn't have ads for small things like soap, pens, candy etc. It's ads for cars, banks and Scotland.
I wish the BBC would accept money for putting on shows like that, maybe then they could reduce the license fee.
Channel Four is literally channel 4 on the dial for the whole country.
Never heard of S4C? Also, try using the "now and next" pages on teletext sometime - you'll be suprised how often most of it just says "regional variations".
> Secondly, the top stations (BBC1 and BBC2) have no ads what so ever
Really ? So what do you call all those little 30 second slots they keep having which are blatantly advertising BBC products then ?
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
one major difference between the two, that Channel 4 has done tons to eradicate, is the frequency of the ads.
In the past, a half hour show would have one ad break. A one hour show would have two or three.
Now, on C4, any American show (they don't seem to do it with the British ones) will have an ad break as soon as the titles finish and then another every couple of minutes later.
Is that we dont have local TV channels. The smallest adversting market is probably "Scotland" which is still 5 million people spead out over a country.
If you run a car dealership then you can't afford to run TV ads because you'll be targetting people who live many hours away from you.
Most of the particularly distasteful US commercials are more small businesses. I think people like Geico and Apple have pretty clever ads.
How d'you figure that? Every channel advertises it's own programs either side of the adverts, and none of them less so than the bbc. Buy a dvd with a bbc produced show on it and see how long the half hour shows are (usually around 28 minutes), and then look at the ones that run at half an hour on channel 4 (the simpsons on the bbc was a twenty or twenty five minute show if memory serves).
Go to the USA and watch tv, it's intolerable: the adverts are every two minutes (or feel like it). At least with the bbc the commercial channels are forced to regulate how often they break, for fear of pissing away viewers..
Additionally if we lost the bbc to advertising we'd lose a hell of a lot more than just the time between programs. The license fee means that they are publically accountable (and therefore not to the highest bidder). It allows them to innovate (I direct your attention to all the innovative comedy programs it's produced in the last 30 years). The website is a fantastic, in depth resource. The Radio stations cater to all tastes, they have informed debaters, all sorts of music for all cultures and we're saved from the embarrassement that are Radio Adverts. There's a million reasons why the bbc is hugely beneficial to British culture: "Time between programs" is not one of the big ones.
Stupid people think it's cool. Smart people thinks it's a joke; also cool.
The Guinness Wave ad (actually pretty cool)
6 8549381115
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_p7_55d8u5E
The Hovis ad:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CFLBvLxLJMI
Guinness de-evolution ad:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-35082435
..."meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
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i've never paid for cable or satellite. the service has just never seemed to offer me any value: while there's some decent content, it's overwhelmed by noise, and i'm not willing to schedule my life around the box. today, i watch several programs regularly, however.
take, for example, Lost, Jericho, and Heroes. three different networks, prime-time big-money shows, and each of their networks distributes the latest episode online for free. sure, it's in some stupid flash player, which diminishes the experience (prevents portability, inhibits replay, and - particularly the ABC player - can be buggy), but that's a huge shift in outlook on the part of the major networks from even two years ago. the official distributions contain commercials, but that's a trade-off well worth it (ABC's model is particularly nice: watch 'em once, then scroll around however you want, including watching the whole show straight through without interruption). i have no idea what the user population of these sorts of services are today, but i strongly believe they'll continue to grow.
then there's DVD series. i've watched far more "television" shows via DVD in the past year than i have off broadcast+cable+satellite in the past five (like i said, i don't have "television" in the normal sense). there's some unanswered questions about this as an model in itself - how do you know which shows to watch? where's the up-front production money come from? - but, again, that model seriously diminishes the "need" for "traditional" television. and i'm certainly not alone on this front: this is a very big market already.
and this is just the officially sanctioned means. if i remember correctly, ABC lets you watch back episodes through their player, NBC not; bittorrent to the rescue. eztv even specializes in exactly this sort of television content shifting.
then there's iTunes. their pricing model is informative. personally, i think it's too high: i've bought some short movies, but wouldn't pay that much for a television show/season. however, when you look at what people actually pay for cable/satallite - which can easily top $100/month - it's actually not a bad deal, by the numbers. if the quality was higher, i might be inclined to get, say, Lost and Battlestar Galactica this way; alternately, if the current product was available for, say, $20-25/season.
the "slow erosion of traditional television broadcasting" is already upon us, and is only going to accelerate with increased broadband adoption and data rates. and good riddance.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
The most telling thing: In the US, the Simpson's takes a half hour slot. When the Simpsons was on BBC2, they fit two episodes in a half hour slot.
Typical US advertising for a half hour program goes:
Ads
Intro credits
Ads
Programme first half
Ads
Programme second half
Ads
Ending credits
Ads
Typical UK advertising on a half hour slot:
Ads
Intro credits
Programme first half
Ads
Programme second half
Ending credits
Ads
Generally, the ad breaks are shorter, too. When I lived in the US, I practically gave up watching TV because the advertising was so frequent, invasive - and especially car adverts - loud and obnoxious.
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When the Simpsons was on BBC2, they fit two episodes in a half hour slot.
In the words of Raplh Wiggum, "That's unpossible!".
US shows of late take about 22 minutes (down from 25 some years back). Two 22 minutes episodes do not fit into a half-hour. So, either they snipped parts of the show (e.g. 1 min of intro, 2 min of credits, and 4 minutes randomly) or it wasn't in a half-hour.
Have you read my journal today?
In a way i PREFER ads to be really bad. I can go make a cup of tea, maybe give that book i'm reading another chance to hook me. Granted, i could do this with "great" ads too, but if i am sucked in to watching them at least if they're rubbish i can fall back onto a vague sense of self superiority to smirk my way through them. Good adverts are..insidious. Advertising is a huge business, there's tons of Psychological studies on what sort of adverts will appeal to what market etc.: my girlfriend learnt all about them at University. At least if an advert is just "buy this cooker" I can just mumble "no, i don't need a fucking cooker, you knob" to myself..
My problem stems from the frequency of the breaks, not the quality. I even watched "100 Greatest Adverts" on Channel 4.
Well, 5 minutes of it.
Stupid people think it's cool. Smart people thinks it's a joke; also cool.
They may be spending more with Google than broadcast advertising, but which one is generating more bottom line revenue? And which one has the bigger ratio?
I think I've mentioned before, this sort of data is a lot like the Addys (ad award like Grammys) which are issued based on peer review rather than effectiveness. Who cares if the ad is really great - if it didn't cause anyone to go purchase the product or service what good is it as an ad?
I tell you who has the most effective advertising campaign right now and that's Google. They've apparently stolen broadcast advertising's market in the UK.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Terry O'Reilly and The Age of Persuasion is an excellent radio program about advertising. O'Reilly tracks the evolution of advertising into the internet age and talks about the implicit bargain that there has always been between advertisers and audience: that the audience gets something of value in return for the message, and how this is in danger of being broken in some internet models (popups etc) and has been broken (by e.g. highway billboards which most advertising professionals loathe) in the past.
Well worth a listen, produced to a very high standard, good writing, entertaining anecdotes.
The US has been forced to contend with heinously patronizing and crude TV advertising for decades
As someone who used to live in the UK and now lives in the US I'd say this is a very dated view. It was true, perhaps even as little as 10 years ago, but now it's a bit misleading.
There is quite a bit of wit, subtlety, humor, even dare I say it art in the best US TV advertising these days. In fact when I visit the UK I often find adverts who seem to have abandoned those things for straight out absurdity, inconsequentiality and contrived crudeness as an attention getter, so it feels like the US is currently in a more sophisticated phase of advertising than the UK. I do realise that contrived crudeness can be seen as even more sophisticated - like the crudeness is post-modern or satirical, but men in plastic orange suits slapping people (Tango adverts) really undermine any idea that the US is far behind the US in wit in adverts these days. Many of the "dumb" adverts are now done in a "yeah, we know" manner - the assumption is the viewer gets a chuckle because he's in on what a dumb joke it is e.g. the "Magic Fridge" beer commercial, one of my favourites.
In other news, the US now has airbags in its cars, good tea, relatively much more expensive gas, fuel-injected engines and a comparative lack of plaid polyester suits, sideburns and huge-collar leather jackets. Who knew?
I suppose the future of ads will be the viral ones like Carlton's Big Ad, which was a successful viral campaign on the Internet before it hit television, even though it was made for TV.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
the Trunk Monkey
The Honda ads where the people looked like their cars
(YouTube 'em. I don't have access at work)
It's about watching TV when it's right for you, not when the broadcasters want you to.
Even if I couldn't skip ads I still wouldn't be without a TiVo.
Because it catches all my shows I want to watch and then I can watch them when I get home.
I don't even have kids, but I don't see how families could get by without a PVR. What happens when you're watching a show live and your baby starts crying?
There are many shows I watch that I barely know when they're on. They're on when I get home and feel like watching them. Maybe that's 9P, maybe it's the next morning at 8:30A.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Okay, you got me on some technicalities, as you can tell I don't actually live in the UK, anymore. Had something to do with the British sense of humor I think.... C- is too kind.
Since it's the internet....
Although there is admittedly some regional content, you have no idea the used car sales pitches you are bring spared. There is nothing akin the to US affiliate system in the UK.
I was too lazy to lookup what the top stations actually are. Point about TV tax was what mattered. Most Americans are very surprised that this is how things work across the pond.
BBC One has been going since 1936, 70 years vs. 24. To anyone over 35, that is somewhat new.
You got me on home finance.
The general idea is, well in the US TV advertising is top dog, it has never been as big a deal in the UK. Do you disagree?
Your comment that there are ad breaks on Channel 4 'every couple of minutes' is innaccurate.
OFCOM stipulate that on channels 3 to 5, no more than 1 ad break is permitted in a scheduled broadcast of up to 44 minutes, 2 breaks in a broadcast up to 59 minutes and 3 in a broadcast up to 89 minutes. Furthermore, there must be at least 20 minutes between internal breaks, a slight reduction in this time being permitted if it aids continuity.
So, your typical US drama on Channel 4 will have a maximum of 3 ad breaks.
Correct.
Firstly, the country is geographically smaller, so it's all national. There are no local affiliates. Channel Four is literally channel 4 on the dial for the whole country.
WRONG. There are local variations for most of the main "terrestrial" channels.
Secondly, the top stations (BBC1 and BBC2) have no ads what so ever, they are funded by a per household tv tax.
WRONG. BBC2 is a minority channel.
Only somewhat 'new' channels like Four have ads and they are often regarded as somewhat 'tacky'.
WRONG. ITV, the main commercial TV network has been broadcasting (with adverts) for over 50 years.
Maybe I'm missing something, but all I ever seen to see on UK tv is ads for car insurance and ring tones.
Hmmm, kind of depends what your viewing habits are.
It was about 35 minutes, and they skipped the opening sequences and ran the entire credits in about 5 seconds, with no gap between the episodes - I assume they aren't allowed to skip the credits. The double-bills were also neither current nor consecutive episodes, so I would guess they chose the shortest they could.
You're correct as to ad-break frequency (so 3 breaks is the maximum in a 1-hour show), but Channel 4 does seem to have moved to often having a US-style "post titles break" within the first ten minutes. It's not necessarily a bad idea if whoeever designed the show intended there to be a break at that point - what would be a bad idea would be too long / too frequent breaks.
?????
Wanted : A Signature.
I suspect that is vaguely deliberate...... If you ever saw the originals you'd probably understand why. If they over modernised it there would be a massive backlash. No seriously.. Death on the streets, arson, massive - widespread public unrest.....
Sounds like a case for The Doctor....
Be nice to people on the way up. You will meet them again on your way down!
I doubt they'd be allowed 15 minutes of commercials in an hour, certainly not on the main 2 channels. The 3 main commercial terrestrial channels are very heavily regulated when it comes to the amount of commercials they can air (though on things like movies, they can average them out, so you might get a lot of adverts at the beginning of a film and fewer near the end). Even the non-terrestrial channels have some regulation, which is why if you look closely at the 15 minutes of commercial time to pad out american programmes, a lot of those commercials are for other programmes and are not paid adverts. I would assume that a commercial BBC would be forced to live under the same rules.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
i bow to your superior knowledge. still pisses me off though. and i've normally turned off by then.
But they only ever do that on american shows, where the break (thanks to american ad patterns) naturally is. I prefer this to how they used to break american programmes at "british" times, where the breaks would be in the dumbest places.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
I would hardly call C4 "new" - it's 24 years old today (it started on November 2, 1982). Even five is almost 10 years old now.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
I think the loss of adds and tv would be a shame but it had to happen. In time its going to be replaced by something bigger and better. People will soon have to find a new way of advertising.