All hail to ‘The Schedule’

Raymond Snoddy says year after year Deloitte has taken the unfashionable course of highlighting the enduring power of network television while at the same time emphasising the wonders of modern technology. Until now at least they have not been embarrassed by their forecasts…

All hail to ‘The Schedule’. That is the clear message coming out this week from Deloitte’s technology, media and telecommunications forecasts for 2012.

You can get as excited as you like about computers, smartphones, tablets, big data, social networks and scanning the brains of consumers to see what they are really up to but the collective wisdom of Deloitte consultants around the world still hones in on power of ‘The Schedule’.

The argument is simple. The facts are scarcely in doubt and the forecast for this year is unlikely to be overturned by 31 December. Not just in the UK but in much of the developed world 95% of all television programmes watched in 2012 will be live or seen within a day of the original broadcast.

As Jolyon Barker who heads Deloittes global technology, media and technology practice puts it: “Technology has not shattered the TV schedule: it has made it more resilient, more flexible.”

That is a very important statement with enormous financial implications and one that has to be tested. Is there a flaw in the argument that has something to do with the method of forecasting, the limited time horizon chosen?

Trying to forecast even a modest year ahead can be surprisingly tricky but does moving forward a mere 12 months produce judgements that are simply too conservative? The revolutionary change is definitely coming, it will just take a little longer than a year to fully manifest itself.

Logically, how could it be that the deeper and deeper penetration of digital video recorders, the plethora of devices attached to faster and faster broadband speeds and the endless online video inventory has produced so limited an apparent effect? So far.

All you can say is that year after year Deloitte has taken the unfashionable course of highlighting the enduring power of network television while at the same time emphasising the wonders of modern technology. Until now at least they have not been embarrassed by their forecasts.

There are plenty of explanations out there for the television paradox and in particular the enduring power of the schedule, explanations which veer into the socio-behavioural. We may actually like structures and schedules to provide some order and stability to our lives – signalling the time of day, the day of the week or season of the year.

The “predictability of a reward stimulus” may be more important than the actual stimulus itself. Choice may indeed be cherished but choosing is a chore.

This would help to explain another truism – that pay television subscribers sign up for hundreds of television channels and then spend most of their time with a very small number of favourites.

In such a world television commissioners and schedulers are on an endless treadmill trying to find new things to amuse us – at the right time of the year. But as Deloitte argues, anyone who has ever tried to watch a Christmas schedule in July will get the point of schedulers.

If all of this is true there are clear implications – and limitations – for the advertising industry.

If the schedule and live viewing continues to hold up surprisingly well in all the circumstances, there would be clear limits to the achievement of the Holy Grail – individually targeted advertising.

Great idea but it may be too expensive for mass audiences and is unlikely to be cost-effective. Even now when broadcasters offer hundreds of different audience segments advertisers are rarely looking for more than ten or a dozen. Spoiled for choice.

The 2012 forecasts come up with a number to put targeted TV advertising into perspective. Deloitte estimates that this year targeted TV advertising will account for one tenth of a percent of global advertising revenues – £139 million out of a total of £148 billion.

“The rationale in developing targeted television advertising for video-on-demand programming, arguably the most fertile ground for such campaigns, is constrained by its relatively small share of total viewing,” Deloitte argues.

There must be something that is both exciting, new and valid going on out there. This will be the year in which big data projects take off after already moving into the mainstream. The consultants believe that before the year is out 90% of the Fortune 500 companies will have big data projects under way with revenues in the $1billion to $1.5 billion range.

The year will also see the continued rise of the $100 “smartphone” – the not quite so smart devices that will still pass the 500 million sales barrier worldwide. They may not be 3G but the bargain devices should be able to support email and instant messaging. For $100 you will also probably get a 2 megapixel camera and a modest suite of pre-loaded apps.

There will also be a significant increase in multi-tablet individuals or households – up to 5% by year-end – which is remarkable given that it once took several decades for 5% of households to have more than one car, phone, radio or TV.

The spookiest development is likely to be the increasing influence of the fMRI machines used in neuromarketing. The fMRI analysis can apparently show that activity in certain regions of the brain correlates with specific emotions and types of thinking.

Allegedly some food manufacturers have changed packaging and even flavours of some of their products as a result. But as Deloitte point out fMRI analysis is likely to work best as part of a package alongside more traditional marketing techniques.

That advice perhaps holds a clue to feasible near to medium term forecasting – a judicious blend of the old and the new including the engagement of a human brain that is not attached to a fMRI machine.