asi 2015: Ad technologists vs broadcasters

This year’s asi European TV Symposium highlighted the growing tension between ad tech and broadcasters, writes Mediatel CEO Derek Jones.

There’s a tension in the air. In fact it’s been in the air for some time now, but it may be coming to a head soon. It’s the tension between ad tech and broadcasters – trading data is the battleground, a respective share of commercial airtime revenues the prize.

At the moment the broadcasters pretty much have the lot. Why would they want to share with anyone else?

The 25th anniversary asi European TV Symposium in sun-soaked Venice was far too polite a gathering to truly throw any of the protagonists into the boxing ring together (Mediatel may be less polite and do just that!) but the coffee breaks and chat around the bar expressed that a tipping point may be close.

A number of speakers asserted that TV was everywhere, and that platform mattered little. They did it with greater confidence than previously as many of them were now firmly embroiled in projects or initiatives of their own to gather data off all these platforms.

The hitch is that if TV is everywhere now, so are these initiatives, and the ad tech world (somewhat cheekily one might suggest given the proliferation of vendors within) thinks it should be centralised, at least by country. One huge resource of screens viewing data that they can work with – and work with immediately. And take a share of revenue from.

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The ad tech guys are frustrated that industry TV research moves so slowly; and so – judging by the one advertiser who spoke, Richard Brooke of Unilever – are the advertisers.

This is not new. When Videology was making a name for itself a few years back, Rhys McLachlan was a regular thorn in the side of BARB or ITV or Thinkbox on this very same subject. Often on Mediatel panels too.

The response – quite reasonably – has always been about robustness, the robustness needed in a trading system like BARB. That means there can be experiment but no risk, so things move more slowly than many would like – including many within BARB one would imagine.

Justin Sampson, BARB CEO, has taken the body forward based around clear communication of plans and he did so again at this conference – see chart.

But one suspects (knows!) he also does so despite a membership who want to move at rather different speeds to each other.

Meanwhile, return path data – used for some years by several broadcasters internationally; pioneered by Kantar, who still appear to lead the way, and followed by many others, has been in the market for ten years now.

We know that for a fact because Nick Burfitt, global director of audience targeting at Kantar Media, reminded delegates of a 2005 conference paper which suggested “TV is at a tipping point.” RPD was one of the ways to meet that challenge back then it was mooted, but nobody knew if it would gain traction. Judging by Kantar’s RPD world map it has.

But now – facing new tipping points – the challenge is different. RPD, which underpins Sky’s AdSmart in the UK, has actually recently replaced part of the Television Audience Measurement system in South Africa.

One of the outcomes of that is there are now fewer zero-rated programmes; therefore some new ratings to sell against. And of course those points mean prizes (new revenue). In short the TV ad business in South Africa has grown as a result, Burfitt reported.

In the UK BARB has trialled a hybrid system with Kantar’s RPD service. But its stakeholders have decided (for now) not to pursue this, as far as can be gathered.

One of the noisiest (and most attractive claims made) by the ad tech world is that programmatic across TV would do exactly the same as RPD has done in South Africa – grow the market.

BARB has huge support in the UK, but the smaller stations do feel short-changed at times as the size of panel inevitably delivers zero ratings for much of their output (London Live you may recall was the last to shout about that, although they have despaired of reform to such an extent that they have instead pinned their hopes on an oddly-dressed ex-Fulham footballer with dodgy knees to lift them above the zero threshold).

Of course what RPD cannot do yet is deliver audience data for all platforms – just more of it for the TV platform. Dominic Mills’ recent column suggests Sky AdVance may have uncovered the Holy Grail and there were a few more would-be contenders at this conference.

Richard Brooke delivered a “you had better get on with it or else” message to the broadcasters in Venice – and there were plenty of them there – but it wasn’t clear what “or else” would be. Unilever withdrawing budget from TV maybe? Or turning to someone else to pull together the holy grail across all screen media?

Rupert Staines, EMEA CEO of RadiumOne (a very polite, noisy ad-techer) was after change too – but he might be betting on England winning the Rugby World Cup again rather than this.

“Until vested interests within the TV trading industry change, I don’t see programmatic making real progress…everybody is trying to build their own system or a walled garden. That doesn’t work when you are trying to buy effectively as a client.”

Rupert expects this to take another 10-15 years.

Good news for the asi conference then. You can start planning the 40th anniversary version!