Research from broadcast and digital management software provider SintecMedia has found that three-fifths of all TV media companies rely on home-grown technology to sell their inventory, making it difficult to adapt to new advertising technology and processes.
The study surveyed TV media executives and agency media buyers about the future of TV, problems facing media companies and how media companies plan to manage advanced TV advertising and delivery. Fundamentally it found that TV media executives believe that their companies are unprepared for changes. Less than a third (31%) believe that their company has what they need to sell digital and linear TV in a single streamlined process.Additionally, the survey revealed that TV media executives are not aligned with media buyers about several key advanced TV elements. While TV executives were found to believe that TV ratings metrics will become the standard for multichannel and advanced TV advertising, agencies believe that the impression will become the significant metric. TV companies felt confident that the TV department would take on more digital sales while agencies believed that digital will take on more TV sales.
The study also highlighted that the demand for advanced TV inventory is founded on fast transactions, easy delivery and big scale. It revealed that technical and organisational friction within TV companies range the danger of creating barriers that could frustrate media buyers looking for easy ways to buy audience-targeted campaigns from TV companies, potentially giving digital companies like Facebook and Google a window of opportunity.
Yet on an optimistic note, SintecMedia's research shows that TV companies are, however, in a good position to grab market share in advanced TV if they can overcome technical and operational hurdles quickly. “TV companies and digital companies are both vying for advanced TV market share, with widely varying business models,” suggested SintecMedia CEO Lorne Brown. “The Future of TV requires a profitable combination of quality content, multi-channel distribution and ad sales built on a flexible, centralised technology stack. This strategy empowers the media company to control their transactions and make decisions quickly. Our research shows that many TV executives are facing critical trade-offs to reap small rewards from compromised projects now compared to more ambitions strategic initiatives that ensure that they preserve their control and profitability in the future.”
The full study is available here.
