GroupM State Of Video Report: The Paradox Of Linear Television

GroupM has released the second iteration of its ‘State Of Video’ report which dives into global viewing habits and the shake-ups each channel faces.

The report tackles issues including addressability, hurdles in measurement and the evermore-threatening digital duopoly.

Though, perhaps the most insightful area of the study is the paradox of linear television.

According to GroupM, “Globally in 2018, linear TV has shown no new signs of life; ratings continue to fall, even with mainstays like the National Football League (US).

“Despite this, linear TV has sustained advertiser demand, implying the perception that linear TV is as effective and essential as ever, but for how long and in what balance relative to alternatives?”

As per the report, there’s currently a rather large paradox in modernizing television advertising with
addressability.

“Television’s core function is still reach. Data adornments are welcome only if they make that reach more intelligent and more intimate, expanding television’s relationship to sales and downstream financial and performance metrics, as any advertiser on earth would hope to achieve.”

For GroupM, this entails two key points of balance (or grand complications).

“The first is knowing how to weigh the cost efficiency and scale of broadcast advertising in broad geographies with maximizing reach against highly targeted subsets of a national population.

“If the greatest weapon in our arsenal is reach, then our priority must be developing new currencies, data pipelines and planning/measurement frameworks, ‘weaponizing’ program or daypart-level activation inputs with a strategic view of the metrics that really matter to clients.

It adds, “Most important, new functions must make desired media investment outcomes repeatable.”

This is coupled with the change in TV viewing habits, as the introduction of new devices continue to make the very definition of video hard to pin down.

According to GroupM, “The second point of balance to be considered, and arguably the more powerful complication, involves the fluid definition of “video” in an age of content ubiquity where viewership is atomized and investment is finite, but still expects a certain economic return.”

“If television is now defined as high-impact, premium video watched on a large screen, then advertisers should be indifferent to modes of delivery (assuming a market efficient at pricing, (sub)channel efficacy, placement reach and media quality).

“For incrementality, we must minimize duplication across linear, OTT, SVOD, and addressable, to achieve effective marginal impressions at the lowest opportunity cost.

“The marginal impression is not that of a vague national demographic, but a precise cluster of behaviours and propensities we seek for clients.

“If there is an ideal frequency to deliver, perhaps to maximize brand recall or drive downstream actions (like retention, cross-sell, upsell and acquisition), then we must be able to fold our video audiences over each
other – a goal beyond today’s simple currencies and measures of reach.”

The future of TV? GroupM pleads the industry “think bigger”.

“Such grand complications invite the cautious to cling to the comparative safety of a highly process-driven legacy industry. Think bigger.

“Rather than simply trying to make the proven television framework feel programmatic, we must aspire to on-board, overlap and simulate audience interaction with media viewership.

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