TV losing the war for attention?

The new Ofcom report has loads of interesting information. These charts illustrate the biggest challenge facing the ad business - AdAvoiders.

Whilst Sky+ growth continues to be strong Virgin and Freeview are now important players too.

88% of users claim to always or almost always fast forward through the ads. (which backs up anecdotal findings - every group I ask tells me they ffwd the ads)

40% of DVR users claim ad avoiding is a reason for using the technology

26% of people cliam to frequently or sometimes use the internet whilst watching TV - which supports our findings on how TV drives search volume.

And whilst the young are the most likely to do this, its pretty significant amongst all groups up to 45 years old.

Now none of this means TV is dead - the most dramatic forecasts merely take TVs proportion of the US adspend down from 66% to around 50%.

But this does mean we need to rethink how we use TV. Should it be used to drive people to interact with content on other media? Shouldn't we be using the quantity of TV to drive the quality of interaction on other channels?

Comments

[slavin]

Great notes -- couldn't agree more -- look for a big announcement from MTV in the next two weeks. It's the next logical step from our Sopranos work for A&E. (http://www.areacodeinc.com/work/sopranos/)

[simon andrews]

Hey Kevin - now that is intriguing! I loved the Sopranos work - it's adding another dimension to TV.

[Le'Nise Brothers]

Even though consumers are fast forwarding through advertising on their PVRs, it's interesting to hear anecdotally that if the branding is prominent enough on a TV spot, there is high brand recall despite the fastforwarding.

Thinkbox ran an interesting study on this last year that showed that consumers would also rewind an advert if it was something they had seen before or if something in the advert engaged / intrigued them.

[simon andrews]

I think the thinkbox work confirms that good ads work - just like they always have. The problem is most ads aren't good, so now they get missed. Interesting times.

[Matteo Berlucchi]

Simon, I guess this is the spirit behind Livestation: use commoditised content to drive interaction on the web. Watch live TV on your computer and click through to the site all on the same platform (instead of having a TV and a computer).