Television Advertising: The Crossroads

Writing by Brick Marketing on Tuesday, 29 of July , 2008 at 8:33 am

We’ve posted a few times lately about local online advertising vs. traditional advertising methods, and how the markets are changing. With the advent of streaming TV shows over the internet, iTunes TV show purchases and even Amazon un-box TV downloads, it is clear that more and more people are getting their TV from their computers. This quite obviously poses an issue for traditional TV/Cable advertising.

We all know that the advertising revenue pays for the TV shows that we love. The more popular the show, the bigger the hostage audience is to your ad, and inevitably the larger your bill is to show the ad during that time slot.

The flaws of this time-honored scenario really rose up when internet connection speeds increases and some networks started to stream their shows over the internet. Great. You’ve got a lot more viewers now. The problem is that they’re not seeing the commercials that pay to produce your show.

A couple of networks decided to take a giant leap backwards to avoid the advertising backlash and stop streaming their shows over the internet. Customers rallied, wrote, complained and boycotted until the networks back peddled again (how many ‘back’ words can I use in one post?) and resumed streaming the shows on their websites.

Techdirt profiled this exact situation with the CW network and the show “Gossip Girl.”

Limiting consumer choice is no longer a viable business strategy. Attempts to do so in the media realm are especially hopeless, and doubly so when, like the CW, you’ve already shown your users how much freedom they could be enjoying. Sure enough, the torrents for Gossip Girl are well-seeded. Given that, the CW’s decision to serve its viewers on their own terms is a wise one. Here’s hoping they do us all a favor and find a way to make their online ad stock more financially viable.

And so there it is. Once a business gives consumers certain freedoms, they cannot be taken away without an uprising.

Moving forward, networks will need to face the issues that they created when they accepted the risk of streaming their shows on the internet. Online advertising is a field that network television is going to have to get in bed with if they want to continue to compete in the market.

                      Category: Local Online Advertising                      

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