ITV - paid for previews next?

Well it seems that advertisers are, at present, treating services like the ITV Player no different to any other page on the ITV website, and therefore only offering ITV pennies to advertise on the service - which ITV are having to accept in order to make any sort of money from the service, especially as it's a fledgling.

Ultimately however, there will have to be some alignment between the TV service and the online service. If you watch Coronation Street on ITV1, you're getting the same show (eventually in the same quality) as on ITV Player, watched by the same type of viewer, so why shouldn't advertisers pay more to advertise on ITV Player.

I don't see how it's ever going to happen though. ITV would first need to co-operate with C4 and Five in order to create the framework to make this viable. Otherwise if ITV just says, 'we want £35 per 1000 viewers watching programmes on the ITV Player' then the advertisers will simply move their pennies to C4 and Five. It's not as if there's an internet version of Ofcom or something which can mediate and apply the rules fairly to all the broadcasters, after all.

As it stands right now, I just think ITV has been trying to keep up with the Jones's where the ITV Player is concerned. The BBC and C4 had one, so ITV just had to have one. Now they're stuck with it really and it's always going to make a loss until the viewers or the advertisers start stumping up some serious cash.

In my opinion though, the best option all round would be to scrap the ITV Player, 4oD and Demand Five and get viewers watching the TV again. PVRs and DVD recorders are reasonably cheap now. People can fast-forward through the ads, yes - but nine times out of ten they will see the product or the brand logo whilst fast-forwarding, so the brand or product still registers in their minds. It's almost like a self-inflicted version of subliminal advertising!

Yeah, of course, it's a competitive industry and they don't want to be left out, the same is true of HD and their digital channels. They would be in a worse state if they were just a single channel when everyone else is going multi-channel and non-linear

Why? it's what viewers want - the iPlayer and 4OD in particular have been very popular, Sky's is desperate to start doing VOD and the likes of Virgin and BT use it as their main selling point.

You can't put the genie back into the bottle now. I don't think that traditional linear TV will die out in a hurry but it's beginning to seem old fashioned

Whether viewers want it or not isn't the main issue here. ITV isn't a democracy or a charity.

Also, if viewers wanted it badly enough, wouldn't they be willing to pay for it? I think it's a bit sad that people are more than happy to pay £2.50 for a cup of coffee or a couple of quid for a ready made sandwich, yet they begrudge paying 50p or £1 for half an hour's worth of entertainment, which they can watch at any time of the day or night. But that's the consumer's fault for being so dumb - not ITV's.


Yeah the iPlayer's alright, but the BBC can afford to run the service. You can't possibly expect commercial broadcasters to ever be able to match the iPlayer in terms of quality and quantity. They just don't have the money, and as I said before, I don't think advertisers are ever going to be willing to pay the same amount of money for adverts on the ITV Player as they do on ITV1.


Old fashioned to who though? Think about ITV's core demographics.

I think it's pretty simple - admit that services like ITV Player and 4oD are a failed experiment, put it down to experience, scrap the services and viewers will start watching and recording actual TV again.

Given that a major part of the appeal of such products is the "series catchup" feature where people can watch the first few eps and then go back to the TV to keep watching (at the higher ad rate) then surely it's useful to the broadcaster?

Plus do we know the figures for 4OD ads or just ITV player? Because it's possible that the reason for low rates on the latter is due to ITV's own incompetence in setting it up and advertising it properly, something the BBC and C4 have managed much better.

Of course back in the early 90s, Sky TV was free, apart from your installation. One day Sky decided to encrypt its services, and the dumb public forked out their cash to pay for what was previously free. If the consumers had refused, Sky would have had no choice but to unencrypt their already profitable, advertising funded services once again. But as you point out, sometimes the consumer can be dumb.



I think you're wrong. By advertising on ITV1, the advertiser targets an audience of millions with their 30 second message, often targeting a particular demographic. This is no different to on-demand. The launch of Canvas will breathe a new lease of life into the living room television, and as long as advertising is sold in a unified way across VOD and the online services, there's no reason they can't profit from it.



That couldn't be further from the truth. ITV Player is making money for ITV. It's not making as much profit as ITV1, but it's a fledgling service. Like Inspector Sands says, on-demand really is the future, and people should be able to access programmes when they went them, and increasingly we expect to be able to.

Linear television will never disappear completely, as there will always be event television like The X Factor that a great number of people will want to watch happen live. But people have different interests now, like using the internet. I guarantee you, if you scrap services like the ITV Player people will not revert to simply fitting their lives around television schedules, they'll just switch off.

I'm interested how you've formed your opinions on this, Chie. What contact do you have with the television industry? I'm presuming you don't work in any sector of it at present?

If you don't give your customers what they want you don't last long!


Yeah because no young person ever watches ITV do they?

Tell me. what is ITV1's core demographic? And what about ITV2s? At what point should it the company come into the 21st Century in your opinion?

Yeah because no young person ever watches ITV do they? [/quote]

Even if it was only 'old people who can't use the internet' that watch ITV1, a business model relying on your customers not dying out in the next 20 years is not a sustainable one.

Yes, it's not a point of 'is X making a profit at the moment?' it's a long term game. If there are people who won't watch your content because it's not available on demand then you've lost them probably forever, especially the young.

It's a point of building up loyalty and brand awareness as much as anything

What?? So society is divided solely into 'young people' and 'old people' now is it?

Dear oh dear. I'm out of this discussion. Before I go, I'll just say that only a very tiny minority of ITV viewers care about buzzwords like IPTV and video on demand - the other 99% just want to watch TV.

erm, you're the one who brought up demographics. It's hardly the inspector's fault that he decided to go with age rather than the C2, D, E one I presume you were referring to?

Chie, I don't think there's any disguising that you meant "old people" when describing ITV's "core demographic" (which is totally off the mark anyway). 'On demand' is something the young are growing up with, and an overwhelming majority of students already competently use. 'The young' have embraced on-demand, and even expect it. 'The old' are still to be won over (which will undoubtedly happen with Project Canvas).

But, for argument's sake, let's assume you were referring to socio-economic groups. The more well off families will be used to on-demand television, are often early adopters of fledgling technology, and have plenty of money to spend on other pursuits than watching television, so video-on-demand becomes an important player as they don't structure their lives around television schedules.

The less well off social groups value television programmes and the internet as an affordable means of entertainment; in fact I'd argue that Sky+ is higher on the list of priorities than home maintenance for the poorer households as television programmes provide an escape from ordinary life. For these, the more television the better, and services like ITV Player deliver exactly this.

This isn't the first time I've seen you bow out of an argument when people begin to disagree with your opinion. Man-up a bit.

And what a lovely time to point out that the ITV Player has just received a makeover.