Following on from a turbulent couple of months the TV market is starting to see the green shoots of a recovery.
Back in April & May the TV marketplace was left reeling experiencing a sharp drop in revenue combined with a massive spike in viewing that created price deflation the likes of which we have never seen before. Across this period figures of -50% deflation became commonplace across all major media owners. With such value to be had in the marketplace media owners reacted in creative ways to get advertisers back on air including but not limited to; no fees for late money; reduced booking deadlines, added value & discounted VOD.
Whilst all of these helped to deliver incremental revenue in the short term the media owners are now looking at ways to retain these new advertisers that were attracted by the basement pricing.
In recent weeks Channel 4 sales have announced their£3m Greenhouse Fund to encourage small to medium-sized business onto TV for the first time with a budget matching proposition. ITV have had a similar initiative in place for a number of years, Business For All – but with a find around £1m in size but equally as appealing. With the much anticipated return to the High St ITV recently released some very insightful research through their very popular Powerbank Sessions, Beyond the Rainbow, which highlighted consumers attitudes towards the ‘new normal’ of retail. Channel 4 have also ran their Great High Street Comeback, encouraging larger TV advertisers to ‘sponsor’ an ad break for the small local independent retailers who will have been hardest hit during lockdown.
With all this activity the recovery in TV ad pricing has been quicker than we would have expected when this first bit. Q3 deflation is now sitting somewhere between 10 – 20% with some predicting we could be down to single figure deflation for Q4.
That said there are still fantastic opportunities to be had in the current climate.
Linear TV viewing remains high, whilst On Demand services are consistently at record levels.