Viewers emancipated by advertising
Noteworthy: After the music industry, digitization is now turning the television industry upside down as well. This time, the chronicle of a death foretold is about the traditional TV commercial.
Column After the music industry, digitalization is now turning the television industry upside down. This time, the chronicle of an announced death is dedicated to the classic TV commercial: TV audiences, previously denigrated as "couch potatoes", are becoming increasingly active and powerful. The reason for this is so-called disruptive technologies. The combination of the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) and the Personal Video Recorder (PVR) is particularly powerful, and with their help it is already possible to program your TV for certain content categories and ignore everything else. Some people only want to watch movies, others only news. The EPG does this for the viewer. And viewers no longer consciously switch from SRG to ORF or RTL, but automatically receive their "customized content" from these and other providers.
Firstly, this weakens the brands of free TV and gives the
The audience also has the option of simply pushing out commercial breaks. This means that digitalization will trigger the same crisis in television - insofar as it is financed by advertising - as the peer-to-peer software programs Napster or Grokster did in the music industry.
Television broadcasters reacted just as unintelligently as the music industry: they took legal action. The first device in Europe that could fade out commercial breaks, poetically called the "Fernsehfee" and marketed by a small German company, was legally blocked. In the meantime, it has been decided in the last instance that the advertising wizard does not contradict the guarantee of continued existence for free TV, or more precisely: that this guarantee of continued existence does not mean absolute protection for the current financial status quo.
RTL is considering taking the matter to the German Constitutional Court. However, this would also be unsuccessful. Courts cannot and should not block new technologies. They should have started doing so much earlier, for example to protect cab drivers from cabs. Citizens' freedom of opinion also includes deciding for themselves that they do not want to see traditional advertising. But this clearly means that free TV must develop new business models if it wants to survive.
Of course, this is also happening. People are experimenting with interactive services, are already earning a lot of money with so-called integrated advertising (which used to simply be called surreptitious advertising) and will have to consider whether to switch to pay-TV or pay-per-view, i.e. paid television. This will require a radical rethink and creative entrepreneurs.
In Germany, politicians will also be called upon to act. In contrast to Switzerland, private television broadcasters there provide many thousands of highly qualified jobs. However, only RTL, Pro 7 and the intelligent new business model Neun Live, which lives off the telephone calls of its viewers, earn any real money. Will German politicians stand by and watch a wave of bankruptcies in free TV or will advertising be taken away from the public broadcasters? A huge test, because these public broadcasters naturally have an excellent lobby. They will fire from all cylinders if - as recently - they are not only made to struggle with the fee increase, but also have their advertising taken away. Of course, this development represents quite a challenge not only for free TV, but also for the advertising industry. The declining efficiency of traditional TV commercials is palpable. There are already many industry managers who simply denounce advertising blocks as a cost-cutting mechanism. New ideas are therefore needed.
> Peter Glotz is Professor of Communication and Media Management at the University of St. Gallen.
Firstly, this weakens the brands of free TV and gives the
The audience also has the option of simply pushing out commercial breaks. This means that digitalization will trigger the same crisis in television - insofar as it is financed by advertising - as the peer-to-peer software programs Napster or Grokster did in the music industry.
Television broadcasters reacted just as unintelligently as the music industry: they took legal action. The first device in Europe that could fade out commercial breaks, poetically called the "Fernsehfee" and marketed by a small German company, was legally blocked. In the meantime, it has been decided in the last instance that the advertising wizard does not contradict the guarantee of continued existence for free TV, or more precisely: that this guarantee of continued existence does not mean absolute protection for the current financial status quo.
RTL is considering taking the matter to the German Constitutional Court. However, this would also be unsuccessful. Courts cannot and should not block new technologies. They should have started doing so much earlier, for example to protect cab drivers from cabs. Citizens' freedom of opinion also includes deciding for themselves that they do not want to see traditional advertising. But this clearly means that free TV must develop new business models if it wants to survive.
Of course, this is also happening. People are experimenting with interactive services, are already earning a lot of money with so-called integrated advertising (which used to simply be called surreptitious advertising) and will have to consider whether to switch to pay-TV or pay-per-view, i.e. paid television. This will require a radical rethink and creative entrepreneurs.
In Germany, politicians will also be called upon to act. In contrast to Switzerland, private television broadcasters there provide many thousands of highly qualified jobs. However, only RTL, Pro 7 and the intelligent new business model Neun Live, which lives off the telephone calls of its viewers, earn any real money. Will German politicians stand by and watch a wave of bankruptcies in free TV or will advertising be taken away from the public broadcasters? A huge test, because these public broadcasters naturally have an excellent lobby. They will fire from all cylinders if - as recently - they are not only made to struggle with the fee increase, but also have their advertising taken away. Of course, this development represents quite a challenge not only for free TV, but also for the advertising industry. The declining efficiency of traditional TV commercials is palpable. There are already many industry managers who simply denounce advertising blocks as a cost-cutting mechanism. New ideas are therefore needed.
> Peter Glotz is Professor of Communication and Media Management at the University of St. Gallen.
