Tomorrow’s TV created today

Gian Paolo Tagliavia, CEO, Rai Pubblicità, Italy

Transcript:

“Actually, broadcast TV is a kind of miracle, if you think about it. At the same time millions of people do exactly the same thing and we know something about it in Italy when the Maneskin became an overnight sensation by winning the European Song Contest or when our national team of female football became an element of national pride, when they played in prime time on Rai 1 during the World Cup in France.

So, these elements gave people something to share, to talk about, to have in common and that is increasingly important in a society that is fragmented and at times it’s even divided, and this is something that is very, very important, not only for broadcasters or for content creators but for companies and brands that need a safe space where to articulate their storytelling and where to tell the general public what their core values are and basically what they stand for and what they are doing practically to fulfill their promise.

This ability to interact and to shape the general public is really the magic of broadcast television. We could say that: if it doesn’t happen on TV, it really doesn’t happen and the other way around if it happens on TV, it does really happen.”

Tomorrow’s TV created today

Marinella Soldi, President, Rai, Italy

Transcript:

“When world television day was established, in 1996, on the initiative of RAI, the Italian public service broadcaster, the United Nations strongly believed television was going to live a long life and to keep playing a major role in peoples’ lives. And as you know, they were right.

In 25 years, TV has changed dramatically and even unpredictably, but some things have stayed the same: Whether you watch on an old tv set or on a smartphone, whether you choose live, linear or on demand, nothing makes your heart beat like video.

No matter how young or how old you are, tv provides us with the widest range of emotions:

  • fear at twisted fictional plots,
  • amazement at the wonder of documentaries,
  • elation at reality shows,
  • shock at hard news,
  • joy or desperation at sports cliff-hangers.

In 2000 some experts foresaw the end of the TV, but simply those two letters T and V changed to signify Total Video: choose any place, any time to watch content, on multiple and even simultaneous devices. Data and algorithms create an increasingly ‘tailored for me’ tv experience.

And although viewing behaviours are much more fragmented, the number of tv households worldwide has been increasing by 17% in the last ten years and is expected to exceed the current 1,7billion in the near future.

The Tv Screen still has a central role in our home and in our heart. Every day, here, in Europe, 78% of us watch television on a tv set, the overall tv market is steady, over 210 million units sold per year.

The TV screen is still an object of research and development: it has become smart, flat, hyper, augmented and bigger! More than 5 inches of growth in five years, thanks to higher resolution. And, in its most futuristic realizations it is still an object of design and of desire.

With such an emotional and powerful media, we have a great responsibility as a public broadcaster, to our audience and stakeholders, and grateful that it pushes us towards the highest quality, credibility and creativity.”

Tomorrow’s TV created today

Marek Singer, CEO, Prima TV, Czech Republic

Transcript:

“Is the future of professional video ad-funded or subscription based? That is the question of today. But is it the right question we should be discussing going forward? I find the argument too black and white and missing one key point. How about asking the end-consumer what does he want? Is he happy with the current product discovery experience? I would argue that the current average length of content search on any global SVOD platform suggests it cannot be yet the winning model for video viewing of the future.

The same goes for free TV channels with loads of ads not even targeted to my needs. I believe this fight between linear TV and global SVOD platforms is just a foreplay. But it will accelerate a creation of a new hybrid total-video models. Technologies will enable much more customisable models, allowing every end-consumer to choose the right proposition according to his content needs and spending limits. But it won’t be driven only by global SVOD platforms with one size fits all approach. We shall also see local smart solutions arising, fulfilling many still unsatisfied consumer needs. A change for innovative, local players to define their VOD future.

Therefore, we should anticipate creation of Total Video 2.0, video world that is much more colourful and exciting than the world today.”

 

Tomorrow’s TV created today

Khalik Sherrif, CEO, e-tv Group, South Africa

Transcript:

“Television as a medium will remain strong because at the heart of television is content. What has changed in the recent past, is that the methodology of how the content gets delivered has become easier. Technological advancements have been made to ensure that content can be distributed, content can be delivered to households, to telephones, to PCs, and to television sets, much easier than before. The barrier to entry into television has become much easier.

It means that the content access, or access to content, has evolved, and people can get content wherever they are. As long as we TV people understand that, as TV companies, as long as we understand that we need to adapt our content to get to our audience in whichever methodology there is, whether it be digitally, whether it be through the traditional means of getting TV across, we need to adapt. And that is the resilience of television. We have been able to adapt, because we understand the one maxim in television: A nation gets the TV it deserves.

Now having said that, that is how it used to be in television, a nation gets the TV it deserves. But, because of delivery mechanisms now, that has changed. A nation now gets the TV it wants and when it wants it and how it wants it. So, what we should do, as television businesses, we should adapt to find ways in how we can reach our audience, where to find them. Because, what we have proven over time, is that the best experience of consuming video is on the couch. But it’s available on your phone, it’s available on your PC, on your laptop, it is also available on your television. The challenge is that there are so many companies now bringing you content, and easily so, the only differential that will allow television to remain at the heart of the home is: Is your content relevant? Is it what your audience want to watch? And if you remain comparative with content, you will remain the best medium strong. Long live television. Thank you.”

 

Tomorrow’s TV created today

Stefano Sala, CEO, PubIitalia ’80 – Gruppo Mediaset, Italy

Transcript:

“Welcome to egta community,

Speaking about television, TV is the accountable medium – always measurable from its very beginning. The first mass-medium to offer accountability and measurement at scale, thanks to initiative lead by local joint-industry committees, globally and for decades.

TV has never feared full transparency and accountability when it came to its audience performance. And this approach has been recognised by the market and by advertisers, to the point that it’s clear to everyone, everywhere in the world, that TV is the medium with the highest ROI in short and the long-term, both on sales and on profits. Transparency and ROI are indeed the two reasons why TV’s resilient, even in the digital era, proving to be key in the recovery after recession, growing double digit, catching up with the pre-covid investments.

Furthermore, TV is leading its digital transformation toward the world of connected television, entering a new and exciting youth. 01:10 Advertisers and the agencies are attracted by the opportunity to plan the medium with the highest reach with the targeting of addressable television. Stimulating local JICs to evolve audience measurement to new frontiers, pursuing its accountability even in the new connected cross-screen age.

Eventually, TV is the medium working across the entire marketing funnel, ranging from branding to performance, delivering not only results but also clear and recognised KPIs, soon including Total Video currencies. Welcome to the world of augmented TV!

Ciao egta!”

Tomorrow’s TV created today

Kim Poder, EVP & Chief Commercial Officer, NENT, Nordics

Transcript:

“When commercial TV was introduced in the Nordics in the 90s it was considered relevant only for advertisers or brands with a proven success. TV was, so to speak, an exclusive club for those members, those marketeers that could afford the big national campaigns and many new and interesting brands would simply rule out TV. And consequently, they would never realise their true potential. Today we of course we still see the traditional and global brands using TV and video to generate reach and to take category ownership.

But nowadays, the client list is a lot more fragmented, with advertisers across all life stages, including both DTC and non-DTC brands, who experience significant business outcomes as a result of scale, legitimacy, halo effect that TV and video advertising delivers.

Traditional media plans suggest that brand should wait until they are more established before advertising on TV. But studies nowadays show that it is actually some of the young brands that reap the most benefits from accelerating that path into TV and video. Those brands who believe they have something new and exciting to our consumers. Those products that our viewers are keen on trying before our neighbour or our friends. 

So why have we seen this change? First of all, we benefit from the many years of research conducted, research going into understanding how and when TV and video is relevant and when it pays off. That has obviously increased efficiency, but it has also taught us how new businesses and products can use TV and video marketing in an efficient way.

Secondly, technology and digitalisation are as important as research. With the introduction of addressable TV, AVOD, retargeting, frequency cap, etc. etc. all types of advertisers can now optimise the use of TV and video with high return on investment.

Those who were preaching TV’s death were wrong, luckily. And there is no longer a discussion if TV but how TV.”

Tomorrow’s TV created today

Jean-Paul Philippot, CEO, RTBF, Belgium

Transcript:

“Data-driven technologies, artificial intelligence, digital tools and process are tremendous opportunities to reinforce TV as the media of the future. In a world more and more global, TV produce original, diverse and local content. In a society which is every year more and more polarised, TV brings people together, includes everyone. In a world of anonymity, we bring awareness and trust. That’s core values to make TV a key factor for diverse and vibrant democracy.”

 

Tomorrow’s TV created today

Gilles Pélisson, Chairman and CEO, TF1 Group, France

Transcript:

“Hi. I am Gilles Pélisson, chairman and CEO of the TF1 group in France. This message is just to share with you how much I believe that, more than ever, television has been the media most resilient and, demonstrating following the pandemic, that the social down the creates between people generations young and older is more than ever as significant. We have experienced, of course, during the pandemic like everybody else, a surge in our ratings with millions of people watching television, connecting themselves to hear about the news and about, you know, watching and trying to divert themselves when they couldn’t leave their homes.

The good news is that by the end of this year, we are seeing people staying, watching television and enjoying our newscast, our fiction, our drama, our entertainment and movies more than ever. It has been incredible ratings showing the resilience and the way people are attached to that media. It is about connecting people together. It is about fighting against fake news, which in our world is really a trauma, and then making sure that we have the most significant programs for the largest audience.

For the advertisers, it means also that never in this world a media has the potential reach that television can demonstrate every day. And we are seeing larger advertisers and smaller ones coming to television even back after having trying digital. The good news is also that addressable TV and advertising means that we can combine the best of both worlds; having the reach of the television media in a linear sense, in the traditional sense, and the new capability to reach and target specific audiences like on the internet. Expanding our media to the digital world is certainly the way to go.

So, we are very excited about both having still a very strong linear television more than ever, but yet combining it with the digital power. Thank you.”

 

Tomorrow’s TV created today

Silvio González Moreno, CEO, Atresmedia, Spain

Transcript:

“It is undeniable that television is under a profound digital transformation. But we have to admit that probably TV is the media that has best adapted to the new situation. And this has always been in the past, and it will always be in the future.

Just a few years ago, when we talked about TV, we were talking about a device placed in the living room of different homes. Nowadays, tv is a 360-degree factory of premium content, that enables the connection between viewers and brands.

We are involved in great business transformation. In the very beginning, as a Free-to-Air TV we were focused on buying content, mixing it properly and selling advertising. Now we operate at multiple levels to maximize the value of that content, producing it for other players, launching SVOD platforms and everything under a coordinated distribution strategy to let us operate in several markets at once.

Digitalization has widened our opportunities. All broadcasters across Europe are pushing the development of Addressable TV and SVOD platforms in every market they operate. We are entering into new markets such as influencers, exporting our attributes of quality and brand safe to all the businesses in which we now operate.

But our main concern is not the challenge to adapt our businesses and organisation to the digital framework, but the legal asymmetry we are facing in our every day job. We demand a fair level playing field. We are far from having it. We are not asking for privilege, but a fair business framework. The later the regulators face that challenge, the worse it will be for the players.

So, the main challenge is not whether to transform, but how do we drive it, that has maintained our values which is brand safe, which is quality, which is premium content. And building together with all our stakeholders an environment friendly to our consumers and to our advertisers in order for them to find a reliable and safe environment in which they do business.”

 

Tomorrow’s TV created today

Fabrice Mollier, President, Canal+ Brand Solutions, France

Transcript:

“TV has always been the best-measured medium. You know every day how many people have seen your ads or your shows. TV has already proven for years and years that it is the most efficient medium in terms of sales and awareness for brands.

But there is an increasing need for brands to use their KPIs, their data to prove that their investment in TV is the best efficient in terms of sales, of visits on their websites and so on. The good news for television is that most people are now seeing TV in the connected world, so we can, as TV sales houses and TV operators, we are now able to gather some data, to connect to the data of the advertisers and then prove that each ad break on each day-part on each channel has a big efficiency in sales. It is true on sales, it is true on visits on the websites, it is also true on brand awareness. There is such a fantastic world that the data is bringing to TV, not only in addressable campaigns but also on linear TV.

And the fact that TV is seen also now on mobile devices, on PCs, on tablets, increases the fact that we are able to collect data and propose it to the advertisers. So, there is a fantastic world for increasing awareness and efficiency measures – happy World TV Day!”