Frames 2006: The Future Of Television And Advertising

By Prashant Sethi, reporting from Ficci-Frames 2006, Mumbai.
Robert L McCann, Chairman, Nielsen Media Resech, International
There have been some major changes in the past year or two and the change that are coming in are more rapid. This will create opportunity for some people and anxiety for others. TV remains important, in India between 2 to 4 hours of TV is consumed a day, whereas in the US, nearly 5 hours of TV is consumed a day, and these figures have been constant for the past 20 years. More than $130 billion is spent on TV advertisement. Advertisement is growing across the world and in India it is more rapid as compared to any other country.
We live comfortably in mostly linear TV. What is changing is ‘time shift TV’, ‘personalized TV’ and ‘On demand TV’. The business is changing and it is going to change even rapidly in the coming years. This is because of new technology and the control of getting what one wants, with the consumer. For example, Sony has come out with a DVR which can record programs 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. All this technology is not the future but is here today. This also means that the consumer is the boss and people want technology.
Time shifting started with VCR, but on a VCR it was very difficult to manage it, and now PVR’s provided are very easy to use. The penetration of PVR/DVR is growing globally. What accelerates this growth are the cable operators. These PVR/DVRs make time shifting easy, they permit instant replay, commercial zipping and also learns to pick up your preferences.
So we can say that TV landscape is changing and that time shifting will profoundly change the established model, but despite fragmentation, rising internet interest, TV viewership remains high. Despite all changes, content is king.

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