There was a time, not so long ago, when ITV was the country's leading advertising medium, with vast amounts of money changing hands for expensive spots. Now, as ITV1 continues to lose its way, the precipitous fall in popularity - and resulting fall in prices - of Britain's former advertising leader is having knock-on effects elsewhere in the advertising environment.
Cinema advertising is less popular than it was, according to one report, because advertisers can now afford TV. So while cinema attendance revenues are down no more than a couple of percent this year (mainly, one imagines, because blockbusters were relatively thin on the ground and The da Vinci Code, for example, turned out to be fairly lacklustre), cinema advertising revenues have fallen dramatically.
Falling commercial television ad revenue and viewer figures means falling proces for spots, and thus that advertisers who couldn't afford TV advertising before because of the expense now can - so they may invest less in cinema, poster and press advertising, for example. Paradoxically that won't help ITV much, with an expected ad revenue drop of 13% this year and 10% next, or a decline of £230m year on year - not to mention the impact on its own Carlton Screen Advertising subsidiary.
Where are viewers going and why? There seems to be a certain amount of uncertainty as to the reasons, out there in the business world. They say that viewers are turning more to the Web and to digital channels, and suggest that's at least one of the root causes of the problem (ITV has other problems - nobody wants to head the company for example - but that's not going to turn viewers away, surely). But is the Net and the digital multichannel environment a cause - or merely an effect? Certainly Internet advertising is the only real growth area at present.
If you watch ITV1, you are presumably watching it for Emmerdale, Corrie and The Bill - venerable shows that have been the backbone of ITV ratings for some time. Highlights of the new season appear to be revivals of previous hits - Prime Suspect and Cracker, for example. If you're not into shows like this and are looking for something more innovative, you are probably watching the BBC - whether digital or terrestrial (Torchwood for example) - and if you long for the sort of thing that ITV used to do in its heyday, well, then you're watching ITV's digital channels, which are doing extremely well among their ilk.
This all points to one thing. Viewers are indeed deserting ITV1 in droves, spending more time on the Web and watching digital channels (notably BBC ones and. But they are doing this not because they are going to leave anyway (leading channels in the US are not having this problem, despite an even more "multi" digital multichannel environment), but because, basically, they are finding that ITV1 offers nothing that's worth watching. To paraphrase whoever-it-was, "It's the programmes, stupid!
ITV, as MediaBlog and Media Guardian readers will have read recently, is setting up a team called ITV Imagine, a new arm to attempt to bring innovative ideas to ITV, inspired by operations like Walt Disney Imagineering and similar initiatives at Google, Apple, NBC and others.
There's no doubt that this is a good idea. But to bring back the viewers, ITV Imagine's brief has to include developing programme as well as business ideas. And it would appear that this is exactly what's planned, as the team will be looking at creative and content development alongside technology and the repurposing of existing material for additional media such as the iPod and cellphones. This is just as well, as it's the development of new, innovative, and even risk-taking programming that ITV1 arguably needs most of all. That may not always be popular with the shareholders in the short-term, but it has to be done.
With any luck, ITV will be able to recover its position in the marketplace - with the addition of a little imagination.
