Online overtakes TV as largest sector

Picture courtesy of the guardian


The big news of today has to be the online overtaking television to become the biggest advertising sector in the UK market. Not only is this news evidence of the ferocious growth of the online industry but it also points to the UK's pioneering position on the worldwide map as the first major economy to see this shift in power happen.

The milestone marks a watershed for the embattled TV industry, the leading ad medium since the 1960's when it so famously became the channel of choice above press for many of the major brands of the day. The resulting years have produced iconic ads, characters and national institutions yet it's dominance has been eroded by the ongoing fragmentation of the media landscape and move into an increasingly mobile and digital world.

Should we really be as surprised as many of the media news sources seem to be? afterall, we've seen these macro trends for sometime now displaying TV viewing in the traditional, family in the living room setting, decline year after year. My feeling is that we shouldn't - it's a largely predictable news story when it's taken into account how many hours individuals spend on the two media channels. It would be wrong however to see this news as 'bad' news for the TV industry - afterall it is simply not the case that we can draw a clear line between what is TV and what is online. If you are to look at a popular TV show now - it will start on one of the two channels but converge across both to where that audience is. it will take in TV channels, interactive websites, twitter feeds, facebook pages, youtube channels, sky+ offerings and additional red button extras.

In this respect advertisers have never had so many options, surely that's not a bad thing, it's just rather daunting and therefore requires very careful planning and expert opinion to ensure marketing budgets reach the right audiences at the right times with the most relevant message.