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Dan Howard,
May 30, 2018
It’s true that we’ve become obsessed with shiny new digital toys in this millennial era. And because TV wasn’t invented in the 21st century, some consider it to be approaching its best before date. But TV isn’t going anywhere – far from it.
Over the last 10 years, average daily TV viewings have remained relatively stable, despite industry evolution. One such change is UK broadcasters investing huge amounts in improving the way viewers can access their offerings, which brings us onto BVOD (Broadcaster Video on Demand): high-quality TV made available online by broadcasters.
Too busy to watch TV
Time is of the essence in this everchanging, fast-paced day and age, which is why BVOD is so important for TV to stay relevant. BVOD supports time-shifted viewing, because the way we watch TV in the last decade has changed. Nowadays, we’re often too busy to watch something exactly when it’s scheduled, so catch-up TV is essential to catch up on your favourite shows. It also has a massive 93% average view through rate with Thinkbox’s latest research study on BVOD highlighting how much more present and engaged BVOD viewers are. Higher engagement goes on to lead to greater happiness and absorption of advert content – meaning everyone, advertisers and viewers alike, wins.
A threat to regular TV?
You’d be forgiven thinking subscription VOD, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, are huge threats to TV and BVOD – but it’s not as big a threat as you think, accounting for only 6.4% of an average day of video time for individuals.
BVOD allows broadcasters to make boxsets of their TV shows available, which means that a viewer can watch their favourites whenever they want. For example, Sky Atlantic’s Save Me was their most rapidly binged watched box-set in the broadcaster’s history with 700,000 watching the entire series in the first week. With impressive stats like these, it goes to show that subscription VOD isn’t the broadcaster’s enemy – but just an exciting addition to your TV set.
Precise targeting
Generally, BVOD has a higher audience of younger and upmarket viewers. Advertising through BVOD means you can tightly target by audience, programme, genre, region and interests to mention a few, meaning targeting younger people is easier than ever. Take Love Island, for example: the latest series of ITV 2’s hit show saw ITV Hub’s subscription base rocket, with a 75% of all 16-24’s in the UK having their own account and with 75.1 million views of the show ITV’s on-demand player overall – pretty impressive.
What do I think?
I could go on, but you get the point – there’s a multitude of reasons on why BVOD is so important, especially in this new era of TV viewing. Of course, the BVOD industry is always going to list multiple reasons on how necessary it is – but what do I, as that all important 16-34 audience, really think of it? Being able to pick and choose how and when I watch TV is a big factor for me so BVOD is right up my street. Whether I want to catch up on a show I missed last week or if I want to binge watch a series in a single night – BVOD revolves around me, not the other way around.
*header image from “Save Me”. Source
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