Thinking outside the box
The advent of clever TV tech including IPTV will not persuade the majority of people to shake up their current viewing habits, according to the boss of the largest advertising firm in the world.
Speaking at the Intel Screen Futures event, the chief executive of WPP, Sir Martin Sorrell (pictured below), said IPTV is likely to accompany conventional TV, which he believes has a ‘strong future' in the UK.
IP TV marries internet capabilities such as search options with television and includes: live TV, time-shifted programming, and video on-demand as opposed to standard linear TV.
Sorrell said: "Traditional TV will remain dominant" with developments like IP technology working around conventional television schedules, proving people are quite happy flicking through channels and waiting for their programme to be on without a handy searchable or on-demand.
While he predicts 15-20 percent of people will use IP TV by 2020, he does not think the take-up will be as fast as some commentators have forecast. "Traditional viewing will remain resilient with 75 percent of viewers sticking to linear TV by 2020," he said.
Sobering figures for technology buffs from the Broadcaster's Audience Research Board (BARB), show, while the average Brit watches 4hours 5 minutes of TV a day, just 8 percent of users watch TV online and only 7 percent of total viewing was time-shifted or on-demand.
Sorrell believes Pay TV will become an increasingly important by 2020 and perhaps define the TV revolution as much as real technological changes.
The ad-guru predicts pay TV will make up over half of all TV funding by 2020, from 39 percent today. Conversely, he expects adverts to comprise a smaller part of TV finding, falling to 20-25 percent in 2020 from current levels of 31 percent.
"The balance of power is also set to swing from the content provider to the TV operator, so companies like Sky, BT and Virgin will win," said Sorrell. He described News Corp's bid to takeover BSkyB as "shrewd" as he tipped platform owners to be raking in the big bucks in a decade's time.