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Recently, I was talking with a friend, who is a reporter on a sports channel, about television and its future. Well, I mentioned that the future is Hulu or Netflix, where you only need to pay $6 or $12 to get the video that you want, the content that you want at the hour that you want. The future of television is in demand.
He proceeds to tell me that the television is moving forward in that direction, and the form of the television that we see right now, will change dramatically to a format where the audience can interact and do not be interrupted. The new model of business will be the subscription.
Media like the New York Times, for example, are moving to create premium and exclusive content for its readers and if you want as a reader to get more detailed or deep articles you need to pay for a subscription. These subscription plans start at $1 per week. Cheddar, a news channel like MSNBC, has a plan where people can get a free month of the channel, but you need to pay $2.99 monthly.
In this situation, one of the most hurt industries is the advertising one. This because the brands and clients have seen that the audience is not interested in the interruptive and annoying but in content that focuses on benefits and other relevant issues that matter to them. Gimlet Media, a podcast network, create a division for branded content named Gimlet Creative. This division creates content for brands, separates journalism and narrative shows. Something like that is the future of advertising.
These are aspects that make us think that all media are changing the form and experience of how they have distributed their content and how to get new revenues in front of decay of the traditional way with broadcasting.
HBO is making that change with HBO Go, Dinsey did it with Disney+, Fox News has Fox Nation. Also, you can see some shows of CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, or CBS on Hulu. This is a sign that the television future is online, on-demand, and streaming. There is no doubt.
Then, what would happen with the advertising? The future should be branded and integrated into the content. People hate the interruptions and with that, in mind, the advertising has to see the incorporation of brands within the content. Let’s take Cheddar as an example. This news network, has several revenue incomes, among them an advertising revenue model where brands integrate the brands within the news interventions. This practice is not old, is so old as the television itself.
Television keeps being one of the most relevant and predominant mediums in the world of digital and is one of the most effective by its reach and frequency, and for that, the television (or video) should be in a media plan even has a limited budget.