Ad-dendum

It’s another not so good news day for the broadcast television world. ITV, the UK’s leading broadcaster, said in a trading update that revenues in its flagship ITV1 have declined by 12.5%, with revenues for particular shows like its all important GMTV morning show, coming down by around 3%.

It noted also that digital channel revenues have increased by 40%, but these are not yet making up the difference in declines for the premium commercial channel.

A report issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers today says that this is all not just a blip—like Rock ‘n’ Roll, the downturn is indeed here to stay.

In the US, broadcasters are hoping that the Internet will help them save the day rather than continue to encroach on their audience shares. The DIY advert company Spot Runner, which has attracted loads of investment interest from large agencies like WPP as well as media types like Lachlan Murdoch (son of News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch), has developed a new model to make television advertising much more affordable—something that will appeal particularly to smaller businesses that do not have national customer bases.

Spot Runner offers online a sort of selection of ready-made templates that would-be advertisers can use to make their ads. It then offers an interface to help them buy airtime. The claim is that instead of spending several thousands of dollars to make an ad, a business can spendunder $500--$399, to be exact. (The company does not yet offer its services outside the US.)

The Spot Runner model might be bad news for all those freelance production crews out there that help make ads for small businesses, but hey, it helps sell airtime, something that the networks in the current climate cannot ignore. Indeed one of the big national broadcasters, CBS, has inked a deal with Spot Runner to use its service to sell ads into slots at its local affiliates.

CBS, in fact, is putting a lot of legwork into looking for new ways of making up the shortfall in ad revenues. The company recently also resuscitated its eponymous music label, which it will use to sell music affiliated with programmes that run on its various stations (CBS and USA Networks among them), using sites like iTunes for distribution. CBS Records had a storied past with artists like Billie Holiday on its books. In 1988 the company sold the label to Sony, who eventually folded it into its other operations. Hence the ability to reuse the name again.