A strong ITV can only benefit commercial radio

So, the Empire Strikes Back – Torin Douglas’ column about ITV’s research into why television is the most powerful medium gets it about right. While Jim Hytner isn’t quite as menacing as Darth Vader, I admire my ex-colleague at Five for what he is trying to do (MW last week).

However, we don’t yet see the Empire championing effective value for advertisers and this is what the rebels are interested in.

The commercial radio industry will be pleased if there is a proactive TV market, because the whole advertising industry will benefit from it. TV is, after all, the market leader and other sectors can only benefit from having a strong leader. Not only will it improve innovation and provide better-quality audiences, but, in the case of advertising, it will reassure advertisers that there is a meaningful rate of return to be achieved from their expenditure.

All media owners should be pleased that ITV is investing in new ways to gain insight into how advertising works. As an increasing number of communication channels fight for budgets, so all media owners need to communicate the effectiveness of the advertising options they offer.

Advertisers are increasingly questioning the value of all forms of communication – not just whether they work, but what value they generate. This is a by-product of the increased scrutiny by procurement officers and finance directors into the return on marketing investment. In this context, the cost-effectiveness of communications is a vital consideration.

Carlton chief executive Martin Bowley writes in Media Week about research that demonstrates the “impact that TV delivers and that other media [will] never catch up with”. The research shows that audio-visual is, on average, 43 per cent more effective than audio, but does this justify the price of TV advertising compared with radio?

Indeed there is something of an irony here in that the research seems to endorse the core findings of the Radio Multiplier study by Millward Brown, which shows that, on average, radio advertising is four times as cost-effective as TV, because it can deliver three-fifths of the effect for a seventh of the cost.

The use of radio as an advertising option is getting onto advertisers’ agendas because it is increasingly understood that radio has a lower incidence of ad avoidance among consumers than all media apart from cinema.

I was told by Publicis UK chief executive Derek Morris that the most effective advertising was that which delivered the right message to the right person at the right time. Why else would McDonald’s utilise an award-winning strategy of breakfast radio and morning press to promote its breakfast menu – in addition to The Empire’s TV.

Mark Swift is sales director at Virgin Radio