Dyke: ‘Invest in marketing’
BBC director-general Greg Dyke has said that the marketing of television programmes will require major investment over the next decade as more viewers take up digital TV and use modern technology, such as personal video recorders and broadband, to watch programmes whenever they want to.
Speaking last week at the Royal Television Society’s conference in Cambridge, in a debate on technology, Dyke said that over the past decade the TV industry had invested in distribution, but that over the next decade its focus would be marketing, an area that terrestrial TV has historically spent little on.
“As technology changes, getting people to know what you have got becomes harder and that requires marketing,” said Dyke. “You can no longer justify spending large amounts on programmes without letting people know they are there.”
Also speaking at the conference, PHD Group chairman Tess Alps agreed with Dyke’s comments, adding that marketing “is part of public service broadcasting duty”.
She admitted that as a result of changes in technology, advertisers were increasing their use of other media, such as outdoor and cinema, to target consumers, but that they were also working to make TV advertisements more interesting in order to stop viewers switching channels.
