Content abounds on streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video. But when viewers are faced with too many choices of what to watch, some end up tuning out. That’s the main finding from Nielsen’s Total Audience Report from the first quarter of 2019. What some have dubbed the golden age of TV led to 495 original scripted programs across various TV platforms in 2018, per AdAge, but all of these choices might be paralyzing viewers.

Over 100 CEO’s and senior executives from surveyed egta members – leading TV and radio sales houses across Europe and beyond – expect growth in ad spend for both Total Video and Total Audio in the next three years. An exclusive survey carried out by the Brussels-based trade association sheds light on the continued transformation the advertising industry is expecting.

As a part of its membership in the professional organization egta, the Association of Television and Radio Companies from Europe and beyond, the Association of Commercial Television was granted the opportunity to host egta’s 2019 professional CEO & Top Exec’s Summit – the annual, 2-day egta-member meeting, where media companies share their experience, inspiration and contacts. This year’s meeting took place on June 6-7 and included more than 220 participants from 33 countries.

There were lots of interesting things to catch the eye in the Advertising Association/Warc annual adspend figures for 2018, e. g. the amount of adspend now going to online video. When you compare this share of video adspend with the relative share of video ad viewing, everything gets weird. And eye-wateringly expensive. TV including BVOD accounts for 95% of video advertising time, according to analysis of industry data. Online video such as YouTube, Facebook and the long programmatic tail together account for 4%. Cinema is the remaining 1%. In other words, the average person watches 17 minutes of TV advertising a day (the 95%) and one minute of non-broadcaster online video advertising (the 4%). Yet AA/Warc figures show that £1.9bn was poured into that single minute a day and £5.1bn into the 17 minutes.

What does this say about programmatic video ads? Despite marketers’ efforts with advanced programmatic and data targeting for video ads, consumers still find that they are more likely to be served a relevant ad on linear TV. According to a survey conducted by Adobe in February 2019, 49% of US internet users said that TV was one of the mediums where they were most likely to see a relevant ad, while just 12% said the same about streaming video.

The Association of Commercial Television (AKTV) has completed the second year of its existence during the course of which it continued to develop its strategic marketing and legislative activities. The most remarkable activity of the past year was a marketing conference for TV advertisers and advertising agencies featuring a marketing super star, Australian professor Mark Ritson. In the field of European legislature, AKTV actively joined the process of creating a Copyright Regulation and, in the Czech Republic, it has been involved in the preparation of the transposition of The Audiovisual and Media Service Regulation (AVMSD) since its inception. After the expiration of the two-year term, there will be a change in AKTV’s president; Prima’s Marek Singer will replace Nova’s Jan Vlček.