THE WEB TV REVOLUTION: ARE YOU PREPARED?

January 26, 2012

When I finally relented, six months ago, to years of pressure from my teenage son and took out a subscription to Sky TV, my main concern was that he and I would end up watching too much football.

But after his recent admission to being an occasional viewer of Ocean Finance TV, the prospect of the two of us overdosing on Jeff Stelling & Co. suddenly seems the least of my worries.

You only need to glance at Sky’s channel list to see that the advance of branded television channels is gathering pace even faster than long-standing web TV evangelists like me had imagined. Ocean Finance, was, in fact, one of the pioneers – it launched in 2008. Since then a whole host of brands have followed suit – and are starting to reap the dividends.

M&S, for instance, says one in 10 viewers of M&S TV click through to the product pages; they also spend longer on the site and view three times as many products as other customers.

Viewers of Debenhams TV spend 12% more on average than non-viewers. And Pink TV, run by the clothing chain Thomas Pink, is averaging around 1000 viewers a week, boosting dwell time on the company’s website by 40%.

With broadband speeds improving, Google TV due later this year, and the extraordinary rise of YouTube showing no sign of abating, we can expect to see an explosion of these kinds of channels in the years ahead.

So where does this leave the rest of us, who can’t afford the hundreds of hours of original content these dedicated channels require? Certainly few of our clients have that sort of budget.

Well, our advice is threefold. First, go for quality – however many videos you’re looking for. To stand out from the millions of other videos out there requires effort, skill and creativity, so letting an intern loose with a camcorder and Windows MovieMaker is probably a waste of time.

Secondly, whatever your budget, at least get started. Having just one video on your website has been shown to make a significant difference to your ranking with the search engines and the amount of time people spend on your site.

Thirdly, continue to invest sensibly in video marketing as and when you can afford it. Five or six videos, and you’re ready for your own YouTube Channel. And when, eventually, you do want your own web TV service, you’ll already have suitable content for it.

Who knows? It might be your TV channel I’ll be dragging my son away from in a couple of years’ time.

Robin Powell is Managing Editor of Regis Media