RTBF Radio stops AM broadcasting

Digital Audio Broadcasting, or DAB(+), is the new black for radio, also in the South, as since November 2018, most of the French-speaking commercial radio stations are digitally broadcast too. Taking into account this new developement, RTBF has decided to stop the AM analogue broadcasting of their programmes. FM therefore is the only analogue broadcasting system that "survives", but currently only ± 10% of radio listeners claim to use DAB, exclusively or not (Source: CIM Establishment Survey 2018). Although listening in AM is not reported, it is generally agreed that the audience for that kind of radio has become negligible.

Facebook updates its video metrics

Video consumption is evolving quickly, especially on mobile. As a result, Facebook is implementing different advertising solutions in an attempt to adapt to the video content behaviours across its platforms.

So they identified 5 types of video consumption, as shown in the graphs below:

At Facebook they are updating their video metrics focusing on total amount of time a video was viewed) and they are also introducing new reporting for video plays. In the meantime, they remove some old KPI for more compact reporting.

Measuring unrepeated seconds

On Facebook, you can rewind a video ad, or watch it several times. Previously, Facebook was calculating each view as unique, even if one single user would watch a video ad 3 times. Advertisers have complained about this and said that they’d rather have more accurate metrics of unique viewers, even if this means lower views generated in the end.So from now on, even if you watch an ad 3 times, it will be counted as 1.

Introducing video plays

Since the videos start playing automatically, one impression should equal one video view. However, if a user’s phone is on low battery, or has low internet connection, the video will not start automatically and there will be a gap between impressions and video views. Therefore Facebook introduced a new KPI into its Business Manager: Video Plays metric. They are also associating with MOAT to introduce this new KPIs into their platform.

Removing redundant and infrequently-used video metrics

Those two KPIs: 30 seconds video views and video percentage watched are not in the business manager anymore. Instead they introduced the "2 seconds continuous video views" metric, that is assumed to be more relevant.

Whole HBO catalogue on Telenet

Telenet announced that until 2021 their new contract with HBO their clients would be able to access the entire HBO programmes library, meaning that fi all seasons of 'The Sopranos', 'The Wire' and 'True Blood' will be available via Telenet. For the consumer, this improves their experience: until 2018, only new episodes from HBO were available via Play or Play More, but used to disappear after that.

No fast forward possible in time shift viewing ?

Time shift viewing has become significant in our country. In 2018, ±20% of viewing time by adults 18-54 years was not live (more in Flanders, than in the French-speaking part of Belgium, as shown in the graph below):

In time shift, most of the advertising time (at least 80%) is fast forwarded, resulting in less revenues for TV channels, as ad viewing is only reported -and paid for- while it occurs at normal speed. So it has been argued, especially in Flanders, that access providers should disable the fast forward options when TV content is viewed in time shift on their boxes. "Commercial suicide" replied Telenet, that is both media owner (SBS) and access provider (63% household penetration in the North). Such an obligation would be unique as far as we know, but it seems very unlikely to happen.

See also (enclosed) our Seen from Space graph on ad viewing, live vs time shift.

Ligatus inventory now accessible via programmatic

Since last month it is possible to buy Ligatus inventory via programmatic. The sales house gives the opportunity of using different private deals depending on  the needs of each campaign or advertiser.

Ligatus, that offers solutions via its Native Advertising network, makes three types of deals available:

• Placements = In-feed placements (In-Article/Homepage/Newsletter) with exclusivity
• Objectives = Specially designed for either branding campaigns or high Click-to-Rate goals. The ads will be shown on the most visible placements of Ligatus network. Video deals are also included for “engage” and non-intrusive objectives.
• Affinity = Different segments are available : Gender, Sport, Auto, Lifestyle, Entertainment, or B2B to name a few.

What do we think? Having access to Ligatus inventory via programmatic is a good new for advertisers and experts. Programmatic allows higher flexibility for campaign optimizations and the budget constraints are less important. Space has been running several tests recently to assess performances and targeting possibilities. First impressions are positive.