New ad research shows secondary TV channels now exclusively carrying 15% of all TV campaigns

New ad research has shown that secondary TV channels are now exclusively carrying 15% of all TV campaigns.

The six commercial secondary TV channels now account for 20 per cent share of the audience across Free to Air television and 62 per cent of all TV campaigns and 15 per cent of them exclusively, according to research by advertising monitoring group, Ebiquity.

Says Mr Richard Basil-Jones, managing director of Ebiquity Australia: “The commercial networks and Pay TV are now attracting a much higher than anticipated share of audience in their channels and advertisers have caught on to the very strong inroads being made by them.”

In response to this trend, Ebiquity will on November 1, 2013, commence monitoring ads on the secondary channels as they are now capturing collectively a larger audience share than the ABC, TEN and SBS.

Says Basil-Jones: “Our research in 2013 shows that in the Sydney TV market, 15 per cent of commercials are unique to the secondary channels and around 62 per cent of ads are advertised on both primary and secondary channels.

“We estimate that the secondary channels are now carrying more than 137,000 individual commercials every week, while 77,000 ads are aired across Australia on the primary FTA channels.

“This is a double edged sword for the networks as they charge lower rates for spots on secondary channels as they can on primary channels, despite the fact the channels are posting strong audiences.”

Share of Unique Ads aired between January-September, 2013 for the Sydney market

·      An average of 3,473 different ads were aired each month across the Primary and Secondary channels          

On average, for a given month:

·      Only 23% of ads appeared exclusively on Primary channels

·      15% of ads appeared exclusively on the Secondary channels

·      62% of ads appeared on both

·      77% of ads that appeared on Free to air TV appeared on the secondary channels

The Ebiquity research shows a growing number of major sectors and advertisers are now exclusively using the secondary channels to promote their products and services, with cosmetics, insurance and credit card companies the leaders.

An example of a recent ad campaign exclusive to secondary channels is:

This Citibank ‘Balance transfer offer’ TV advertisement first launched in July 2013. It has been run 677 times on secondary channels and 0 times on primary.

Ebiquity’s analysis also shows:

·      15% more ads are broadcast on a secondary channel than a primary channel – mainly driven by the additional 2 minutes of  advertising allowed on the channels, in the average hour between 6pm-12pm

·      The level of activity – number of ads – for certain industry sectors and advertisers is significantly higher on secondary channels. The following lists the number and share of total ads on secondary channels for a range of categories: