Television in the streaming era: why linear TV still earns its place

Every few years someone predicts the end of television as an advertising medium. Viewers are leaving for streaming services, younger audiences live on their phones, and advertising is moving to wherever individuals can be targeted. Some of that is true. The conclusion that linear TV no longer makes sense does not follow from it.

The more useful questions are what television does in a media mix, what to combine it with, and where the line falls beyond which another channel does the job better.

What television does that other channels do not

Linear television has one property that no other channel offers to the same degree: within a short period it reaches a large share of the population with the same message, on a big screen, with sound, in a setting viewers understand as advertising and, to an extent, expect.

For brand building that is fundamental. Brand awareness does not come from a single contact but from repetition across a broad audience — including people who are not buying anything right now but will be in six months. Television is effective at this precisely because it does not target narrowly. It reaches people the advertiser does not yet know are future customers.

The second property is less visible: television lends a brand weight. For many audiences, presence in prime time signals an established company. That is hard to measure, but in categories built on trust — health, finance, property — it counts.

The audience is shifting, not disappearing

Linear viewing is indeed skewing older, and younger viewers spend more time with on-demand video and social media. For a campaign, though, that means only that television on its own may not cover every target group — not that it is useless.

For advertisers whose customers are mostly middle-aged and older, television remains one of the most efficient ways to reach them at scale. For younger target groups, TV is supplemented so that the campaign also reaches people linear broadcasting misses.

The decision should therefore rest on viewing data for the specific target group, measured for the ATO by Nielsen Admosphere, rather than on general impressions of who still watches TV.

Broadcaster video-on-demand

The natural companion to linear broadcasting is the broadcasters’ own on-demand services, where programmes can be watched on demand or catch-up. Advertising there takes the form of pre-roll or mid-roll spots, seen full screen and often on the same television set as linear broadcasts.

The advantage is plain: it reaches viewers who watch the same content in a different way, and who tend to be younger. It is bought on impressions or, in some cases, in conjunction with TV ratings, so it can be planned alongside the linear campaign and tracked for how much additional reach it brings.

HbbTV and addressable advertising on smart TVs

The second interface between television and digital is HbbTV — the technology that lets internet-connected smart TVs display interactive and targeted ad formats over or in place of the broadcast signal. Formats include overlay banners during programmes and the replacement of a spot in the ad break with a different one according to region or household profile.

This opens up options classic television never had: regional targeting without buying regional airtime, frequency capping, or topping up reach among households the linear campaign touched only lightly. It remains a complement, not a substitute — HbbTV’s reach is limited by the number of connected sets and by what each broadcaster can technically offer.

Where digital begins

At some point it stops being television and becomes performance digital. Campaigns on video networks such as YouTube, social media advertising, search and retail media work on a different principle: they target individuals, optimise continuously against conversions and are measured with different metrics.

Within OMNIA GROUP those campaigns are run by OMNIA MEDIA, which specialises in performance and digital marketing. We buy television, radio, print and out-of-home — including broadcaster VOD and HbbTV, because those are planned and traded alongside the broadcast. The boundary is not a wall: a well-built campaign usually needs both, and the two halves have to be planned to complement each other rather than overlap.

Putting it together

A sensible approach for a campaign that has to build the brand and sell at the same time looks roughly like this:

1. Linear television delivers broad reach and frequency in the core target group.
2. Broadcaster VOD and HbbTV top up reach among lighter linear viewers and allow finer targeting.
3. Performance digital captures the demand television has created and turns it into concrete actions.

The key is to plan these layers together — with a shared view of the target group, the timing and what will be measured. Television that runs in isolation from digital loses part of its effect, because nobody is there to catch the demand it generates.

The spot itself has to work in every one of these environments. If it has yet to be shot, plan for several lengths and versions from the start; within the group, spot production is handled by OMNIA PRODUCTION.