Advertising is said to pay for £5bn in free internet services in the UK. Over half of Brits are happy to see ads online, if it keeps content free. And in a world where TV viewing is rapidly drifting onto streaming sites, questions surround payment for premium TV content, too.
The phenomenon has both challenged normal TV advertising models and brought new opportunities. We were recently visited by the highly progressive CEO of Channel 4 David Abraham, who spoke about the channel’s future vision, 4OD’s newer ad formats and the channel’s complete openness to innovation from clients and agencies.
And this week an altogether new platform was launched in beta called HitBliss (now defunct), and it’s an interesting proposition. It creates a raw currency out of advert-viewing, enabling users to build capital to exchange for premium content. The more personal data given, the greater the targeting, and the higher the reward for each ad view. Allowing that rates can therefore vary, roughly 2 minutes of viewing can pay for a TV episode, and around 10 minutes can pay for a full movie. There’ll be no consumer trickery though; users can’t mute the sound and if they aren’t watching the page, the ad will simply pause. Potential?
