Report: Live TV events garner longer tune-in
June 18, 2024
FreeWheel, a technology platform for the television advertising industry, has announced the launch of an enhanced product suite for programmatic transactions on live steaming events—including the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024. In addition, FreeWheel has released a report titled: It’s Only Live Once: How TV Advertisers Can Capture Audiences in the Moment…and How Streaming Is Changing the Game adding additional support for marketers interested in advertising and exploring programmatic opportunities in the live streaming environment.
As the report asserts, live events continue to offer advertisers large, simultaneous audiences; highly-engaged viewing environments; and positive brand associations, yet as live events begin to move onto streaming platforms, challenges also present themselves. Ad technologies must deliver an advertiser’s message into a dynamic environment with millions of simultaneous views, with little room for failure or errors. Hence, the roll out of FreeWheel’s new capabilities that solve some of the challenges of transacting programmatically within live events.
“Streaming opened the path for publishers to transact programmatically within their highly valuable live inventory. But most programmers, understandably, took a walk, jog, run approach. Now, with advanced ad technologies, proven business models, and unprecedented scale of streaming audiences, we’re at a new stage in the programmatic evolution,” said Mark McKee, General Manager, FreeWheel. “There are still different approaches for different events, but publishers interested in opening their premier inventory to automated trading, can do so with confidence. As they say, it’s only live once, which is what makes these events so special for advertisers.”
Why is Live TV Special?
According to FreeWheel’s report, the appetite for live programming continues to grow. Whether tuning in to tentpole events like the Super Bowl, which broke viewership records this year, or in-season games, US households watch 23 hours of live sports per month. There are three broad drivers of its appeal:
· It is current – the top reason viewers watch live programming is that it happens in real-time,
· It is engaging – live events garner 22 per cent longer tune-in than all other programmes,
· It is communal – live events are 17 per cent more likely to be viewed by multiple people together, and 54 per cent of sports viewers say they often watch live sports with others.
Additionally, more than half of marketers say advertising during live events is ‘very’ or ‘extremely important.’