When I started out as a media buyer in the 2000s the world was a lot simpler place. For most of my time working at McDonald’s, Telstra and Westpac – the top end of the media plan pretty much wrote itself. Linear TV as the tried and trusted platform had the lion’s share. It had mass reach driven by quality content and proven by trustworthy standardised measurement and a stable of active industry bodies connecting media platforms to agencies and advertisers.

Twenty years later, the sector formerly known as TV has had a turbulent time. Technological disruption, shifting consumer habits, the decline of linear audiences, not to mention external factors such as global pandemic leading into a cost-of-living crisis. The change is stark. Between 2019 and 2024, the average weekly viewing time for free-to-air and catch up TV fell 36 per cent (for subscription TV it fell 18 per cent). Over the same period, the viewing time for paid streaming services rose by 49 per cent [1].

These transformational headwinds reshaping the world have been highly disruptive, and the industry has not yet caught up to the shift from linear TV to streaming video. For decades, Australia’s television advertising ecosystem has been shaped by industry bodies which primarily served the interests of traditional broadcasters. These organisations played a crucial role in creating standard metrics, advocating for policy positions, and ensuring a cohesive voice for linear TV.

But just because you were first on the viewing landscape 20 years ago and first on a media plan 20 years ago, it doesn’t mean you own the right to be there today. The fact is that the industry has not met the pace of change required and ultimately, it is the agencies and advertisers who are the ones who are left trying to make sense of the new complexity.
 

Dealing with disruption

It has been highly disruptive, but let’s rank this on a scale of frustration. The reality is that for most media planners, sorting out the future of streaming video is probably on page 2 of their “to do” list. That’s not to say that getting to grips with the new reality isn’t critical, it certainly is. But it is up the industry to sort it out and we need to come together with a new voice to do so.

At the end of the day, the challenge is not about one media organisation, and it is not even about linear TV vs. streaming. It is about the customer. Ultimately the customer should be then lens that we orientate this conversation around.

Linear TV used to be easy. But today, media and changing consumer habits have driven new complexities: different screens, formats, models, new ways of buying. This has coincided with increase pressure on budgets. Streaming video faces increasing competition from social platforms and retail media – and the industry needs to provide evidence of its efficacy while making it easier for the customer to harness its power.
 

Meeting the pace of change

The industry also needs to move faster. The average marketer’s tenure is 2-3 years – they can’t wait five years for change. This should dictate the speed on which the industry adapts and proves itself.

How the industry speaks needs to be anchored in the commercial benefit. We know, thanks to research from Analytic Partners, that ads served across streaming video platforms outperform other marketing channels by 30 per cent. The benefits are there – and this should be the bedrock of how we talk about the role our industry has to play.

At the same time, we need to mirror how business has changed over the past two decades. We need to embrace new ways of thinking. We need to be open to alternatives. We need to be more collaborative and inclusive – to consider more voices from different parts of the industry, have more engagement and learn from changes in similar international markets.
 

The future is collaborative

It’s only been a year since the Video Futures Collective think tank launched as an inclusive body to bring players from Australia’s premium video and streaming sphere together. Right from the start our goal was to create an open platform for collaboration, one that reflected the changes taking place across our industry, moved fast and put the customer first.

It’s been a busy 12 months – and arguably what we’ve achieved is unprecedented – not just in Australia, but globally. Our founding members Disney Advertising, YouTube, Foxtel Media, Samsung Ads and SBS have been joined by Amazon Advertising and Vevo. We’ve spoken to advertisers and agencies to really understand what they need. We’ve devised and launched a research program, launching projects with partners such as Adgile, Kantar, Analytic Partners and Amplified Intelligence.

Over the next 18 months we hope to bring the industry back together, but on a new set of terms that reimagines what we mean by Total TV. One based on equal voices and with a view to the future, not the past. One open to the entire industry and unshackled from the old way of doing things. After all, in 2025 the world of streaming video is a more complex than ever before, and the industry needs a voice that reflects this.

The Video Futures Collective will be speaking at the upcoming Future of TV Advertising conference in Sydney on Tuesday 8 April.  

[1] Time spent watching video content, Communications and media in Australia: How we watch and listen to
content ACMA 2024 https://www.acma.gov.au/publications/2024-12/report/communications-and-media-
australia-how-we-watch-and-listen-content