Advertisers not Fans of the Small Screen

An article in the New York time reported the lack of interest from advertisers for small screen. The latest program to experiment with the small screen was “Smallville”. The program used the alternative platform to tell the background of Oliver Queen, the billionaire mayor. The only sponsorship for this came from the Sprint (mobile phone makers).

“In 2006, $421 million was spent on mobile phone advertising, said a study by the market research firm eMarketer. By contrast, broadcast television advertising was estimated at $48 billion last year, according to the Universal McCann media agency.”

So what is holding advertisers back?

There are a few suggestions of the viewer paying for content “The question is whether anyone will pay to watch. Ms. Barrabee said”
“It’s more like the Internet,” she said. “People are going to want things for free. Studios will have to come up with advertising-supported business models.”

Viewers are going to see this like, the internet or broadcast TV. In Australia it would be difficult to get viewers to pay for this content, as we have such a strong free to air broadcaster presence.

The other matter that needs to be taken into consideration is, the target age group.
Who is this target?
Do they have the money to pay for the content?

Related Articles:
Hollywood Loves the Tiny Screen. Advertisers Don’t.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/business/media/07cell.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=212b063d4e38b1ce&ex=1179547200

Sprint
http://www.sprint.com/