Specifics of digital TV channel viewing and prospects for monetizing the digital environment at market scale

As the digital environment and technologies continue to evolve, TV audiences are being presented with new platforms and formats for interacting with content. How have TV viewing habits changed and how has this affected metrics? Find out in the article by EVEREST and Gazprom-Media Sales Houses.

Russians are spending increasingly more time online: in 2023, it reached 4 hours 6 minutes (Mediascope); at the same time, the most popular online activity for Russians is watching videos (18% Q2 2023 vs 18% Q2 2022). Russian viewers are actively watching TV and videos online, regardless of the devices they use to consume content.

YouTube’s exit from the Russian advertising market has created a shortage of video inventory, which in turn has created a demand for alternative platforms. The new wave of interest in TV streaming drove the expansion of sponsorship opportunities. First, digital TV facilitates strategy building and streamlines planning by offering more precise segmentation based on target audiences and type of content. Average VTR value in streaming for all complete views in Q3 2023: 82% (Mobile app), 96% (Smart TV), 95% (Web), making longer videos more effective and reducing CPV (Adfox). Second, Smart TV has made group viewing more popular: the advertiser does not pay for additional viewers that are watching content on the same screen.

TV streaming is an efficient way to extend reach. According to Vitrina TV, the only authorized organization for the distribution of TV content on the Internet, the cumulative streaming reach grew to 20 million unique users in the past year (Q3 2023). Moreover, the comparison of streaming and traditional broadcasting revealed that 85% of the daily streaming reach was the unique audience that was not reached by traditional TV in the given 24 hours and complemented the TV audience (according to the data of a joint test with Platforma).

The active integration of TV with streaming platforms and the growing number of connections to digital TV channels have rendered the notion that only school students and retirees watch TV even more obsolete. Streaming has brought young audiences back to TV screens, as it has joined the Mobile segment, which is the main source of content: 48% of the streaming audience aged 18 to 34 are women, 56% of the same category are men (Adfox).

Alexey Filia

Director of Strategy and Advertising Product Development Department at Gazprom-Media Sales House (part of Gazprom-Media Holding).

Television is a clean inventory zone without any fraud. With the Internet, it was different from the beginning. The “schemes” are normal there. They are meant for “non-existent ad displays,” one way or another. A separate market for audit and verification systems has come into being, and audits are about the only way to minimize the purchase of “bad inventory.” Digital TV broadcasting (streaming), from the point of view of “cleanness,” remains classic TV. Let’s compare this to an actual marketplace: imagine that there’s a new vendor in the bazaar, and they are the only ones with normally functioning scales: they’ll never overcharge anyone, they’ve been raised that way. Such a thing is particularly important now, when OLV inventory is scarce and new “schemes” are developing.

Pyotr Mityushkin

Director for Advertising Products at EVEREST Sales House

The advertising inventory that develops in online TV has a high frequency due to long viewing sessions. At the same time, the traditional approach to frequency planning in AVOD is not suitable for streaming. Group viewing, long viewing sessions, and the ability to identify online TV viewers with a stable ID will allow us to integrate new pricing models similar to TV pricing models (GRP). We see this as the future of online TV monetization.

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