The BBC director general Mark Thompson has said that while the emergence of new digital TV technology has been “highly significant”, predictions that time-shifted viewing would lead to a “bloody revolution and end of spot advertising” have been exaggerated.

An internal BBC report conducted five years ago predicted time-shifted viewing would account for 50% of all television viewing by 2011. However, actual public consumption has proved to be much lower at around 10%. However, Mr Thompson warned that while this figure is considerably lower than anticipated, it “should not make us complacent about the future”,

He added the popularity of time-shifted viewing would increase with the implementation of IPTV services such as Youview, the delayed project backed by the BBC and six other partners and that were it to reach a 15% share, it would be greater than BBC 2 and Channel 4 combined.

The director general spoke of the importance of multiplatform strategies in ensuring effective communications using the corporation’s coverage of the 2010 election campaign as an example. He revealed that despite the BBC reaching 83% of the population, it took “an awful lot of platforms” to do so, including radio, online, mobile and TV. According to Thompson, the genre most affected by digital media has been the news provision and the future of this area will be multiplatform multimedia in the UK, as multiple platforms continue to generate the highest share of news consumption.

MEC opinion: The advertising industry is inevitably becoming more and more digital as technology advances, but linear TV has shown remarkable persistence and “the end of spot advertising” is not the threat it once was.

TV spot advertising still accounts for the largest share of display advertising (36% in 2010) due to its ability to reach a mass audience and build coverage quickly (IPA Touchpoints research, 2010). TV accounted for the largest share of display advertising in 2010 (36%) and further growth is forecast again in 2011 (+4% in 2011 on 14% growth in 2010).

Although TV catch-up services such as ITV player and 4OD show continuous growth, ‘live’ TV still delivers that mass reach moment – no other media can reach 19 million people (X Factor final) in one go!