Traditional TV still king in PH, gets bulk of $2-B video ad spend

Traditional television maintained its grip on the Philippines’ $2-billion video advertising business, proving that TV remained king despite the assault of internet streaming services.

Traditional sources such as free-to-air platforms, cable and satellite TV corner 95 percent of the country’s video advertising money— more than its neighbors in Asia Pacific.

Moreover, the trend sees traditional TV expanding and gaining more ground in the next few years, officials from global satellite operator SES and Magistan Media said on Thursday.

“Advertising follows growth and subscriber numbers,” Soo Yew Weng, SES Video Asia Pacific vice president for sales and development, told reporters on Thursday.

Video advertising in the Philippines is expected to grow by $600 million from 2019 through 2023, data from PriceWaterhouseCoopers showed.

Of the amount, about 80 percent will be channeled to traditional TV while the remainder will go to “total digital video.”

This is partly because of the continued growth in the traditional TV market. From 18.7 million households this year, the figure is expected to hit 20.7 million in 2024 for a penetration rate of 78 percent, data from Dataxis showed.

About 93 percent of Filipinos also favor TV over other mediums. Filipinos spend an average of 3.4-3.7 hours per day watching TV.

Media firms such as Singapore-based Magistan see the Philippines as fertile ground for growth.

Through its TV platform called ClubTV, Magistan partnered with SES to offer select channels to local pay TV operators.

Ralph Siebenaler, CEO of Magistan and its local unit Mediahouse.PH, said they had so far tied up with PLDT Inc.’s CignalTV and GSat.

Via its local partners, Magistan will offer six channels: GINX Esports TV, HealthWellness, Pet & Pal, Luxe&Life, My Cinema Europe and Motorvision TV.

Siebenaler said early customer feedback had been encouraging and they planned to double the channel lineup within one year.

Satellite TV is a fast growing segment of the pay TV industry. Dataxis estimates that satellite TV households will hit 5.8 million by 2024 from 3.7 million this year.

Satellites are prized for their ability to serve areas where land-based infrastructure is limited but its signal quality can be affected by weather conditions and cloudy skies.

“With this new platform, we are delivering new content cost-effectively, and in excellent technical quality to millions of households,” Siebenaler said.