Hero to zero? Not yet: a 50-year view of commercial TV

TV remains a uniquely effective and key medium for major advertisers, but the glory days seem to be well over.

Hero to zero? Not yet: a 50-year view of commercial TV

Roderick White

Commercial television in the UK is just over 50 years old, and is currently worth some £4 billion in adspend, according to the latest figures from the Advertising Association's Advertising Statistics Yearbook.

Terrestrial channels still account for 70% of this, though satellite has been steadily eroding their position over the nearly 15 years for which comparable adspend data are readily available, and terrestrial-only homes are now only 18% of the BARB universe.

Satellite, in fact, came onstream when, retrospectively, the glory days of TV were already...

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