Last week, UK broadcaster ITV celebrated its 70th anniversary, and since ITV was the UK’s first commercial broadcaster, that means it’s 70 years since the birth of TV advertising in the UK. In this article Jonathan Manning, director of advanced TV at Medialab, reflects on the evolution of TV advertising over since 1955, and asks what’s in store for UK’s TV ad industry over the next 70 years.
On 22nd September 1955, British broadcasting changed course. With fanfare at Guildhall and 2,000 invited guests, including representatives from both the BBC and new commercial sector, the UK introduced Independent Television (ITV), its first foray into advertiser-funded TV.
This wasn’t an overnight disruption. The move was the result of a careful and considered approach that included the passing of the Television Bill, published on 4th March 1954, which laid the legal groundwork for commercial television. Britain had already led the world in public broadcasting, with the BBC becoming the first country to introduce a public television service when it broadcast its first transmission on 2nd November 1936.
The launch of ITV therefore represented a deliberate evolution of broadcasting policy, rather than a sudden revolution. It was also, unsurprisingly, a pivotal moment for advertising as we know it today, and this anniversary is the perfect time for reflection on not only how the landscape has evolved since then but also the direction it needs to take in the future.
The First Ad Break (and Why It Mattered)
At 8:12pm, the first ever UK commercial aired: Gibbs SR Toothpaste, followed by Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate. Each was a 60-second spot, a unit that would become the gold standard for campaign planning. All other durations were priced in relation to the 60-second benchmark, unlike today, where 30 seconds is the common currency. According to early rate cards, a sixty-second prime-time ad cost £1,000 in 1955. Adjusted for inflation, that’s over £27,000 today, a striking figure given the uncertainties around reach, adoption, and infrastructure.
TV was still a fairly new medium, and ad buyers had to take a leap of faith. But that faith was underpinned by a tightly structured ecosystem: from programme contractors and rate card approvals, and even audience measurement via TAM (Television Audience Measurement), although many thought Nielsen would be the official UK measurement system.
Yet, commercial television was not a free-for-all. Quite the opposite. Marking the first moves towards ensuring the TV ad experience works for audiences, slots were capped at an average of 6 minutes per hour, with no ads being permitted between 7:00-10:30pm during certain sensitive slots. Moreover, the ‘Toddler’s Truce’, an enforced pause in broadcasts between 6:00-7:00pm, aimed to allow parents to put young children to bed without distraction.
Though perhaps ‘quaint’ by modern standards, the principle behind these rules was profound: that television, and especially commercial television, must be introduced with social responsibility and public trust in mind. And these principles to this day underpin the work of industry bodies that govern television and AV advertising, from BARB and Ofcom to Clearcast and the BCAP Code, helping ensure that commercial broadcasting continues to balance advertiser needs with public trust.
TV’s Early Trajectory: A Slow Move Towards Progress
TV today has become a converged content marketplace where data, targeting and creativity collide, but it wasn’t always the flagship format for digital video that we now know it as. At first, advertising developed slowly. In its first few decades, incremental experimentation fuelled a gradual shift away from “moving newspaper ads” and the presenter-delivered format to more familiar lifestyle-focused messages as executives gained a better understanding of what audiences wanted. Early broadcasters were also cautious about the style of advertising permitted: there was notable resistance to overly theatrical or pre-recorded ads, and formats like the so-called Ad-mags, which blurred the line between programme and promotion, faced criticism and were eventually curtailed to preserve editorial integrity.
Aside from the arrival of Channel 4 in 1982, an especially important shift for ITV as it was required to fund the fledgling enterprise, two other milestones reshaped viewing: the introduction of colour television, which began with BBC2 in 1967 and was fully rolled out by the early 1970s, and the launch of satellite broadcasting led by Sky in 1989, which opened the door to multi-channel subscription TV. The first wave of digitalisation followed in 1998 with the launch of digital terrestrial television, but the complete analogue-to-digital switchover was not mandated until 2008–2012. In a rapid avalanche of progress, free-to-air digital channels, broadcast video on demand and streaming transformed the TV ecosystem and presented viewers with unprecedented choice.
Concurrently, ITV went from selling linear slots via sales houses to entering the streaming world with ITVX and trading slots through its own programmatic ad management platform, Planet V. Ever keen to embrace collaboration as a means of delivering better value and driving industry advances, ITV has recently joined old partner Channel 4 and Sky in launching a new measurement initiative, Lantern, in addition to enabling generative AI ad production.
CTV Makes a Debut: Bridging Traditional and Digital Advertising
The evolution of multi-faceted TV consumption has continued apace, with more audiences viewing content across an array of channels and devices. A one-size-fits-all TV strategy is no longer enough; advertisers must plan TV buys in line with how people actually watch TV.
Planners and advertisers looking to ensure their ads reach audiences over CTV platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube, as well as conventional TV, are harnessing increasingly sophisticated programmatic platforms that allow them to access a range of media, alongside tapping data onboarding and matching features that facilitate precise audience targeting.
The combined power of traditional TV’s scale with refined digital targeting has opened up new, wide-ranging opportunities for advertisers to tell interconnected stories that engage and inspire audiences.
The Next 70 Years: What The Future Looks Like
Once more, the direction of TV development is following audience needs. The growth and subsequent saturation of Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) services like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime has plateaued in leading markets, reflecting a maturing phase for these platforms and the rise of subscription fatigue among viewers.
Now, we’re already seeing the next phase in the growth of these platforms with ad-supported models being harnessed to enable access at varying price points. The adoption of ad-supported tiers on platforms such as Netflix and Disney+ represents a significant change that’s quickly altering the TV landscape, competing with traditional TV for both audiences and ad budgets.
Its impact on traditional, linear TV is already becoming apparent. While linear TV continues to play a vital role in live programming (e.g., sports, news), audience fragmentation reduces its overall reach, particularly among younger, and often harder to reach, demographics. Ad-supported streaming services are also increasingly competing for ad spend, previously the domain of linear TV networks.
Looking further ahead, the future of the digital terrestrial licences is currently under review by Ofcom and may not be extended beyond 2035. This would usher in the next great evolution of TV: the transition from digital terrestrial to IP delivery. In an IP-delivered world, every viewer could be served a different ad tailored to their profile – the promise of fully addressable television at scale. We are already seeing the seeds of this future with the launch of Freely and the joint efforts of ITV, Channel 4 and Sky through the announcement of Universal Ads, signalling a more personalised and data-driven era for TV advertising.
Yet in the quest to ensure campaigns are delivered to audiences everywhere all at once, it’s vital not to forget the fundamental point of advertising. The power of great promotions lies in presenting the right person with the right product, in a way that sparks real engagement. TVs have been the focal point of most living rooms for 70 years and people will continue to love them for another 70. To maintain its position at the centre of collective content consumption, the future of TV requires a continued focus on providing high-quality, valuable and purposeful experiences that keep audiences coming back for more.
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