Drop in startup advertising creating a dent in broadcasters' ad revenue?

The decline in startup funding across segments has had a cascading effect on TV broadcasters. After all, the new-age startups from segments like edtech, fintech, cryptocurrency, D2C brands, and e-commerce had emerged as one of the biggest advertisers on TV in the last two years.

Aided by record fund infusion from venture capitalists and private equity players in 2021, the tech startups had splurged advertising monies on TV channels to build their brands. Thanks to the reach provided by TV, new-age advertisers have become household names in the country. The TV broadcasters also gained big time as the new-age advertisers became top buyers of big-ticket properties like reality shows and cricket.

With start-up funding hitting an all-time low in the second half of CY2022 due to global inflation and geopolitical tensions, TV broadcasters are also facing the heat as startups are focussing on conserving cash by cutting down on discretionary expenses like advertising.

Sujata Dwibedy, chief investment officer, Amplifi, dentsu India, said TV's loss was digital and print media's gain as new-age categories started re-strategising their ad spends due to a funding crunch. She added that the edtech, pharma-tech, and even crypto brands had pulled back their ad spends.

"With the overall shrinking of liquidity, VC funding slowing down, and investment funding shrinking, there is increasing pressure on the startups to focus on the bottom line. Hence, they have started re-strategizing their ad spends. This has led to a drop in ad spends, especially on television. Especially, the key impact properties/ sports events that used to be oversold or blocked by these new brands and at any price have started getting rationalized. The big sports events in the H2 were also struggling to get advertisers this year," she stated.

Dwibedy noted that the traditional categories came to TV's rescue even as ad spending by new-age categories had seen a dip. "Thankfully, in addition to the e-commerce category, the traditional auto, two-wheelers, retail and even telecom for that matter bounced back. Realty and travel categories have also seen some amount of revival. TV did not see a huge drop, thanks to the existing categories which are always on, but the growth slowed down, and the categories which revived not only swung in the favour of digital but gave a boost to print media. In fact, during festivals, we saw two books getting published across lead publications," she added.

According to data sourced from TAM Media, the indexed average volume growth for new-age advertisers/start-ups on TV dropped by 11% in 2022 till October compared to 2021.

Senior ad sales executives from TV broadcasting companies say that the bigger impact of the cutback in ad spending by new-age advertisers was on the value of advertising and not the volume since these companies were big buyers of premium inventory.

"These brands didn't contribute much to ad volumes as traditional advertisers like FMCG still dominate TV advertising. The impact of the drop in ad spends by these companies was on the yield. These advertisers were on a spending spree since they were in a hurry to build their brands at scale. TV was the perfect medium for them since it helps build credibility," said an ad sales professional.

He further stated that the GEC and sports genres took a bigger hit than others since new-age advertisers were heavy buyers of reality shows and sports. "New-age category has virtually stopped spending on big-ticket properties since they are rationalising their advertising spends."

Another senior executive from a leading TV network said that the advertising spends from the new-age brands has dropped by over 50% in 2022 compared to the previous year. He also stated that the broadcasters need to start focusing on new advertising categories like emerging Indian companies which are based outside metro cities to fill in the void created by a drop in ad spends by tech start-ups.

"Broadcasters need to focus on widening their advertiser base to avoid over-dependence on certain categories like FMCG or for that matter new-age brands. Small and medium companies represent a huge opportunity for the TV industry. Right now, these companies are spending a lot on digital advertising which is also reflected in the ad revenue growth of Google and Meta," he noted.

Cheil India Chief Growth Officer Kumar Awanish said that the drop in start-up advertising will create a dent in the ad revenue of broadcasters. With new-age clients re-calibrating their advertising spends, he noted that the digital offerings by large broadcasters have also benefited. "Broadcasters have also created digital offerings and solutions to offer to those new-age advertisers. So, even if ad revenue is going down from one place it is coming to another bucket even if it is not from the same advertiser."

Awanish also stated that the new-age categories are focussing on efficient media buying through different channels. "If you look at the new-age category, they do TV advertising on two occasions. One, when they are close to raising funds in order to attract the attention of the VCs, and second when they want to expand their reach. Certainly, both these are not the case right now," he said.  

As of October 2022, the Top 5 new age advertisers/start-ups on TV are Amazon Online India, Think & Learn (Byju's), Fx Mart (Phonepe), Fashnear Technologies (Meesho App), and Policybazaar.Com. In 2021, Amazon Online India, Think & Learn (Byju's), Policybazaar.Com, Flipkart.Com, and Fx Mart (Phonepe) were the top advertisers.

The top advertising categories from this segment were Ecom-Online Shopping, Ecom-Wallets, Ecom-Media/Ent./Social Media, Ecom-Financial Services, and Ecom-Education. In 2021, Ecom-Online Shopping, Ecom-Education, Ecom-Financial Services, Ecom-Media/Ent./Social Media, and Ecom-Food/Grocery were the top categories.