The ABC’s Australian Story – brought to you by Head & Shoulders
The screengrab below may not look like much, but it shows the historic moment that a TVC first ran next to ABC content. Head & Shoulders had the honour of advertising next to the flagship Australian Story.
I spotted it on YouTube a few moments ago.
In the last week or two I’ve noticed the video sharing site cautiously experimenting with pre-roll ads across its content. Despite the fact that I spend a LOT of time on YouTube, I’d say I’ve seen pre-roll ads perhaps five times, so they’re doing it subtly so far.
It’s not brand new news that YouTube is trying it. Lara Sinclair wrote about it in the Australian a couple of weeks back. I bet the reason they’re taking it slow is that they’re keeping a close eye on the fall-off in viewers who don’t hold on for the video that follows. But it’s a sensible business tactic to be trying out different ways of monetising video.
However, it is a strategy that puts YouTube potentially in conflict with the ad-free ABC, which uses YouTube quite heavily to promote its content.
This afternoon I witnessed a pre-roll ad run in front of a video that the ABC had uploaded via their NewOnABCTV YouTube channel yesterday to promote Australian Story.
It was for Head & Shoulders. And after much refreshing, I watched a Gillette Fusion ad that I managed to grab some wobbly video footage of.
You may remember the fuss when it appeared that the ABC was going to allow advertising on its mobile sites. And more recently ABC boss Mark Scott has been adamant that the public has already paid for ABC content, so they shouldn’t have to pay to see it, or watch ads around it.
So this is potentially a big deal.
It goes further than that too. This screengrab to the right shows an eBay ad which appeared next to that same ABC content after one of my page refreshes.
If I understand my YouTube correctly, that means that there’s a revenue share going on. Channel owners usually have to opt in to this kind of thing.
The ABC uses YouTube to promote its programming – it’s a potentially valuable way of getting viewers. But if that becomes a way for advertisers to get their TV ads next to ABC programming, or clips from it, then I can see that stopping pretty rapidly once the ABC thinks through the consequences.
It seems to me there are three possibilities.
First, cock up. Some at the ABC clicked yes when they should have clicked no to revenue sharing, or some similar relatively junior level mistake.
Second, the ABC has quietly changed its policy on online advertising.
Third, YouTube is running these ads without their channel owners opting in to them. In which case it will be interesting to hear where the revenue goes. And how other YouTube channel owners feel about it.
My guess is that the advertiser bought by run of site, or perhaps against certain video categories. I’d be amazed if they knew they were going to end up next to ABC content, although I’m sure P&G, the owner of both brands, will be delighted. That’s one reason why it’s a good idea for media agencies to get involved with media owners in new innovations.
I’ve asked both the ABC and YouTube for a comment and will report back when they come back to me.
Update 1: YouTube insists that somebody at the ABC will have opted into this. They issued a short comment saying:
“YouTube partners can now opt-in to in-stream ads for premium content”
I attempted to doubly clarify if this meant the ABC would have opted in, and the response from YouTube was:
“Just to confirm, partners need to opt in to show pre-roll ads.”
Over to you, ABC…
Update 2: The ABC says it’s YouTube’s fault. There’s a news story here
Tim Burrowes
Linkedin
Surely there’s something about this in the YouTube Ts and Cs that lets Google run ads on ABC content?
User ID not verified.
What the update from YouTube says.
Ads on YouTube are opt in, always have been. Someone at the ABC has to have turned this on.
If you hit Google and search, I’m pretty sure this came up when the ABC launched their YouTube channels as well, and the no-ads thing was mentioned at the time.
User ID not verified.