Dror Bahat, VP marketing at satellite broadcaster YES declared that primetime is dead. He made the claim at the "New Consumer" panel at today's "Globes" Marketing and Communications Conference in Tel Aviv. He said that much of the current debate in the industry was about how content would be viewed in the future: via the Internet on laptops, on cellular telephones, or on television.
Bahat said, "This isn't the interesting question, however. The important thing is that a revolution has taken place, which I call the 'time revolution'. This is the revolution that killed primetime because people are no longer tied to programming schedules, but choose when to watch programs. They prerecord them on digital set-top boxes, or watch them online in their free time."
Target Market chairman and CEO Eitan Azta suggested that Bahat switch from traditional advertising to word-of-mouth. He said that the new consumer was deaf to 90% of advertising messages, and the only thing that broke through this hermetic seal was someone he called a "social mover". A social mover is a public figure with a very broad influence on customers.
Azta does not believe that this can be done via the Internet, but only in face-to-face conversations where people meet in person, not in Internet chats.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 14, 2008
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