Channel 4 drives behavioural ad targeting plans as it hits 10 million registered viewers
Channel 4 has revealed its database of registered viewers has now reached over 10 million, which includes half of all 16-24 year olds in the UK.
The broadcaster has been steadily building its database of registered viewers as part of its ongoing strategy to bolster targeted advertising opportunities across its TV catch-up player 4oD, home to shows including Benefit Streets (pictured), while rendering the experience more tailored to its viewers' individual preferences.
It has claimed that this has helped drive growth in the broadcaster's digital revenues, with an "increasing proportion" of its commercial revenue now being driven directly or supported by first-party viewer data.
The next phase of the strategy will see the data on viewer behaviour used to help shape the creative teams in commissioning and marketing.
Director of audience, technology and insight, Gill Whitehead, who has led the viewer engagement project, said: “Our big data investment, which is now in profit this year, has enabled Channel 4 to be the first UK broadcaster to take demographically targeted video on demand ads to market. Channel 4 is demonstrating that big data can support creativity - by funding it through advertising premiums and by connecting programmes to the audiences that are most likely to appreciate them.”
David Abraham, Channel 4’s chief executive said: “We’ve been able to use the scale of the database to have a new and more direct relationship with our viewers and to offer our advertisers new and innovative ways of better targeting the audiences they want to reach.
“In the next phase of our strategy we want to further unlock the behavioural insight the data gives us to help add greater insight to our creative processes.”
The broadcaster is also looking to further its public serving broadcast accountability with the development of 4oD recommendation engines, which suggests new content for viewers.
Previously Channel 4's director of partnerships and innovation Jonathan Lewis told The Drum that it also planned to incorporate interest-based targeting to its ad portfolio.
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Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster that began transmission on 2 November 1982.
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