What does the UK’s Freely alliance mean for the future of TV?

Instead, 2024 heralds a new era for traditional broadcasters as they come together to launch their digital service – Freely – to futureproof their offering in a crowded streaming market.

It’s a smart move that will undoubtedly suit the needs of British viewers, combining on-demand content with live TV channels all in one user-friendly platform. Yet the launch of Freely isn’t as new as it seems. It’s essentially a rebrand of Freeview and Freeview Play, the main difference being it will be available on smart TVs, meaning access will be via streaming rather than through an aerial.

While there has been much speculation over what this means for the future of public service broadcasting, what hasn’t been answered yet is the impact that Freely will have on advertising. Of course, the BBC is out of the question here as it doesn’t run ads in the UK. But I can’t imagine the remaining players wanting customers to move away from their own individual apps. If the viewer is signed in with Freely, monetizing the user becomes more complicated. Freely’s advertising success will depend on how much customers buy into the platform or whether they stick to the channel’s individual apps.

What will be a lot messier is the data sharing involved in making Freely work. With the demise of third-party cookies and a surge of first-party data among advertisers, customers will have to agree to share their data across five platforms, not just one. One option could be that the data will be contained within the Freely ecosystem and, therefore, won’t be allowed to leave the platform. Conversely, the respective broadcaster may retain its own audience and data, resulting in a more segmented strategy. Within the new platform, it should, at the very least, give a more targeted view on broadcast TV because of the IP address attached to it.

While Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime have dominated the streaming scene, we’ve seen their digital services evolve as CTV continues to grow. Freely certainly has the potential to take audiences away from the streaming giants as ad-funded models become the norm and viewers struggle to justify the rising subscription costs that come with ad-free TV. The quantity of platforms Freely will have rolled into one also lends itself to a far superior user experience.

And then we come on to regulation. It’s no coincidence that the new media bill and Freely are both set to launch next year. With stricter standards on content and the government’s commitment to public channels being given more prominence on digital TV, the timing for Freely’s launch could not be better. Also, as Freely takes over the ‘Freeview’ button, it will be front and center as soon as we reach for the remote. Therefore, the uptake should, in theory, be easy to achieve.

Probably the only aspect that doesn’t sit quite right with the public service broadcasting aspect is how to ensure it gains universal accessibility and acceptance. This idea needs to be debunked because aerial TV doesn’t disappear. What Freely is aiming to do is to futureproof the heritage of British broadcasting. This allows the likes of the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 to continue to produce the quality content they have been doing for decades, but with a broader reach in the digital world. This not only benefits audiences but the broadcasters too.

With Freeview and Freesat reaching nearly 20 million households already, being able to tap into that audience data will open up new opportunities in linear TV. Freely could become a convincing tool for digitally savvy advertisers and agencies to step into broadcast television through a more targeted and data-focused approach if all goes to plan.

But even if traditional broadcasters can adapt live TV to the changing television landscape and position themselves as competitors to the streaming giants, this won’t alter the audience trends for linear TV. Freely will always be a protective move to slow down what is inevitably a shrinking viewership.

Freely doesn’t really affect TV advertising; it’s a slow burn. What it does is safeguard the live TV experience into the future. This allows advertisers to continue to invest in the traditional way in TV but with a few more data points. That is if their TV buyers can adapt to execute on them.