BVOD powers SBS to $134m in advertising and sponsorship revenues, smashes targets by $30m

News 24 Oct 2022 - 3 min read

BVOD powers SBS to $134m in advertising and sponsorship revenues, smashes targets by $30m

By Sam Buckingham-Jones - Deputy Editor

“The free-to-air advertising market experienced a stronger than expected revenue resurgence in FY22, despite the ongoing impact of COVID-19,” SBS's annual report said.

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Tags: SBS

SBS has banked an extra $30m above what it forecast from its commercial activity, per its annual report, which was tabled late last week. The growth of BVOD and a strong free-to-air market drove the result.

What you need to know:

SBS forecast $127.7m in commercial revenue in the 202122 financial year, and instead recorded $157.1m.
Strong BVOD and free-to-air sales drove the result.
One third of SBS’s revenue comes from advertising.

SBS banked almost $30 million more from its advertising and commercial division than its target after a strong television and broadcast video on-demand (BVOD) market in FY22.

Released last Friday, the SBS annual report shows the hybrid-funded public broadcaster made $133.9m from advertising and sponsorship, and $157.1m from “content commercialisation”. Its target was $127.7m, per its annual report. It was the highest revenue in the history of the broadcaster's sales team, known as SBS Media.

“The free-to-air advertising market experienced a stronger than expected revenue resurgence in FY22, despite the ongoing impact of COVID-19,” the report said.

“The growth of Broadcast Video on Demand advertising also contributed to the resurgence as BVOD viewership continues to grow as audiences shift from linear to digital TV consumption.”

Back in February, SBS’ sales boss Adam Sadler flagged the network held a 27 per cent share of the BVOD audience and said its five-minute ad load – versus 15 minutes on non-public commercial networks – might help with a better audience experience. A sustained push campaign for the Beyond 3% initiative meant commercial revenue for SBS’s NITV channel doubled in the past year.

It was a “buoyant” advertising market in 2021-22, the report continued, and the network’s commercial activities “maintained their premium position in the free-to-air advertising market and delivered television advertising revenue growth while also increasing digital revenue”.

SBS invested heavily and early in the user experience of SBS On Demand and has watched its growth in digital video and audio consumption increase by 570 per cent off a 2016 base.

Nine made its investment in 9Now a key pillar of its upfront presentation this year, but networks are yet to solve the frequency capping issues that senior marketers have publicly criticised for poor user experience. YouTube has been a beneficiary of that frequency issue, which was specifically called out (and SBS named) by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s Byron Sharp in a presentation for the Mi3-LinkedIn B2B Next Summit earlier this year.

SBS are due to hold their 2023 upfront on Wednesday, 2 November.