Streaming giants will face stiffer competition for CTV ad dollars in France

French broadcasters TF1 and M6 just heated up the competition for Connected TV (CTV) ad budgets in France.

The advertising arms of two of France’s largest broadcasters announced last month they will be adopting EUID, among other alternative identity solutions.

For advertisers, EUID on TF1 and M6 means more choice of platforms to reach authenticated French consumers on CTV, as consumers flock to ad-supported models.

For European broadcasters, this is a big moment: used to dominating the linear TV airwaves, for the past few years they have watched as American streamers like Netflix and Prime Video captivated viewers.

Now, they are equipping themselves with the tools to help claim back their share of TV viewership and advertiser budgets.

Integrating EUID will "continue to position TF1 PUB as […] an ally of choice with our advertisers who are looking for increasingly relevant and innovative advertising targeting solutions,” Sonia Ferreira, pub and data project director at TF1 PUB, said in a statement.

The big picture

French viewers are turning to streaming in growing numbers.

M6 is developing a new streaming platform, M6+, after its current offering had a record year and saw usage by a third of French internet users under 35, the company said.

TF1 relaunched its streaming operation as TF1+ in January and has already recorded a 70% increase in daily users since 2023. Its previous embodiment, MYTF1, saw a 15.7% increase in ad revenue from 2022 to 2023.

One likely reason behind this trend is better infrastructure: growth in very-high-speed broadband connections was up 13% at the end of 2023, compared to the spring of 2021. Connected TV usage is now at 75% of the population, according to GroupM.

This all adds up to many advertisers investing more budgets in CTV environments, with Médiamétrie predicting an up to 200% increase in media spend on HVoD (hybrid video on demand) platforms in 2024. Linear TV ad spend is predicted to grow only 2%.

Time will tell if the trend continues. For now, the firm predicts AVoD and FAST will still take up only 1% of market share, with linear TV still commanding 85%. But TF1 and M6’s actions show change is coming.

The state of alternative IDs, and what’s next

The news comes just over two years since LiveRamp and The Trade Desk announced they would collaborate on bringing a GDPR-conscious version of Unified ID 2.0 — EUID — to the European market.

Since then, a plethora of alternative identifiers have emerged, from RampID to ID5 to Utiq. They all aim to give advertisers the precision and scale of third-party cookies, while being more privacy-conscious. And they will also enable omnichannel targeting across open internet environments like audio, news media, and CTV ads.

These alternative identity solutions have already gained support among some large advertisers and publishers. Global consumer goods giant Unilever, for example, leaned on UID2 to find audiences 12 times more effectively across Disney than with traditional identifiers.

For publishers, the potential benefit of adopting alternative identifiers is clear: research from ID5 showed a 406 percent increase in cost per mille (CPM) value when there was an ID associated with an impression.

As European law makers enact new privacy legislation, more and more broadcasters and publishers are likely to turn to alternative identity solutions that deliver privacy-conscious targeting for a cookieless reality.

The Current is owned and operated by The Trade Desk Inc.