Pay TV platforms will control the future of the UK broadcasting business, according to advertising king Sir Martin Sorrell, so what does that mean for advertisers?

pay-tvSorrell said that the real winners will be Sky, Virgin and BT as advertising will no longer be able to financially support TV as much as it once did.

The CEO of WPP, the world’s largest advertising conglomerate, yesterday (01/07) predicted an increasing battle between device manufacturers, platforms and content providers in the UK TV sector.

Speaking at Intel’s ‘Shaping the Future of TV’ event, Sorrell said that the “increasing battle” would be won by pay TV companies such as Sky or Virgin, as device manufacturers fail to sign enough content deals to ensure their dominance.

But Sorrell can’t be given all the credit. His speech had taken inspiration from Rupert Murdoch’s recent bid to BSkyB.

Sorrell said, “Rupert [Murdoch] is always on the forefront of trends…he and James [Murdoch] display an immense understanding of pay TV… we think the News Corp and Sky deal will happen, and get past the regulators… It will be a very shrewd move,” reported the Telegraph.

Pay TV will account for an increasing amount of the UK TV’s industry revenues, moving from the current 39% to 50-60% by 2020, said Sorrell.

TV subscriptions, he added, will increase and account for a greater percentage of UK TV industry revenues.

IPTV is also poised for rapidly over the next 10 years, according to Sorrell who predicts 50-70% of households would have IP delivered TVs by 2020.

Cautiously, he added that online video advertising only accounted for £39 million in 2009, 1% of the UK’s total TV advertising spend, showing that despite technological developments, IPTV will probably work around broadcast TV, rather than displace it.