Despite its more than 30-year history, cable TV in the Philippines is still punching well below its weight as an ad medium, a leading media buyer has argued.

The medium accounts for just 7-8% of TV ad spend when it could be earning about double that, suggested Nic Gabunada, president and CEO of Omnicom Media Group Philippines. He was speaking at a Philippines In View meeting organized by regional industry body, Casbaa.

Gabunada arrived at this figure after testing the most efficient way to reach 25 to 44-year-old ABC1 women – a prized demo among some of the country’s biggest advertisers.

He found that from a 20 million peso (US$450,000) TV budget for example, around 15%, or 3 million pesos, could be going to pay-TV.

That money still has to be earned, however.

“You will have to look for those programs that would deliver the efficiencies for the 3 million pesos,” Gabunada added.

“There’s a gap. There’s something that says to people in cable, look into it and find a way to prove that they’re worth the 15%. That’s the real-life opportunity.”

Multiscreen advantage

Channel owners at the event were eager to step up to the challenge, especially via multiplatform offerings. Pay-TV remains a largely upscale proposition in the Philippines, and subscribers are also likely to own laptops, tablets and smartphones.

“Advertisers are looking for the message in the media and how it should mix,” said Eric Centeno, who heads ad sales for Fox International Channels in the Philippines.

“With the multiple genres and platforms that pay-TV offers, we can customize something for the female market, general entertainment market, and so on,” Centeno added.

“I don’t think we've really scratched the surface of what factual channels can do, what local channels can do, what music channels can do. There’s a lot of room to grow.”

Fox already operates six local feeds in the Philippines, including a dedicated local channel – Fox Filipino – plus an OTT service.

It now aims to move local investment up a gear by producing original content for Fox Filipino featuring local talent, in a bid to take more audience and advertising share from free TV.

Money for the taking

Pay-TV broadcasters could do more to maximize ad buys on their programs, however.

“That’s something salespeople from cable could look into,” Gabunada said.

“See how you can show that you’re worth the buy because, at the end of the day, more or less 70% of our clients look for cost efficiencies, whether you’re buying into the right program and whether you’re able to deliver this cost within their budgets.”

He added: “It’s there, we ran it. It’s really up for the taking as far as the industry is concerned.”

The full session, also including executives from Discovery and Viva Communications, can be watched in full here.