Press play to watch our eight-minute edit of Sir Martin Sorrell's keynote; or read on for the full report...

The content industries are never going to be the same again after the current global recession, Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of communications group WPP, warned in a hard-hitting MIPTV keynote yesterday.

While repeating his forecast that “pretty anaemic” signs of recovery will be seen next year, he said: “If I were a media owner, in particular an owner of one medium in one country, I would be extremely nervous.” He cited ITV in the UK as a critical case.

Sorrell cited three particular areas of change. The BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — will be dominant forces as recovery gets under way.

While he expected traditional TV to survive, “production models are too expensive and probably will have to change”. New media would grow in importance but with “addressability” and targeting of increasing importance.

ZillionTV, he said, was an example of a company exploiting the latter two trends. The last trend also meant that branded content and product place- ment would be increasingly used.

“Free-to-air traditional television will not die. It will still be the most effective way of reaching the largest number of people in the shortest possible time at the lowest cost per thousand.”

But it and other traditional media would surrender their shares of ad spend as that for new media rises from 25% to 30%. He sees mobile as a particularly significant platform.

“Innovations like the iPhone will change attitudes to receiving content. “Subscription models will become more important. They have been un- der-valued and under-appreciated.

“There is a big opportunity for media owners, content producers, people who control talent and agencies like ourselves to work together to try to develop content that is attractive for the new platforms.” His group bought $60bn-$70bn of media around the world each year.

“That gives us a major opportunity to use that leverage to work together with the content owners, the media owners to build to build more attrac- tive, more creative content in a world where cost has become all-important,” he said.

When asked whether as a citizen he feared that the trend towards cheaper, more effective content such as reality TV meant the decline of intellectually challenging programmes, he likened that to commentators’ distaste for citizen journalism, which he regarded as a “snotty and elitist” view.

This and more in the MIPTV daily News, now online!