From the early days of television and cinematography to the nowadays-digital television landscape, producers, content creators, publishers, and the like have employed various mediums for video monetization and driving revenue.

Here, we refer to video as any type of recorded moving visual images displayed on whichever types of screen (electronic visual displays such as TV and computers, cinema screens, touch screens, etc.). This article presents a list of the various video monetization strategies of all time related to video content.

TV Advertisement to Cover for Educational Television

In the early stages of broadcast television (the 1930s), monetizing was still a method to be developed. At first, television intended to bring education and entertainment to the masses. Advertising had not yet become a means to monetize TV content, and in 1935, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did still not grant commercial licenses to TV stations. The focus was on educational programming, but as funding became insufficient to create dedicated shows, the FCC adopted new regulations in 1941 to turn the TV into a business. It represented the dawn of commercialized television. 1941 — Bulova clocks and watches TV ad, the world’s first official TV advertisement

Early commercial TV as native advertising

In the 1940s, many businesses turned to television for advertising. One of the most common strategies for companies to advertise their products was to produce and sponsor television serial dramas. Procter & Gamble were among the first to start an in-house content-production company to market their goods, and one of the first products they advertised was powder soap. The term “soap operas” spread because many of the first televised drama series were underwritten and supported by companies of cleaning products.

Nielsen TV ratings, a take on measurement

Companies in the 1940s had little information over whether or not there was a return on investment in the purchased airtime and sponsor of television drama series. Information regarding the number of people ads reached and brand perception came only from TV networks, which evidently had certain vested interests. When Nielsen launched television audience measurement in 1950, this provided actual evidence on video content advertisement, and an increase in TV ad spend followed. In the 1950s, the total ad spend in the U.S. increased to $5.7 billion and then to $12 billion in 1960, and much of the advertising expenditures were put into developing video product ads for television.