I work in this industry, and let me assure you: TV is most definitely dying. Or rather, the traditional business model where you subscribe to a huge bundle for pay TV is dying. That's a good thing.<p>The thing is, it's dying in a long-form death: people don't just change media consumption habits overnight; it's more of a generational shift that happens pretty much like the author of this article describes. I don't anticipate TV as we know it today to disappear for another 10-15 years. I mean, we still have land lines a good 2 decades after cell phones made them obsolete...<p>The author's numbers are garbage (no offense intended to op; good numbers on media consumption are considered confidential and proprietary for most companies so it almost requires working for a large media company with a large customer base). Nielsen in particular is known within the industry for basically only being meaningful in the context of a specific month (i.e. it's a good way to know if show A outdrew show B, but the overall numbers they give you around viewership are wrong). Basically everyone knows Nielsen is wrong, but there aren't any better options because nobody is willing to trust anyone in media measurement.<p>But however you slice it, medium-form TV content (>15 mins, <60 mins) is not going anywhere. Viewers like this format and I expect it to stay. But look where all the highest quality content is aggregating: for-pay, ad-free services like Netflix , Amazon and Hulu (not <i>entirely</i> ad-free, but close).<p>Video advertising, however, is about to see an apocalyptic drop in ad rates. There's a 20-30% disparity in CPMs between TV and online, and once advertisers catch on that most of those TVs are probably playing in the background with nobody watching, ad rates will come down. And that will <i>really</i> kill the traditional TV market.
The data this article points to is quite surprising. Video on Demand is only 1.1% of TV viewing and 85% of households watch Live TV.<p>It just points to how much of a bubble I live in. I don't even know anyone who watches live TV.<p>One of the things that confuses me is why Hulu still runs ads against some content when I've paid for the no ads membership. Obviously it's contractual reasons, but what reason do content companies have for not allowing platforms to stream their content ad-free? Or is this just Hulu lying to consumers about the reason for running ads against this content?
TV usage may / may not be declining but I find no reason why brands would move away from TV advertising that easily. The internet hasn't yet established any immersive equivalent of traditional media ads. Irrespective of how loathsome they might be, they work. I doubt if a distracting banner ad can be as influential as the one you see on the TV. My TV viewing time is absolutely zero and personally, it has created an interesting dynamic in terms of brand recognition. As I walk into any supermarket store, I can barely recall any ads of products I see displayed.<p>Youtube is the only product that brings anything comparable to the table. But, then again, the number of advertisements I see there is exquisitely low in contrast to the old TV days. Maybe because Youtube is throughly vigilant about not damaging the UX but for the major part, my internet time is mostly spent on other content websites.<p>I think Internet has a huge advertising problem. Even though it offers every advantage in terms of distribution, there isn't any contender that can replace TV ads.
Live TV is different from TV - just like LiveStreaming is different from Streaming ... let's just get that out of the way.<p>Young marketers, like myself, if they are good professionals should be media agnostic, and just choose the best media channels for the target audience they are aiming to reach, depending of course of the objectives of the campaign.<p>Again, depending on the target, the consumer journey makes their attention shift to alot of media touchpoints - the reality is that the media landscape still includes outdoor 8x6, newspappers, etc.<p>Yet you can't dismiss that what we call ivideo is a cost effective medium. It doesn't depend on huge agency groups deals, with massive minimum investment requirements influenced by rapel. And lately it has become even more expensive... it's not that the audience isn't there - it's the cost of the GRPs.<p>tl;dr - TV is just another medium. The most expensive one, and marketers sometimes question it's cost effectiveness and shift investment to online video.
This topic comes up a lot and Ad Contrarian has had my favorite takes on it. His latest-<p><a href="http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2015/04/death-of-tv-continues-not-to-happen.html?m=1" rel="nofollow">http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2015/04/death-of-tv-continu...</a>
In the age when humans were able to produce TV shows like Game of Thrones, you cannot kill TV. The TV has only overtaken the Cinema. It will now be a race to topple the expensive shows in the history.<p>No offense to technology but this is all about age old entertainment and story-telling enterprises in human history.
The only thing I suspect that is dying (or should be) is packaging of TV channels. This day and age with the customization available for nearly every product you buy, being forced to spend hundreds of dollars to get the content you want, usually Sports content, is fucking absurd.<p>* Not even a sports fan, friends tell me how much their cable packages cost when literally the only thing they watch is ESPN and the like. They're getting robbed but there's no way around it.
Feel good piece. When you see consolidation as orchestrated by Tribune and Sinclair, that's a natural step in the evolution of any dinosaur business that is declining. In the immortal words of Danny Devito in the movie "Other People's Money," "Increasing share of a shrinking market. Down the tubes."
<p><pre><code> Yeah so we should not believe the stastics provided by Google and co but believe in nielson etc that have an incentive to show that TV is not dying. I would get the author if he had chosen sources that were not as biased as the ones he stated the other way.
To me personally TV is not dying the old model of subscription TV is dying if I am going to pay for a subscription I want to control when I want to watch the content and not be dictated to by the channel.</code></pre>
TV? No.<p>Regular TV program? Yes, certainly.<p>The only people I've heard say the opposite are people who profit from TV programs being popular, mostly because of ads.
>In the end, the internet is dry and informative but television is magical and entertaining.<p>What the literal fudge?<p>This guy is out of touch with his finger far from the pulse of society.<p>I'm not saying he's wrong about TV having some life left, but the belief that television is unkillable and the internet a fad is just wacky.
this article seemed woefully bereft of age-breakdowns on the data. a whole lot of averaged out statistics with no drill down. what happens if your project out 10 years from now when there are half as many baby-boomers still alive as there are today?