'If You Can't Measure It, You Can't Sell It'
Posted in: Uncategorized
Like something out of a prime-time melodrama about the Rapture, young TV viewers are vanishing into thin air, leaving behind only a heap of data to show that they were ever here. And while programmers can prove that the disappeared millions are still interacting with their favorite shows in digital-video environs, that knowledge isn’t enough to offset the impact the migration is having on TV ratings.
That viewers are steadily abandoning the linear TV experience for the close-quarters comfort of their mobile phones and tablets is plain to see in the Nielsen data. So far in this nearly complete season, prime-time C3 ratings for adults 18-to-49 are down 9% from the year-earlier period, and for adults 18-to-34 the decline is even steeper. (C3, the currency against which the vast majority of TV ratings guarantees are made, represents a blend of average commercial viewing in live programming and three days of DVR playback.)
Younger viewers are Rapturing to digital video at an even faster clip, according to Nielsen, which said that overall linear TV usage among the 18-to-24 set plummeted 17% in the first half of the season alone. The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau has estimated that about 40% of all TV ratings declines can be chalked up to the adoption of streaming-video services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. But network-research heads and ad-sales executives appear far more concerned about what they characterize as a failure to adequately capture video consumption on nontraditional platforms.
Post a Comment