[opendtv] Re: When_TV_Ads_Go_Subliminal?
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 07:31:04 -0400
On May 17, 2016, at 10:58 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
An interesting look at a business Bert tells us is dying...
What business exactly do I claim is dying, Craig? TV in general? Free,
ad-supported TV? Point to anything I ever said to imply that. You, if anyone
has, have claimed this to be the case, many times in the past.
Linear Television Networks Bert.
You have written volumes about how live linear TV networks will be replaced
with "everything on demand."
I had already seen this article, and my reaction was, I'd MUCH rather have
subliminal ads as part of the show, than explicit ads during ad breaks. No
contest. Give me product placement any time, yes, even "with a vengeance."
More product placement, shorter or fewer ad breaks, and I can't imagine too
many people complaining about it.
Not exactly the main point of the article, but it is relevant. Ad loads have
become unbearable, and it looks like the major networks are starting to hold
the line, if not decreasing the number of ads. What the article noted was that
advertisers are still lining up to buy, and prices are likely to increase again
this year. Add in the $3 billion plus that he politicians will spend this year
and it should be another banner year!
Yet it looks like customers are coming back to linear TV with
traditional ads.
LOL. This is Craig letting his imagination run wild again, pretending that
his ideas are those expressed in the article. Your comment makes no sense at
all, in the context of this article. Pay attention to this all-important
quote, from the article, that got by you:
"Consumers have over the past several years been migrating away from linear
television, and we need to acknowledge that."
Yes. There is real competition. It is difficult to keep charging more for a
declining audience. But the next two paragraphs of the article said:
Network television executives saw the announcement as something else: a savvy
negotiating ploy just as the upfronts were to begin. They could point to
motive.
For all the talk like mine in this column about the future of television
advertising, in the here and now industry executives and analysts expect ad
rates to spike in the coming upfront deals for the first time in several
years.
Linear TV is going fast, Craig, and this has been well established.
No Bert, it is moving into its logical place alongside other ways to consume TV
content. We've been over this too many times.
For some reason, the four major networks have survived, even thrived in the
face of competition for viewers. Gone are the glory days when everyone watched
one of four or five channels. Gone are the days when the four networks got over
50% of the audience in Prime Time.
In their place we now have 20 - 30 live linear networks that deliver a much
wider range of programming. As the article said:
Ms. Yaccarino was planning the biggest change in decades to the way NBC does
its presentation. Instead of walking advertisers through NBC’s nightly
schedule in isolation, it will focus instead on which combinations of shows
on NBC, NBC’s sister cable networks, and cable on-demand systems like that of
its parent, Comcast, will reach particular audiences. (It will throw in
options from its investment partners BuzzFeed and Vox Media, too.)
This does not sound like an industry that is dying Bert. It is an industry that
is adapting to changing viewer behavior. Perhaps the most significant change in
viewer behavior is the willingness to PAY for content when they are actually
interested in watching. But for much of the time, the article tells us that the
TV is the SECOND screen, with the viewers attention focused on a device in
their lap. The reality is that even as "background noise," TV ads are effective.
The article is not about linear TV. Ad-supported TV is not going away, and
I've made this point to Craig multiple times. TV over the Internet, just like
the very vast majority of content on the Internet, will most certainly
continue to be supported by ads. The model fits perfectly over the Internet
medium.
This article was about the up-fronts Bert. The annual network ritual of selling
ad inventory in the live linear networks they operate - both broadcast networks
and all of those networks included in the MVPD bundles.
In other words, the article was about live linear TV.
Yes ads will continue to play a role in paying for TV content, because there
will always be people like you, willing to put up with ads so they don't have
to pay.
But it is very important to remember that people DO PAY for TV, and the ads
contained in the programming they are paying for. The article notes the size of
the ad business is about $70 billion annually, a figure that has been
"remarkably stable for decades."
What the article does not talk about is the size of the MVPD business, which
generates more than $80 billion annually; this figure does not include
broadband or OTT services like Netflix and Hulu.
If anything, the ad skipping they mention requires non-linear viewing. And
unlike using PVRs for non-linear viewing, you can't fast-forward through ads
when viewing TV over the Internet. The NYT seems unaware of this.
The article specifically stated ad skipping in recorded shows Bert.
Yet those screens can be so distracting that their users forget to
fast-forward past the ads in recorded shows.
You tend to forget that a huge percentage of those leased MVPD boxes have DVRs
built-in. I recently dropped the DVR feature, but I clearly remember playing
back shows and NOT fast forwarding through the ads because I was doing
something more important on my tablet.
So tablets are dying Bert?
Absolutely. Your fellow trade scribes have made the point, the graphs you
posted on several occasions emphasize the point, and others and myself have
even explained why. The second screens we are talking about, in 2016, are
MUCH more prevalently smartphones. And detachable display PCs in smaller
numbers. But go ahead. Point to anything in the article that claims otherwise.
I did. Tablets make up a very large percentage of those screens in people's
laps Bert. We've looked at the numbers many times. The following text and chart
is dated - 2012 to 14, but it clearly shows the growth trend for TV viewing on
tablets.
That number, however, is rapidly shifting in favor of tablet and mobile
viewing, as Wurtzel showed when he crunched the numbers for streams of NBC
programs on NBC.com in 2012 (17 million total views) and 2013 (20 million).
“This year the consumption of digital views on a tablet doubled to 30%. The
smartphone tripled, and the desktop declined by 31%,” said Wurtzel.
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