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Headlines about TV viewership have not been particularly positive. Common themes lately have been: “TV ratings plummeting,” “NFL viewership in decline,”“Millennials unplug from TV,” or “Cord-cutting, cord-shaving growing.” Then there’s a big favorite lately: “TV can’t deliver reach like it used to.”
While there’s some truth in all of these ideas, they don’t tell the whole story of TV viewership today.
First, overall TV viewership is not falling off a cliff. After four-plus decades of extraordinary growth, there is no question that the average amount of time Americans spend watching old-fashioned TV plateaued over the past few years and has now begun to decline. However, this overall decline is in the very small single digits annually....TV has not lost overall reach. In fact, its overall ad-reach capacity has never been greater.
What’s changed is that TV audiences have fragmented their viewing across hundreds of different channels and all of the dayparts, and most major brands keep making the same buys. They’re chasing the few shows with bigger ratings without trying to understand how to scientifically and efficiently re-aggregate the fragmented audiences. Doing so is hard work and takes time and investment, all in short supply in media buying ...
Many TV networks are growing -- just not the big ones. That's the new reality and marketers need to get over it and work harder.