Now That Nielsen Can Actually Be Bothered To Track Internet Video, The Numbers For Traditional TV Are Getting Ugly
from the viva-la-revolucion dept
For years, we've noted how popular TV ratings firm Nielsen has turned a bit of a blind eye to cord cutting and the Internet video revolution, on one hand declaring that the idea of cord cutting was "pure fiction," while on the other hand admitting it wasn't actually bothering to track TV viewing on mobile devices. It's not surprising; Nielsen's bread and butter is paid for by traditional cable executives, and really -- who wants to take the time to pull all those collective heads of out of the sand to inform them that their precious pay TV cash cow is dying?Now that Nielsen has decided to join us in 2015 and start tracking streaming service and mobile device viewing, the numbers, shockingly, aren't looking all that hot. Nielsen's latest analysis shows a number of things, most notably a decline in pay TV subscribers but a sharp uptick in users who are only subscribing to broadband:
"According to Nielsen’s second-quarter Total Audience report, the number of homes with pay-TV subscriptions—a crucial number for the industry—is down 1.2% to 100.4 million from 101.6 million a year ago. The number of broadband only homes rose 52% to 3.3 million from 2.2 million...Meanwhile, the share of homes with subscription video on demand rose 18% to 45% in the second quarter of 2015 from 38% in the second quarter a year ago. The number of homes with enabled smart TVs rose to 18% from 11%."So, yeah. Traditional TV is slowly and surely dying. While Nielsen helped prop up the industry belief that cord cutting was over-hyped, other tracking firms were busy pointing out that not only were cable TV providers slowly hemorrhaging subscribers each quarter, but the number of new pay TV subscriptions weren't scaling in line with new home ownership growth like they used to.
And that's before you even get to traditional broadcast numbers. Data had already shown a sharp downtick in viewership for traditional cable channels, starting with children's programming and now even impacting the supposedly untouchable ESPN. Nielsen's latest traditional ratings data also shows that TV viewership ratings continue to drop, with fall's TV premiere season landing with a thud for every major show without Kermit the frog in it:
"According to Nielsen fast national data, every returning Tuesday night drama suffered double-digit ratings declines, while the three new series were a mixed bag. Leading off the night at 8 p.m., ABC's reboot of "The Muppets" put up decent numbers, averaging 8.91 million viewers and a 2.8 among adults 18-to-49, making it the night's No. 2 rated show behind "The Voice."..Networks have always banked on Premiere Week as an interval of peak sampling, but Tuesday night's PUT (or people using television) levels were discouraging. The number of adults 18-to-49 watching primep-time programming dropped 8% versus the year-ago period and overall usage in the demograhic for the last two nights is down 10%.Gosh, it's almost like viewers are headed to a fictional land where they have more control over what they view for much less money? It gets worse: TV viewing among adults 18-to-24 dropped 20% from last year, and male usage in that holy-grail demographic has wilted by roughly 24%. Again, cable and broadcast executives (and if you're Comcast NBC Universal, that's one and the same) could stop all of this right now if they were willing to offer more flexible channel lineups and compete on price, but they've grown too fat and comfortable to notice the storm clouds gathering on the horizon.
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I'd say they are actually moving to address this problem. It's just that it isn't in the way you (and pretty much anyone not linked to the industry) are proposing. They are trying via bought/imposed laws and treaties. So we will see blood before we get better services. It has been this way in the past, it will be this way in the future.
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In reality, adding new laws won't fix their problems. Even if they ban streaming services entirely new services will immediately prop up to get around the laws.
So, too little too late.
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/sarc
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But I totally haven't paid any attention to Premiere Week. Nothing caught my interest except Supergirl, which hasn't started yet.
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If they're directly catering to a demographic that's not the one that uses their products in reality, they're going to have made moves that encourage their customers to leave. I wonder if there's any way historical data can be gathered, and then applied to see how badly off they were when making programming decisions.
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ESPN made itself more vulnerable
Sportscenter is a joke compared to what it used to be.
They've driven away/let go/failed to resign a large chunk of their talent. They may not like it, but people tune in/read for individuals. As talent leaves, eyeballs and clicks go with them. Just wait and see how big Bill Simmons' new thing on HBO is as that starts to ramp up, and then probably an even bigger loss to "the worldwide leader."
ESPN.com's redesign made it completely unusable and is filled with stories like http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13663527 and celebs with a tiny relationship to sports in hopes to drive traffic of people who care about that garbage. It hasn't. All it has done is drive away folks who just want sports news to find other sources.
If they lose their live sports exclusives, they're pretty much done.
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Mole-hill hiding a mountain?
While 1.2% doesn't really seem that big, I can't help but wonder how much larger that would be if the cable companies unbundled tv from internet. How many people only have pay-tv because it's cheaper to have that and internet, rather than just internet on it's own?
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I don't get it?
So lets say you're a TV executive, pray tell, why would you want people to literally lie to your face and tell you that things are looking great, when your business is slowly dying? I get that most of the executives are old, but how stupid are they that they believe people around them telling them they're getting younger by the day?
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Also, as you said, they're older. This process is going to take a while to really happen. They can keep on sailing the same course for several more years, keep collecting, and by the time it comes out that they're incompetent, they can retire.
And finally, no one gets fired for doing the same thing that always worked. People get fired when they try something new and it fails.
Welcome to corporate america.
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By the way, they don't hate the government. They maintain the artificial monopolies that have allowed them to continue this way for so long. What they're afraid of is that the government might start regulating things in favour of the consumer instead of the corporation.
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He was making a joke.
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TL:DR The emperor is as naked as could be and no one is saying anything.
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They're not stupid, they're living in the world of the modern corporation where the only thing that matters is the next quarter. Planning 5 years ahead might upset investors, even if you recognise that severe changes are required.
That they're old is kind of the point - they're thinking they'll either have retired or let go with a "golden parachute" before the ill effects truly manifest. Then, they can blame the next guy whose job it is to clear up the mess. Happens all the time.
They're not blind, they're just not going to publicly admit the problems until after they've got their payoff.
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Price is only one factor in the drift away from TV and Cable. There is also the difference between scheduled programs and video on demand, with the latter fitting people lives much better, especially if they work shifts or irregular schedules, or want a social life that is not dominated by schedules.
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Not the Likes of Hulu Plus.
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Now they'll be known as "50% more expensive lesser Netflix". Yay progress?
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Neilson
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Conspiracies are fun, but I don't think there's anything especially sinister going on.
Nielsen collects data that they can sell. Primarily, that means tracking the number of people that see commercials. They don't try to track Netflix views or even HBO views because nobody wants to buy that data because there are no advertisers wondering how many people saw their ad. It's the same reason they don't track DVR views after 7 days - advertisers don't care.
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It really is hard to count the ways that the entire entertainment industry has shot themselves by insisting "the customer is always wrong" and attempting to legislate average behavior of average people.
I don't know who watches reality / game shows but I doubt that's the demographic execs are vying for, yet without including delayed viewing, those are the only stats they will get. Good shows get canceled or never produced. There's multiple generations now that have been left behind and have found other forms of entertainment. That's the trend that will increase until legacy entertainment execs figure it out. Maybe they will?
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SEC Footsteps heard walking up to Big Media
Meh - ended up posting under the wrong story.. rather than re-posting, I just linked the original.
More Coffee please.
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What a joke of a website.
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People warned that the newspaper industry was dying and more people were ditching papers, and most young people were never signing up for a newspaper subscription.
The newspaper industry kept saying their demise was rubbish, as they continued to make more money then ever.
Then the economy started to head south, and the newspaper industry's collapse was both very swift and very hard. Newspapers began closing their doors and going bankrupt left and right almost overnight, even formerly big name ones.
Today the newspaper industry is worth only a fraction of what it once was 15 years ago, and yet many newspapers still around continue to struggle (see the failed internet paywall attempts of many papers).
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I find it amusing, not at Her predicament (I'm kicking extra for my room now), but the cable/broadcast/Telcos! They've convinced themselves that, to borrow Maslow,they are essential goods rather than a want or luxury. Imperatives can radically change the economy within months if not faster. I'd argue faster with the multiple communication channels that route around 'official guidance.'
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The most sensation, inspirational, celebrational...
This is nothing new. Hollywood has been singularly lacking in new ideas or mature intelligent entertainment. The highlight of music for over a decade has been variations on an amateur talent show. Most recent failed movies spent too much effort on effects and nothing on story. Sports events are disappearing behind paywalls. Clever shows eventually show up on Netflix or Yooutube. Where's the appeal of real TV?
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Do you have a calls from unidentified number? Have a look here https://celltrackingapps.com/whose-number-is-this/ for solution!
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