So Many Elephants in the [Living] Room
It’s NAB week which means everyone is spending time sorting through fake infrastructure partnership test balloons to find the ones that will have real impact. Don’t get us wrong, we think it’s cool that you can now buy TV Ads through Google’s DoubleClick and that AT&T's AdWorks unveils Media Lab and touts cross-screen addressable advertising-- but when does that programmatic hype hit scale? And how does one decipher signal from NAB noise this week? Here is how Dade Hayes did it on TV[R]EV. Also suggested, Will Richmond and Colin Dixon on NAB post-game podcast this morning.
More nominees for Elephant in the Room:
Comcast’s hard pivot as the king of broadband? Wall Street likes it. Or the news that Trump’s FCC Commissioner plans to ‘Aggressively Modernize’ media regulations-- IE tier the internet to the benefit of MPVDs and the wealthy, of course. SOPA anyone? Could elephants come in the form of uncanny bedfellows? In the shadow of the duopoly, media rivals are becoming allies. What about the fact that South Africans are more into Facebook than TV? Wolk’s question on TV REV this morning- ‘If ESPN can’t make it, who can?’ begs another question, why do 2/3rd of freemium OTT service trials not convert to paid?
Will stats reveal the elephant?
According to Nielsen, 82% of Americans watch TV on a TV and YET an Accenture study shows a dramatic drop in the percentage of people who prefer to watch TV on a regular television set. A survey of 26k people in 26 countries showed only 23% of viewers preferred watching programming on a television sets, down from 59 last year.Meanwhile, a Leichman survey found that 69% of homes have one connected TV. That smart TV news pairs nicely with an eye-tracking panel that shows viewers pay more attention to connected TV ads and iSpot.tv’s Sean Muller on Cheddar talking about Nielsen and iSpot challenging Nielsen with real-time TV conversion analytics.
While VAB’s ad community report suggests advertisers don’t truly understand viewing patterns, smart TVs should change that soon enough. And yet when you talk to people who make TV programming, all of that is simple noise when you consider that on the eve of the Upfronts, the elephant they are staring at is: Writers Guild Members vote for Strike authorization with 96% Support. How do you sell what may not happen by the billions again? (Insert political jokes, here). Maybe that will bode well with New Fronts on the horizon next week but we doubt it.Get the skinny on the TV revolution every Friday -- sign up for our newsletter.
