The Internet keeps growing, while tradtional media keeps dropping. In the past, we’ve talked about how much newspaper has dropped off in both subscriptions and advertising. Now, we’re starting to see major erosion of viewers from the traditional broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. Today with Cable TV, and with many people starting to watch TV programs online, the big four broadcast networks are no longer dominant, and while their viewership has declined now for fifteen straight quarter, it’s really starting to take off now, dropping 9.5% in the last quarter, the biggest drop every.
All this means that it is more difficult for advertisers to reach their buyers. How easy it must have been back in the day when we only had three channels, and you had to watch ABC, NBC, and CBS because you had no other choices. You could run your ad on any one of those stations, and be seen by at least 25% of the people in Fort Wayne and Northeast Indiana. TV advertising is no less effective, but it is much harder to reach your target than ever before, and getting repetition is even more challenging.
Where are you having success with your advertising?
Broadcast television ratings have been falling for years. But the steepness of that drop has been accelerating.
That’s the conclusion of a new report from Nomura Equity Research examining live and live-plus-three-day commercial ratings (C3), the currency used by media buyers and networks to buy advertising time during the upfront.
The report finds that live TV viewing has declined for 15 straight quarters, a development closely tied to the rise of the DVR.
Dips in C3 viewing for broadcast have been much bigger than for cable. C3 viewership dipped 9.5 percent during second quarter, compared to a 0.4 percent dip for cable.
It was the biggest quarter-to-quarter non-Olympic-related dip since the C3 metric emerged four years ago.
“There is no way to sugarcoat this: broadcast has taken a beating in 2Q, down almost 10 percent year to year in C3, while cable has emerged relatively unscathed in terms of viewership erosion,” notes the report.
“This is the second straight quarter of substantial broadcast declines and we will continue to monitor the situation.”
Nearly every broadcast network saw year-to-year declines in second quarter, which runs April to June, with CBS the lone gainer.
CBS was up 8.4 percent in C3 ratings during the quarter.
ABC was down 9.7 percent, NBC was down 11.8 percent and Fox, which won the May sweeps in adults 18-49, was down 18.7 percent, largely reflecting big declines for “American Idol.”
Live viewership was also way down during second quarter. Among adults 18-49, it plunged by 15.3 percent for broadcast and 4.3 percent for cable.
As for who sees the biggest gains from live to C3 rating, Fox continues to lead that category. The network’s C3 ratings jump 20.7 percent over its live rating.
CBS, ABC and NBC are all about equal at a 12.8 percent, 12.6 percent and 12.5 percent gain apiece.
