Were there any real winners in the last TV ratings year?
While all the TV networks are celebrating their ratings achievements over the past year Nic Christensen asks whether an 11% prime time audience drop and increased competition from video streaming services means there are no real winners.
The TV networks have been busy pushing their 2015 achievements over the last 48 hours, with the official ratings year now done and dusted.
But asked to look past the spin and say who can claim to be the real winner Maxus CEO Mark McCraith quips: “Everyone’s a winner – assuming you look at the percentages and not the actual numbers.”
It’s really not rocket science. Consumers want to watch what they want, when they want, on the screen they want. Broadcasters/programmers/publishers/whatever you want to call them need to ensure their content is delivered to every screen in a way they can measure and monetise. Advertisers and agencies need to ensure their ads are being seen by their target audiences, regardless of the screen. TV will continue to be a key part of that ecosystem, regardless of the growth of AVOD and SVOD services.
Misleading at best. The total audience for terrestrial TV (including time shifted viewing) _increased_ last year.
And the SVOD figures have to be considered in the light of the collapsing market for video rentals (which it essentially replaces), which had no advertising at all.
What we are witnessing is kind of Ouija board forecast without odds, for the desperation stakes of television. Those who would extract gold without the necessity of planned mining, preparation and future developments, have all but scraped the seam to bedrock.
The resultant panic has caused a heated battle for ratings with the same careless attitude to good business, or at least, the business of good television. To quote Kasper Gutman in Maltese Falcon (and you don’t get this often) [quote] “In the heat of action, men are likely to forget where their best interests lie.”[unquote]