Is Anybody Watching the Damn Television?
A recent Forbes.com article citing an Accenture study caused a bit of a stir when it reported that television viewership was experiencing a “wholesale collapse.” The article claimed the number of consumers who watch broadcast or cable television in a typical week – in Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Sweden and the United States – had plunged from 71 percent in 2009 to 48 percent in 2011. The backup data in the Accenture study told a slightly less sensational (and totally conflicting) story. There, 74 percent of consumers reported they watch a broadcast or cable program at least once a day.
Regardless, with smartphones, iPads, social media, DVRs and all the rest, no one disputes that our media consumption patterns are changing.
I decided to poll the team here at Media Logic to see just how far we’ve traveled from a world where ad-supported media dominated.
Here’s how I framed the question:
As a percentage, how much media do you and your family consume in new ways vs. the way your parents (or perhaps grandparents) consumed media?
Asked another way, as a percentage, how much media do and your family consume via DVD, ad-zapped DVR, online (even if nominally sponsored or ad-supported, like Hulu, Pandora or People.com), paid subscription (like NY Times online or Netflix), paid/free download or stolen vs. traditional ad-supported broadcast/cable and print?
Answers can range from 100%/0% for total new media to 0%/100% for media like my mom consumes it.
Here are the results (I charted both by percentage of “mom media” vs. new media and by age).
First a caveat, this is a very small data set – just 28 people (of Media Logic’s 46 employees). Still, look at that shocking shift to the right! Fully three-quarters of respondents claimed they consume more than half of their media through non-traditional channels. Comments indicated that a very high proportion of this shift is due to use of a DVR, which, despite its name, people describe as an ad-zapping device, not a recording device.
Speaking of recordings, comments also suggested that only people with young children consume much pre-recorded media. DVDs are giving way to live-ish media (as in DVR’d) and on-demand media (as in social, online and streamed).
Frankly, I thought I’d see a more of a pattern relative to age. But if we charted a trendline, it would show only a very slight lean toward traditional consumption among older respondents. Very slight. In fact, all four of our age 50+ respondents reported that they consumed a majority of their media (between 60 percent and 85 percent) in ways not like their mothers.
What does it all mean?
Well, obviously, the days of anchoring marketing strategies with media-like-mom’s are done. That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news. “Post-media” marketing is much better anyway. Comprehensive programs that take advantage of opportunities to engage people directly in our hyper-networked world – through social media, social merchandising, smartphones and all the rest – work better and are way more exciting.
A recent MarketingProfs webinar sponsored by Media Logic provides a good primer on marketing for a social world. But if you really want to get excited, we invite you to request a FREE social marketing assessment … or simply shoot us an email. We’re always ready to talk.
