Commentary

It's Only a Flesh Wound!

 
Anyone who has worked in the media space over the past 10 years should be rather bored with the declarations that Live TV (i.e. schedule-based viewing) and TV advertising are dead -- or at best terminally ill.

Yet we hear proclamations to that effect from conference platforms -- I heard it last week. Articles continue to be published by bloggers, emerging media enthusiasts or those with an ax to grind.  Sometimes, there’s some sort of research to back it up -- often not.

Common sense and objectivity tell us that the question isn’t one of life and death, but of change.  Sure, some of the viewing public are adopting different behaviors, but not in sufficient numbers to seriously disrupt the TV business.  Interactive media has gained sufficient traction to gain a place in people’s lives -- but not apparently at the expense of TV.  Indeed, TV is taking advantage of those media to build cross-platform audiences.

This is not to say the TV industries aren’t engaged in a process of evolution and that in 10 or 20 years things won’t look different.  They will; just not as radically different as some would have us believe.

Case in point, let’s look at the impact of the DVR on total TV viewing, as measured by USA TouchPoints.
Taking a slightly different approach from the usual time spent, claimed or electronically metered. Compare the amount of viewing on a half-hour-by-half-hour basis of TV on a live basis and via a DVR across an entire week among both DVR users and a more nationally representative sample, also including DVR users. The total distribution of live viewing is remarkably similar in both.

In the nationally representative sample of DVR owners and nonowners, Live TV is viewed during 14.8% of the available half-hours during the week.  DVR’s share of half-hours is 1.4%.

DVR’s share increases among the DVR-owning sample -- 2.4% of available half-hours.  But what is surprising --- to me at least -- is that Live TV’s share among this sample was only reduced to 14.2%

Naturally, there will be variables at work here, including the impact of other devices and services and the user interface offered by different DVR providers -- that will impact the amount and frequency of use.  Not all are as good as TiVo.

While I am not a defender of the TV status quo, and while I absolutely believe that things are slowly changing, I have yet to see a real basis for believing that TV is facing an imminent demise.

Whatever changes are being gradually wrought by the DVR and other media disruptions they are, to quote the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “only a flesh wound!” in the body of the beast that is TV. For now.

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