TVB: 30% Get TV Without Cable, Ad Delivery Erodes

by Wayne Friedman , March 16, 2010

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Now almost one-third of all U.S. television households get their programming via non-cable services: satellite, telco, and other means.

The Television Bureau of Advertising says the growth of satellite and telco services has pushed non-cable programming services to all-time record highs as of February 2010. The TVB analysis comes from Nielsen Co.

The gains have been slow, however, with an eight-tenths of a percent rise over February 2009 to 29.8% this year. The rise also means that of all those who pay for television programming monthly packages, non-cable services represents 32.9%.

As an advertising trade group for TV stations, the TVB's intent is to show the deficiencies for advertisers in buying local cable versus other means.

"Advertisers who buy cable locally need to know that local wired cable systems' ability to deliver commercials continues to erode. In fact, in 34 markets, a majority of those paying for video programming are now getting that programming via ADS [alternate delivery systems] rather than from a wired-cable system," said Susan Cuccinello, senior vice president of research for the TVB.

Cuccinello adds that advertisers need to account for the loss that cable is having. Those local cable commercials are not seen in those non-cable service homes.

When it comes to non-cable programming services, the best-performing markets are in the Western and Southern markets.

Some 43.2% of all Albuquerque-Santa Fe TV homes get their signals through non-cable system; Salt Lake City is at 40.2%. Greenville, NC is at 43.4%; Birmingham, AL, 42.9%; Memphis, 40.5%; Dallas-Ft. Worth, 37.2%; St. Louis, 39.1%; Sacramento, 38.5%; Denver, 37.3%; and Phoenix, 35.1%.

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4 comments about "TVB: 30% Get TV Without Cable, Ad Delivery Erodes".

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Mike Einstein from the Brothers Einstein, March 17, 2010 at 9:40 a.m.
With all due respect to TvB, in an on-demand world like ours, the problem isn't how the message is delivered, it's how it's received (or not).
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Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, March 17, 2010 at 10:32 a.m.

It's about price, too. For the services I get, Comcast can cost $50 per month, that's $600 more per year, than the Fios intro. There's a lot of switching going on until they stop allowing a new customer not be a returning customer.

Doug McMonagle from Inergize Digital Media, March 17, 2010 at 10:37 a.m.

Yes, but the point is advertisers are buying time on cable networks based on numbers that Nielsen reports for ESPN. For example, it is possible in Salt Lake City that while those numbers are attributable to ESPN in that market, they also include the satelite delivered program which does not have local ads in it. In theory if 40% is ADS delievered only 60 % of those numbers are reachable by local advertisers. Local Cable groups and InterConnects sell the whole number as if it is theirs when in fact 40 of the viewers cannot be reached in that market by locally inserted ads. With the the cable numbers already low in a Nielsen report for cable, it makes you wonder how reliable any of this is when you take away 40% of the audience. For Sales purposes Local cable should have numbers that relate to what they deliver not what the cable Network delivers. The Nielsen number is only an Estimate of what ESPN delivers in that market as a channel which means its network audience is estimated to be that size but that is different than what availbale locally.

Chris Vinson from Vinson Advertising, March 17, 2010 at 11:46 a.m.

Well said Doug McMonagle. For the reason you stated we have switched to buying by cost-per thousand. Many cable reps don't even know what a point is so they give you a cable rating point (A percentage of Cable Subscribers watching) vs. a true rating point which is a percentage of the demo watching in the Whole area. So a 1 might really be a .6.

Be careful buying cable rotators as well. Guys like me buy the efficient fixed time and rotators don't play in those programs. Thus, you are don't achieve the rotator rating points or CPM you planned for.

One more thing. Double check the promised bonuses. Reps will say 3 to 1 or 4 to one but when we've required logs we found the truth to be somewhere in the range of 1 bonus for 10 ads purchased.