In the great old days of the National Lampoon magazine, it sponsored a contest in which readers were invited to guess the exact time that Mamie Eisenhower would die. It turned out to a be
a bad-taste joke that hung around too long and each month (as I recall), NatLamp would publish a vintage picture of a smiling, waving Mamie, exclaiming via a cartoon bubble, “Hello!!! I’m
still alive!”
Unfortunately for me (I guess,) I think of that contest every time I read a report that points that, by god, people still watch a lot more TV than they do
digital video. But indeed, despite the absolute fact there has never been a better video provider than Netflix, more revolutionary than YouTube or more powerful than six-second Vines, millions and
millions of people still watch “NCIS.”
Incredible, I know. TV is not dead yet.
The latest statistical reminder of all this comes from eMarketer which notes that this year, the average American will watch 4 hours and 5 minutes of TV
per day. That’s 2.1% less than the year before and, no doubt, the trend lines are going down. But TV watching occupies 78.4% of all the time Americans spend with video. By comparison, we watch
“only” 1 hour and 8 minutes on digital media, a paltry 21.4% of our time.
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By 2018, eMarketer says, television viewing will only take 3.hours and 55 minutes a day, the
first time since TV became ubiquitous that the figure will fall below four hours.
Almost all the growth in digital video is coming via mobile screens. To me, that limits the
growth prospects, though. People are watching longer and longer videos on smartphones but logically it seems there is a built-in limit to that. I’m old fashioned, though. Most of my mobile
viewing occurs because it’s the handiest screen around. For younger viewers--at least a percentage of them--it’s the only screen around.
People 18-24 spend the least
amount of time watching TV--just 2 hours and 22 minutes a day this year, says eMarketer. And by 2018, their TV viewing will have declined by almost an hour daily since 2012, to 2 hours and 10
minutes.
That’s where the big decline is happening, but it’s almost the same for the hopeless/hapless old people. Those tragic 45-54 year old folks, by 2018, will
be watching only 4 hours and 10 minutes a day, down 41 minutes since 2012. Ditto with those 55-64, where there will be a half hour decline per day.
The point is that the trends are
going down for every demo, just as you know intuitively. And yet, television will still have far more viewers than anything else out there. The eMarketer data points out TV will still grab 39.2% of
total media spend this year. It will still get 36.8% by 2018.
Streaming media has a place at the advertising table, that is for sure. But television is still getting served far
bigger portions.
pj@mediapost.com