“Regular viewers” of original digital video programming have
grown to 63 million in 2016 from 45 million over the past three years, according to an analysis released this morning by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
The report, dubbed the
“2016 Original Digital Video Study,” is part of a series of reports being
released by the IAB that seem timed to pique advertiser and agency interest while big digital media platforms are competing for future advertising budgets alongside TV networks in the upfront
advertising marketplace.
The IAB said the study is based on a “comprehensive survey” of more than 1,900 consumers. The study, which was conducted online by GfK Research March 15-24, utilizes different methods than television researchers such as Nielsen use to define TV audience viewing.
Aside from being self-reported consumer data vs. panel-based measurement of viewing behavior, it is based on what consumers said their monthly video-streaming consumption is versus the kind of average audience estimates used as the currency for television advertising buys, so it is fundamentally an apples-to-oranges comparison.
That said, the IAB found a significant uptake in the amount of original digital video consumption being reported by average consumers and it used the findings to make the claim that “original digital video beats regular TV.”
The caveat to that claim is it is based on respondent’s perceptions about the two forms of content being “innovative, young, for anywhere, and unique.”
Joe, of course digital "beats" TV in terms of being "new" and "innovative"---the latter being, in part, a surrogate for "new".
One of the more interesting findings in this study concerned the respondents' general opinions of their incliniation to remember commercials on TV and digital platforms. Asked whether they "tend to remember the ads in this type of TV" 42% said this was the case for primetime and sports, but only 20% gave daytime TV the nod wille news came in at 26%. Of course, such findings have little to do with reality as evidenced by program attentiveness, ad zapping and commercial recall measurements which show much smaller normative variations among the TV dayparts and program genres. What they reflect is the inherent and, largely impressionistic bias of most respondents who regard primetime and sports fare much more highly than "daytime" and "news".
For those who are curious, the IAB report also includes similar findings for digital, using basically the same question. According to the report, "online TV" scored 39%, original video content came in at 38% and amateur video trailed well behind at 27%.