October TV Usage Virtually Flat
- by Wayne Friedman , November 19, 2018
Total day TV viewing was slightly down -- around 1% -- for October, but virtually flat when including all unrated programming through all internet-connected devices, according to estimates from Brian Wieser, senior research analyst for Pivotal Research Group.
Total TV usage was down 0.9% in October, says Wieser. Adding in all internet-connected viewing “probably would bring year-over-year trends closer to flat figures if related data were included in standard measures of viewership.”
With regard to a holistic view of all TV usage, he complains that “it is unlikely this data will be included in any comprehensive industry-wide total audience metric any time soon.”
A glimpse into this comes from one segment of digital media -- TV consumption via internet-connected set-top-box/app services, such as Roku, Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast.
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Viewing data here rose 42% year-over-year in October among all households and 31% higher among adults 18-49. Wieser says viewing from these internet-connected devices accounts for 15.8% of use among adults 18-49 on a total day basis and 10.7% total day usage among all viewers.
This stands in contrast to declining 18-49 viewers among traditionally measured TV platforms -- down 5.7% in the month.
Wieser says average October national ad loads continue to slowly climb -- now at 11.1 minutes during an average hour from 11.0 minutes. Viacom continues to have the biggest ad loads, at 14.6 minutes/hour, for a 13.8% share among all national TV-media companies.
Wayne, for some reason, I can't post a reply on your piece about TV program spending in the comment box for that article. So, let's try it here. What I wanted to point out was that the reference---per your report--- is to movies and TV, not just TV and that the dollar amounts being speculated upon seem rather overstated for the U.S. For example, even if the $12 billion figure for Netflix is real, much of it is probably for foreign consumption---in foreign languages?---- as this is the big growth area for Netflix.