ViacomCBS Retains National TV Ad Dominance Despite Discovery/WarnerMedia Merger
- by Wayne Friedman , May 18, 2021
The proposed merger of Discovery Inc. and WarnerMedia would boost the combined new company in terms of total national linear TV spend, TV ad impressions and linear TV advertising airings to improved levels among all major U.S. TV network groups.
Through the first four months of this year, Discovery/WarnerMedia TV networks accounted for $2.30 billion of national TV spend on TV -- a 15.7% share, according to iSpot.tv estimates. This would rank second to ViacomCBS -- $3.7 billion, and a 25% share.
After these two companies comes NBCU at $2.0 billion (13.8% share) and Disney, at $1.9 billion (13.2% share).
Discovery-Warner would lead all major U.S. TV-based companies -- higher than ViacomCBS, Walt Disney, NBCUniversal -- in TV ad impressions over that period -- at 427 billion, a 20.4% share.
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At the same time, Discovery-WarnerMedia would also lead in total linear TV ad airings -- 2.5 million over the first three months of the year.
Discovery has perhaps the largest number of U.S. cable TV networks: 20. Ad-supported WarnerMedia TV networks include TBS, TNT, CNN, HLN, TruTV, Cartoon Network, and Boomerang.
Discovery’s total advertising load would surpass previous leader ViacomCBS, which had 2.2 million from January through April of this year.
Wayne, one thing that is not included in this report is the degree of ad clutter by the respective parties. If the Turner channels are 25% above the norm in ad clutter this inflates their share of viewing---GRPs?---I would assume. More GRPs--- when the breaks are heavily cluttered ----does not necessarily translate into advertising attentiveness, let alone impact. Just a thought.