Commentary

CTV Content Outperforms Linear On Attention And Co-Viewing

by Karlene Lukovitz , September 22, 2023

Connected TV content has a 13% higher attention index and a 74% higher co-viewing incidence than linear TV content, according to new data from CTV measurement firm TVision in a study that also included a survey by LG Ad Solutions with a U.S. census-balanced panel of 1,146.

Households with kids are even more likely to pay attention to streaming content and ads:

The research “supports our existing knowledge that consumers are paying more attention to streaming content than linear content,” says TVision CEO Yan Liuu. “High-attention content gives advertisers a valuable opportunity to increase engagement and generate outcomes.”

TVision uses a camera sensor, digital meter and measurement engine with a panel of 5,000 U.S. homes to measure CTV content attention and advertising attention. This study focused on content measurement, but the report also includes some findings relating to advertising attention — including insights on the effects of ad length and frequency on attention (more on those below).

In the LG Ad Solutions survey, 88% of respondents reported co-viewing streaming television, 67% said they pay the same or more attention to programming when co-viewing, and 54% said they pay the same or more attention to ads when co-viewing. Nearly three quarters (73%) said they multi-task the same amount or less when co-viewing as when streaming alone.

Seventy-five percent report watching sports on cable or satellite, versus 53% for streaming. But the gap in co-viewing is considerably smaller: 66% co-view when watching on traditional pay TV, versus 56% co-viewing when streaming.

Comedy and drama are the content genres most likely to be co-viewed:

The data indicate not only that streaming TV viewers are on average more likely to be watching with other people than linear TV viewers, but also that they tend to pay more attention to the screen when co-viewing, notes Tony Marlow, CMO at LG Ad Solutions. "This could mean that streaming may be a much more shared experience than previously realized and that this helps drive a higher level of attention for content and ads," he adds.

On the advertising attention front, the study confirmed an inverse relationship between attention and ad length, underscoring the importance of conveying the brand and message in the first 15 seconds.

It also confirmed that attention is at its highest on the first exposure to a CTV ad and gradually declines as frequency increases — reinforcing the importance of determining the optimal frequency for the brand and the creative and then actively managing it.

TVision's own ongoing, twice-yearly reports on CTV advertising attention have shown that CTV has been steadily gaining on linear TV on that front, and had nearly closed the gap, until this year's first half. During that period, CTV/streaming ad attention slipped to 29.6%, from 31.2% in 2H 2022, while linear's ad attention score rose to 34.1%, from 33.7% in 2H 2022.

ad performance measurement, attention, connected tv, ctv, research, streaming, television

2 comments about "CTV Content Outperforms Linear On Attention And Co-Viewing".

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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, September 22, 2023 at 5:34 p.m.
The headline suggests that streaming ads in general are viewed more attentively than linear TV ads but that is not what the same source is saying in other reports. When it takes all CTV/streaming commercials and compares their attentiveness metrics on an average basis with linear the latter is out performing streaming by fairly significant margins. What is being described here, I believe, is a special situation--when households with kids watch TV and there is co-viewing ----but it's not clear who in the household is more attentive---the adults or the kids when both watch TV together. Typiclly, kids are the least attentive commercial viewers per the same source---and not surprisingly as most commercials are for products or services that are of little interest to kids.

Finally, regarding the frequency data, it shows a very small difference between the attentiveness of thse who watch only once versus those who are "exposed" to the same commercial 16+ times. This is hardly evidence that too much "redundant" ad exposure is "crabgrass"---or "wasted". If this was really true one might expect that commercial attentiveness when the same message is exposed 16+ times would be half as high ---or lower---as when its seen only once in a given period of time. Moreover there is no information about the motivating impact of a single exposure or many esposures---what are the relative sales or share-of-markets "lifts" in each case? I'm not faulting TVision for this as atttentiveness is a very useful indicator of ad exposure---but that's only the beginning of the process.
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John Grono from GAP Research, September 25, 2023 at 6:35 p.m.

Thanks Ed. Saved me from having to post.

One other thing, kids (probably up to about 12 years old) are the most attentive. Or as mum's and dad's say .. they are glued to the screen. And as broadcast seems to be less attentive to producing kids content (harder to monetise) the above claims are not surprising. But to extrapolate that to all viewing is a bit rich.