Live, Linear TV Viewing Continues To See Declines, While AVOD Shows Modest Gains
- by Wayne Friedman , March 29, 2023
Heading into upfront season, live, linear TV continues to suffer with viewership declines -- down between 14% and 20% per month, according to MoffettNathanson Research.
Cable TV networks, in particular, have seen significant viewership declines -- down 18% to 21% for each month -- November 2022 through February 2023 -- …
Wayne, MoffettNathanson is not saying that 18-49 viewing is down each month as that would mean that in five or six consecutive months it would fall to zero. More to the point, they are not referring to the entire linear TV audience but only to that segment of it which is seeing the largest reductions in usage. Just because many national and local TV time buys are based on adult-18-49 or 25-54 ratings this does not mean that the other viewers---the majority of the audience by the way---have no value or are considered worthless by advertisers. Instead, they---the "others"---who are usually older ----are taken for granted in the sense that you will get them anyway and in quite large numbers.