Commentary
Linear TV Reach Sinks 4%, Daily Linear Viewing Narrows With CTV
- by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, February 8, 2024
The second half of 2023 witnessed the average daily reach of linear TV sinking 4% to around 57 million homes versus the same period the year before, according to Samba TV.
In addition, that reach number was virtually flat in the second half of 2023 versus the first half -- …
Wayne Friedman is West Coast Editor of MediaPost. You can reach Wayne at wayne@mediapost.com.
Wayne, if we want to really shrink the reach of linear TV why not go to an average minute figure---that's only around 11%? Except that's not how advertisers evaluate linear TV's reach potential. Nor do they figure it on a daily basis or even a weekly basis. Typically, media planners----out of habit, perhaps---use four- week R&F projections and these show much larger numbers because those who are not reached on a given day or even a week will watch something over a longer period of advertising activity. In fact, as we have reported to our well informed MDI Direct subscribers, most adult TV home residents use both linear TV and streaming in a month and the number of linear-only or streaming-only "exclusives" is quite small by comparison. There are demographic differences, which we describe---but such info is only available to our subscribers.