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Turn It On Again
July 22, 2008

Remember how the Internet and mobile video were going to kill TV watching? Well, Nielsen tells us that rumors of TV’s death have been greatly exaggerated:

[A]ccording to a May 2008 Nielsen Online study...all types of video viewing just keep rising.
Nielsen found the average TV viewer surveyed in May watched more than 127 hours of television and spent more than 26 hours online.

In comparison, online video viewers watched an average of 2 hours, 19 minutes during the month, and mobile video viewers watched an average of 3 hours, 15 minutes of video on their handsets.

“Commercial television is alive and well—growing 1% year over year—despite the rapid adoption of other platforms,” said John Burbank, chief marketing officer at Nielsen, in a statement.

Ah, but the caveat:

Although total TV viewing time continues to rise, those who watch online video are watching less TV than they used to, according to a study conducted last year by TNS Global. Of online video viewers who said they watched less television than the previous year, 35% indicated the drop was due to spending more time on the Internet.

Remember, though, that there is a strange overlap here. What about people—like me—who like to watch TV shows on the Internet rather than on TV? For example, I’d sooner catch up with Lost on the ABC-TV Web site than watch it “live.” And let’s not forget the wonderful Hulu.com, where you can watch old (that is, “good”) TV shows online, with only one short commercial break (kind of like the good old days). Oh, and TV shows on DVD which, again, some people prefer to watching shows “live.”

The Lesson: For marketers, this is only an issue in the sense of “Are there enough eyeballs watching to make it worth my while to run an ad?” And while, like print, television is getting the short end of the media stick from the pundits, water cooler and happy hour conversations still center around network prime time programming. I get grief because I have never seen American Idol, and friends get mad at me because they can’t mention the fourth season of Lost in my presence because I haven’t yet caught up with it. The point is, prime-time TV is alive and well. Is there, also like print, a generational shift in the works? Very possibly. But the Nielsen data only show a slight drop off among teens, and I would be curious if that had always been the case, as (from what I recall) teens have other things they’d rather be doing than sitting around watching TV. And, once again: a carefully custom-tailored mix of media—print, online TV, maybe even radio—is often the best strategy.

Posted by Richard Romano on July 22, 2008 | Comments (0)