You would go nuts too if all you did was (a) pound the table on memes such as…
- TV is dead!
- No one reads magazines anymore!
- Mobile first!
- Time spent should equal media spent (i.e., more digital)!
…only to (b) see in-your-face, unequivocal refutation such as…
Exhibit A: Kantar Media’s Q2 Tally of U.S. Media Spend
According to Kantar, television advertising outgrew the market overall, increasing 6.4% over Q2 2012 (the total ad market was up 3.5%). Cable TV? Up 15%. Broadcast TV? Up 5%. Spanish-language TV, for the most digital of races? Up 6%.
Outdoor ad spending – billboards, for Chrissake? Up 7.4%. Consumer-magazine and Sunday- magazine advertising? Up 2% and 4%, very respectfully.
National radio? Up nearly 6%.
Take heart, anti-analogs – you got two of them right: newspaper advertising continues its fall, and local radio ad spend was off a mere 1.6%. Otherwise, the data makes you look like a$$holes.
Exhibit B: Global TV-Watching Research From Ericsson
Ericsson found that 83% of TV viewers watch “linear” programming – that is, scheduled “appointment” shows – on more than a once-a-week basis, up from 79% in 2012, and equal to the 2011 level of 83%.
Said Ericsson ConsumerLab head researcher Anders Erlandsson: "Linear TV still has an important role for consumers, and we don't see any decline in frequency of usage.” Mycket intressant, Anders.
Meanwhile, the percentage of people who claimed to watch “on-demand” video more than once a week – streaming, traditional time-shifting TV/video and YouTube -- remained nearly constant. It was at 63% in 2013, 62% in 2012, and 61% in 2011.
True, Ericsson didn’t break out the data by country. On the other hand, given its product portfolio, Ericsson would like nothing more than to see linear TV die.
Exhibit C: 2013 MTV Video Music Awards Viewership
This year’s show achieved a viewership of 10.1 million, a 47% jump over last year. Not bad for Millenials, who, we are repeatedly told, wouldn’t be caught dead watching the boob tube. More importantly, the viewer numbers were tallied long before Miley stuck out her tongue. And as$.
Exhibit D: MarketingWeek (UK) Interview
In an interview with the magazine, Unilever Global CMO Ken Weed declared: “To this day the biggest and most powerful way to engage with people is TV advertising and it will remain so for the foreseeable future.”
A future that will see more and more digital cognoscenti lining up for admission to the funny farm.
