Primetime TV Viewing - Changing or Not?

A few weeks ago I did a post on some results of a GfK study that showed primetime viewing habits are changing among younger (Gen Y) viewers.  The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) recently posted what could be considered a response suggesting that they same study also shows "the staying power of conventional media."

  Every now and then I see one of these attempts to spin research; sometimes they raise important points about methodology or interpretation in the study, but most, like this one, try to find something positive to say.  For example, responding to a Table that shows significant growth in ownership of digital and mobile devices that can add TV viewing options, they note that TV set ownership has increased as well.  True. but the Table shows 10-20 point gains in diffusion for digital devices, while growth in TV set ownership in the U.S. grew from 98.2% in 2004 to 98.9% in 2011 (and actually fell to 97.1% in 2012). Similarly, they note that while traditional TV's share of time spent using media, the actual amount of time spent watching TV in traditional ways has slightly increased.
  The NAB's spin on changes in how people find out about programs is particularly brazen -

(W)hile social media (6%) and TV network websites (5%) have appeared, the same top four methods of finding programs in 2004 (channel surfing, integrated program guides, memory and TV ads) are the same top four methods in 2012.

Yes, the top 4 remain the top 4, but their use by viewers has dropped as precipitously as the decline in citing newspapers as a source (something they note in their post). Citing TV ads dropped by almost half, channel surfing fell by a quarter, and use of Integrated Program Guides fell 15%. "Just know" as a response (the one of the 4 that isn't TV-based) remained fairly steady.
  When noting that watching traditional "live" TV during the first hour of primetime fell (from around 82% to 64%), they note that if you add in those watching "recorded" video, you can account for 90% of TV set use during that time - and that's more than watched live TV in 2004 and 2008.  But again, there's two things they don't tell you - that while DVR use for time-shifting has certainly increased, the playback of recorded video category also includes home video (DVDs, BluRay discs) and online video; also, if you add "recorded" to live for 2004 and 2008 as well, you get 99% of TV set use, so even in that case, the 2012 results show a sizable decline.
  The NAB also point to a recently released study from Verizon that shows that people would still overwhelmingly prefer to watch TV shows on TV sets (around 90%).  True enough, but that's not always possible, and the GfK study shows that people are increasing their use of other devices to watch TV programs, and are also increasingly using their TV sets to do things other than watch live TV. 

  Nice try, NAB.  You've got a point that we're not seeing a radical transformation of the TV landscape or audience preferences and behaviors.  We're not likely to see massive waves of viewers abandon their HDTV sets to watch programs on smartphones.  But despite your efforts at spin, how people watch TV is not staying the same.  The the industry needs to recognize that more modest transformations are occurring, and find ways to address those changes head-on, rather than trying to wave them away and pretend that everything's "essentially" the same.  Consider what happened to daily newspapers when they tried that strategy in response to the Internet.

Source -  Reports Show that for TV, the More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same, NAB TVTechCheck

NAB Review - Content in a TV Everywhere World

The NAB Show is over, and it's time for the reviews and commentaries to come out.  Miles Weston, writing in the Broadcast Newsroom blog, found the good news of the Show came in the growing recognition that the media and broadcast market has changed, and that broadcasters need to evolve as well.  He opens the column by writing

Today, we're overwhelmed with news, information and entertainment options.
Whether you're at home or away, broadcasters are all vying for your attention, your time, your money.
That's the evolutionary shift the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show participants and attendees struggle with these days.
It isn't easy to move into new, uncharted areas.
It used to be it was big studios, big iron, and big cigars.
Now, it's less about being vertically integrated than knowing how to loosely, flexibly integrate and leverage resources.

There was recognition of shifting viewing habits, brought about in large part as a result of the growth in the ways people can receive and view video content, particularly over the Internet.  Perhaps more importantly for the future of broadcasting, was the (sometimes) grudging recognition that limiting yourself to your traditional single channel would inevitably lead to smaller and smaller audiences - and that it made sense to have your content available in as many channels, formats, and times as possible.  Particularly if you could find ways to make money from them.
  One of the highlights of the conference, for Weston, was finding that many of the video technology vendors were not offering just hardware, but integrated business models to help broadcasters protect, repurpose, recycle, and most importantly make money from their content - offering potential solutions and approaches.
  Another was the increasing presence of non-traditional broadcasters - particularly big firms like Lowe's, Safeway, Target, McDonald's, and Starbucks.  These firms face many of the same challenges as broadcasters, and are perhaps even more innovative in finding ways to connect with their audiences and provide them with attention-holding content across a variety of outlets and devices.
 

  Also impressive were the vendors who were trying to make sense of the immense amount of personal and viewing information generated by digital channels.  There were content management systems that can use your Web and viewing history to select the right mix of news and entertainment for you, at that time, at your viewing location, and for your viewing device.  There were systems that recognized the shift in viewing habits and the increase in viewing options, and provide the most appropriate mix of content and ads to keep you, the audience,    viewing and wanting more.
  There were also lots of ideas about possible pricing models for online video advertising; despite all those metrics, there's no settled industry standard for measuring online video viewing or its value to advertisers. Nielsen has a proposed solution, but it's got a way to go to prove itself the successor to ratings and CPM.
  There was, as there is at almost any technologically-oriented conference, a lot of talk about the cloud.  At NAB, a lot of this was focused on the potential of using the cloud as a way to connect broadcasters with the myriad freelance teams that produce a lot of their content.  But Weston wasn't convinced that the industry had figured out how, exactly, this would happen.  In the meantime, he advised that broadcasters invest in their own off-line storage and archives, not just for posterity but on the chance that archived content may become valuable again.
  As Weston notes, it all comes down to this -

The heart and soul of NAB isn't about you (being a broadcaster); it's about leveraging content for the maximum ROI (return on investment).

Source -   Content Insider 228 - NAB Wrap:  Content Anywhere, Anytime Needs to be Monetized, Saved.  Broadcast Newsroom

Broadcasters at risk in budget debate?

The last couple of weeks have created some concern for U.S. broadcasters and generated a lot of direct and indirect lobbying.  The concern arose when the possibility of using auctions of broadcast spectrum as a revenue source in Senator Harry Reid's debt ceiling plan.  The idea of auctioning off some of the analog channels no longer used has been part of the FCC's long-term plans, and resisted by the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters); but the FCC had recently pledged to slow plans and provide broadcasters with some options of retaining some spectrum or getting a portion of auction value.  The concern was that including the auction returns as a revenue enhancement to be maximized would provide incentives to take even more spectrum from broadcasting services.
The NAB reported that their anti-spectrum grab spots were aired more than 50,000 times on U.S. radio and TV stations, and generated more than 100,000 calls to Congressional offices in the two weeks they were aired.  The spectrum auction language was never in House versions, and was dropped from Senator Reid's bill last weekend.  Even so, the final bill calls for further work to identify budget "cuts" and possible revenue enhancements, so look for the issue to reemerge at some point.

Source: "Broadcasters Successful Thus Far in Spectrum Battle," The NAB Pulse

NAB creates "Future of TV" website

The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) has created a website touting "The Future of TV.".  The site emphasizes technology, and the new ways that digital broadcasting can reach viewers and serve local communities.
NAB - The Future of TV