By David Farrell
From Ad Contrarian Bob Hoffman’s latest newsletter
We haven't heard much from the "TV Is Dead" imbeciles recently, so I thought a little update would be appropriate. First some background.
The concept that the TV-Is-Deadheads never quite seemed to understand is that there's a difference between consumer behaviour and industry shit fights. The fact that broadcast tv and cable tv and satellite tv and internet-delivered tv were fighting over share meant less than nothing to consumers. Consumers like to sit on their asses and watch television. That's all there is to know about the subject.
But the Deadheads saw the eroding share of broadcast tv and knee-jerked that into "TV Is Dying." Whether the signal gets to peoples' tv sets by electromagnetic waves, underground wires, satellite pulses, web streaming, carrier pigeons or rowboats is of no interest to them. As long as it's simple to use, entertaining, and cheap, they'll watch (Although advertising has become so horrible lately people are willing to pay way more than imagined to avoid it).
Even in an environment in which streaming is gobbling up share, over the air broadcast is still dominating. According to Nielsen...
- The average adult spent 4 hours and 30 minutes a day watching traditional tv in Q2 2020.
- The average adult spent 1 hour and 6 minutes on streaming. The growth of streaming has been quite substantial and impressive, but it still constitutes only 25% of video viewing.
- Remarkably, streaming services (Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Disney+, HBO, Hulu, and Sling) bought over a quarter billion dollars of ad time on traditional tv in the past 12 months to promote their products. That's gotta tell you something.
Regardless of who wins the internecine battle of delivery systems, one thing is clear. People love tv and reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. – h/t Lara Bracken
Doug Ford gives thumbs up to media in a question about covid being a hoax
And now, Jonathan Pie tells it like it is from the UK
Postmedia financials look bleak
A $21M federal wage subsidy program helped pump Postmedia’s balance sheet to a $13.5M profit in Q4, but its annual report saw its deficit increase to $16.2M as of Aug. 31, compared with $6.3M in fiscal 2019. Revenue, mostly from advertising, print circulation and digital services, dropped nearly 18 percent for the full year to $508.4M. – The Canadian Press
Former prostitute and Edmonton radio host makes film festival debut
Illusion: The Fear is the story of Valécia Pepin's harrowing struggle to free herself from the grip of her pimp, who attempts to reassert control. It had its debut at the Edmonton Short Film Festival on the weekend. – Andrea Huncar, CBC Edmonton
