Blame the Americans: Why TV has a perception issue
Opinion
Perceptions of TV advertising are shaped by the US, yet this market looks, feels and functions very differently to the rest of the world. This leads to global strategies built on a flawed premise.
I’m always struck by the reaction I get when I bring up the issue of TV’s perception problem at events in the US. Often, it’s disbelief.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of American exceptionalism. The US can produce a lot of rubbish yet still believes it’s the best in the world (think chocolate bars, cars, sports, presidents). Credit is due for that confidence.
But in the world of TV advertising — where decisions are increasingly global — this mindset can be problematic. The reality is that TV in the US looks, feels and functions very differently compared with the rest of the world. The content, the audience behaviours, the trends and therefore the strategic approach to TV advertising all vary significantly across markets.
The core issue lies in how the US linear TV experience — and the broader TV and video ecosystem — differs from that of most other countries. Yet many of the world’s most influential marketers live and work in the US. They see their media environment and assume it reflects the global norm. This leads to global strategies built on a flawed premise: that what applies in the US applies everywhere.
Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. I’ve had numerous conversations with buyers whose plans or tactics are brought directly from the US to local markets with little or no adjustment for local differences. This happens more than you think!
Let’s look at the key differences between the US TV landscape and other major English-speaking markets.
The product
To audiences outside the US, American linear TV can feel nearly unwatchable. The ad breaks are long — very long. National feeds often include awkwardly inserted local ads. The quality of ads, both local and national, is often poor or hilariously awful.
In a world of ad-free and premium ad-supported platforms, why hasn’t the US addressed this?
Here’s a comparison of ad loads:
• US: Cable/national — 15-22 minutes per hour
• UK: 7-12 minutes per hour (regulated; peak time: 7 minutes)
• Australia: 13-15 minutes (regulated)
• Germany: 12 minutes (regulated)
The US is, by far, the worst on this front.
Regulatory environment
In most other countries, a rigorous approval process exists before an ad goes on air. Outside the US, many ads that regularly appear on American television would simply be illegal.
This tight regulation ensures a certain quality standard — one that’s noticeably absent in the US. Networks have their own guardrails and frameworks, but it’s not like other markets.
Free vs paid
In the US, most ad-supported television comes via pay-TV. In nearly every other market, it’s free. American viewers have had to shell out over $100 a month to access a fragmented, often frustrating, linear experience. No wonder they’re turning to alternatives.
Pay-TV subscriptions are in existential declines in the US, meaning the model there for free ad-supported television needs to change rapidly. No-one is expecting this to change.
Here’s a good slice of fact to illustrate the difference. Take free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST). In the US, it’s been hailed as a gamechanger. But outside the US? It barely registers. In the US, FAST commands 4–5% of total viewing. In the UK, it’s less than 1%.
This pattern repeats across many international markets. It’s not a “thing” elsewhere because there’s so much good television via linear and other sources. There’s just no market for it.
Public broadcasting strength
Many countries have strong, trusted public-service broadcasters (PSBs). The BBC in the UK, for example, carries no ads. Commercial broadcasters in the UK must match the BBC’s quality to compete.
That dynamic doesn’t exist in the US, where cable TV long operated without real competitors, creating an environment ripe for consumer frustration. (There are PSBs in the US, but they are not operated like the BBC. In fact, I was told their survival relies on donations from rich old people who pass away and leave them money!)
Some countries have taken steps to protect their broadcasters. Australia, for instance, has digital siphoning laws ensuring major sports remain accessible on free-to-air TV. Other countries are introducing legislation to ensure local broadcasters appear prominently on connected TV home screens.
The US is very much an open market and streamers are starting to act more like broadcasters by claiming huge sports rights deals.
YouTube: A different beast
YouTube in the US includes pay-TV and live sports — completely different from what it offers in other markets.
This creates skewed perceptions. US-based executives (including chief marketing officers) may believe YouTube is equally dominant everywhere. It’s not.
So what should the US do?
No-one in the US likes being told what to do by outsiders. But here goes…
Linear TV in the US isn’t dead. Nielsen recently reported growth — albeit with fluctuations. A lot of broadcaster VOD growth worldwide is simply a replication of the linear experience through digital pipes. Much of the so-called innovation (like FAST) still mimics linear TV scheduling. Content remains the primary driver of viewership. If the content’s good, people will watch — hence the bump in January’s ratings in the US.
But here’s the issue: to maintain ad revenues, US networks have increased ad loads and degraded the viewing experience. This is short-sighted. They’re competing with ad-free streaming giants — yet doing little to make their own offering better, while the streamers are reinventing their ad products to be much more palatable.
US networks should collaborate to:
• Limit ad loads
• Improve ad quality
• Create a better user experience
Why hasn’t this happened? I never get a clear answer when I ask this question.
“In many ways, this goes back to the US TV industry’s original sin,” notes Alan Wolk, co-founder of media analyst company TVREV. “Back in the early 00s, all consumers wanted was a way to replicate some of Netflix’s more popular features, primary among them the ability to pause a show in one room and resume watching a few hours later in another.
“The networks freaked out because they did not know how to measure this — the new viewing would not be live viewing and thus not covered by Nielsen, at which point they all fell under some sort of spell and became convinced that they alone would dethrone Netflix as the king of all streamers.
“What happened instead is they gave up tens of billions of dollars in carriage and retrans [retransmission] fees from cable companies and sunk billions more into creating streaming services whose futures are still not fully assured. Worse still, they’ve bought into the ‘TV is dead’ mantra and treat their linear products like orphan relatives they’ve been forced to take in. All their innovation energy is focused on streaming.”
Back to the point: Global perceptions are shaped by the US
And that’s the real issue. Many global marketers base strategies on US media habits, which are not reflective of the rest of the world. Here’s a snapshot of current linear TV consumption and one last point of difference:
• US: Linear is 45% of all viewing, including digital linear (Nielsen)
• Canada: 80% of all screen-based viewing is linear (Numeris, 18+)
• Australia: 61%
• UK: 74%
• Switzerland: 81%
• Sweden: 48% (this is the massive anomaly in Europe and deserves its own article!)
• Germany: 70%
(Data from joint industry currencies/media owners. I’m aware we count slightly differently. This just paints a picture of the differences around the world. I could add “BVOD”, which would paint an even more dominant picture for broadcasters.)
Let’s fix this
The US linear TV product has serious issues — but those issues are not universal.
When American perceptions shape global narratives, we risk making poor decisions across other markets. The first step to fixing this? Acknowledge that the US isn’t the global norm. And maybe — just maybe — clean up the ad breaks and overall viewing experience.
The streamers get it: have you seen the ads on Disney+ and other platforms? They’re generally decent, tightly managed, sometimes even human-verified and not completely awful (at least some of the time).
Interestingly, linear TV in the US still delivers 87% of all available ad impressions — thanks to a mix of factors — so it’s clearly still important for brands and draws substantial viewership and income. Yet I’ve seen marketing plans that simply replicate what brands have done in the US and roll them out in other markets without adjustments. That’s beyond daft.
Take Canada: some buyers assume English and French Canada have identical video market characteristics. They don’t — and it drives French-Canadian broadcasters up the wall. It’s a bit lazy, but it still happens.
“One big issue in the US is size,” Wolk observes. “Most people had cable because over-the-air reception was awful. We are a very big country and reception is tricky in much of it. So pay-TV was a given, if for no other reason than there was no other real option in much of the country.”
For the sake of broadcasters around the world and how TV is viewed by buyers, I genuinely hope US networks continue to invest in and improve their linear offerings rather than placing all their bets on digital.
The rest of the world isn’t making that trade-off just yet.
Justin Lebbon is a consultant