Gen Z do watch TV — it’s planners who are getting it wrong
Opinion
The decline in linear and rise in streaming have been apparent for years, yet broadcast-first media planning is alive and well. We need a framework that’s based on how audiences actually engage with TV content.
It is time the media industry admitted it. Gen Z have never really fallen for broadcast TV. And yet they love TV.
The recent Department for Culture, Media & Sport report suggested that linear TV will account for little more than a quarter of viewing time by 2040.
It went largely unremarked, but Ofcom’s 2024 Media Nations report flagged TV’s direction of travel. It described a medium gripped by radical and accelerating audience change. It revealed that, for the first time, less than half of 16- to 24-year-olds tuned in to broadcast TV in an average week during 2023.
Looking at the in-home average daily minutes of all audiovisual viewing as recorded by Barb, Ofcom reported that 16- to 24-year-olds watched 20 minutes of live TV, six minutes of recorded broadcaster content, 11 minutes of broadcaster VOD, 43 minutes of subscription/advertising VOD (SVOD and AVOD) and 93 minutes of video-sharing platforms.
Less than one-fifth of the TV watched by 16- to 24-year-olds is from broadcasters, compared with 87% for those over the age of 64. Overall, broadcast TV’s weekly reach fell from 79% in 2022 to 75% in 2023 — the second consecutive year of record-breaking decline.
These trends have been apparent for some years, so it’s reasonable to assume that when the figures are reported for 2024, they will follow this same pattern. And yet the traditions of broadcast-first media planning are alive and well.
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Social platforms are TV too
In a world where MrBeast is vastly more significant audience-wise than Coronation Street, is it time to recognise that, in the minds of Gen Z, YouTube and similar platforms are a form of TV?
The fact that it mixes social content with TV and film productions is fast becoming irrelevant. Certainly, influencers who produce some of the most entertaining content on video platforms would argue that their product is as valid as a TV drama.
Consider this additional point that Ofcom makes: the TV set remains the most-used device for watching all forms of video, accounting for 84% of total in-home video viewing. The TV screen is also where 34% of YouTube’s viewing inside UK homes happens, up from 29% in 2022.
Of course, the landscape of TV supply means buying across broadcaster, streaming services and platforms is complex — and more so if you include YouTube and other video platforms within the TV family.
But the actual mechanics of buying TV should not get in the way of how agencies see the medium and plan for clients.
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A unified TV planning matrix
There are several things to unpack. The first and most significant one for media planners is the way in which we organise our thoughts about TV audiences and how we invest to reach them.
We are now well past a point where most brands’ TV strategy should be defined by broadcast TV, because it is obviously delivering to just a fraction of key age groups.
This is not to denigrate broadcast TV and all the brilliant productions it delivers. Water-cooler broadcast TV moments such as live sports and reality TV still exist and deliver spikes in audience across all groups, including Gen Z. But broadcast TV should be part of an integrated picture.
So how can planners and marketers rethink the TV audience landscape? First, it is high time that audiences’ relationship with delivery technology is acknowledged. It is also time to set aside the semantics that ring-fence “produced” TV content and set artificial parameters for the medium.
One approach that could bridge the gap between different elements of the universe is to think about TV audiences within a 3D matrix, in which every audience 10-year age bracket is plotted by different TV technologies and format consumption habits. This is then cross-referenced by gender, interest or behaviour group segments, as well as brands’ first-party data, whether that be loyalty information or purchase history.
This matrix would provide a holistic lens through which to see the total TV landscape. With notable content exceptions, it would clearly position broadcast TV as an older segment buy, and YouTube and TikTok as primary Gen Z buys, with AVOD providing a more nuanced audience mix.
The great TV unification
Initiatives such as Isba’s Origin are opening up the potential for brands to understand, plan and measure multichannel media investment and look at the dynamic relationship between different parts of the true TV landscape.
Likewise, Lantern, the project recently announced by Sky, Channel 4 and ITV, should help us understand how broadcast TV immediately influences online behaviours and sales. Of course, Amazon is already hard at work unifying commerce and AVOD within its walled garden.
These initiatives, plus the increasing use of retail data to weave together multichannel strategies to drive sales from across the path to purchase, are stepping stones to a re-imagination of TV planning based on how Gen Z and subsequent generations relate to it.
So, to answer the question “Should we drop the C from CTV?” as recently posited in The Media Leader — yes, we should.
Since connected TV (CTV) represents the majority of non-mobile delivery (the IAB reports that 66% of UK households now watch TV via CTV devices), why quibble over this detail when the big story of change in TV is so compelling?
Crossing the video platform divide
Broadcasters can see the direction of travel. As well as collaborating on measurement and data usage, they are changing the nature of programme distribution and promotion.
ITV shows now generate more than 2bn views a year on YouTube and ITV Studios is investing in more dedicated digital content through a new production unit, Zoo 55.
Channel 4’s collaboration with YouTube, on which shows are promoted and some are available in full, saw the broadcaster’s YouTube audience treble this year. It even streamed coverage of the US presidential election on YouTube.
In the end, TV will break down its own silos, but we agency strategists need a new audience planning framework that unifies this changing medium based on how audiences engage with it, not on the old structures of TV trading.
Seamus Brennan is director, partnerships and strategy, at Kepler