TV content as strong as ever despite growth of digital
Netflix recently announced that it had reached and in fact gone beyond one billion hours of streamed content.
This raised a host of different views from media commentators, with a strand of thought emerging that digital could capitalise on the four to five slot of the five hours individuals spend on average watching TV.
This slot is where TV isn’t “attentively” watched: it is the “filler” hour, according to Hunter Walker of YouTube and TechCrunch‘s Ryan Lawler, comprised of programmes we stumble upon when flicking from channel to channel.
This contrasts with the first three “dedicated” hours, where we are attentive and interested in what we are watching.
Eric Korsch of MediaPost thinks that the main driver of TV content isn’t individuals considering what they want to watch and finding suitable programmes that way, but in fact it is the desire to be relevant: to friends, family and co-workers.
In fact, networks can set the agenda and make themselves relevant, given the importance of the media and popular culture. Sometimes ignored, the importance of what people are talking about, as well as what they are watching, remains a key factor.
This is where live TV benefits again – despite the rise in video-on-demand usage, the majority of “interactions” (on social media, over text and via mobile devices – the news gets better given the rise of two-screening) occur during the first viewing of a show, while it is still relevant.
The challenge awaiting providers such as Netflix, argues Korsch, is positioning its serialised original online content, which was previously unscheduled – this is similar, he suggests, to “appointment TV” trying to combat the increase in delayed viewing.
All of this evidence, Korsch states, is pointing towards a clean bill of health for traditional TV viewing: “There still remains an assumption that digital video needs to cannibalise TV content in the “premium” space. That’s simply not the case.
“In fact, it is far more likely, at least for the short run, that digital is cannibalising across other verticals of information such as parenting, self-help, do-it-yourself project guides, encyclopedias, music, and printed content as it complements the consumption of “TV” content.
“Directionally, there is no slowdown in traditional TV consumption and the content itself is arguably the strongest it has ever been.”
Click here to read the full MediaPost article by Eric Korsch.