Linear media, media who provide a steady stream of programming so audiences have to know when to tune in are on my endangered species list. Don't get me wrong. I love consuming shows and spend a fair amount of spare time doing so. But the notion of looking at a the TV Guide and sitting down at a given time is just not something I do. And I really believe most lives aren't geared around linear media. We know how to go straight to the source to get what we want, when we want it.
I'm convinced that television is never going to be the same. In fact, I have to wonder if, outside of live events, the word telecast has relevance any longer. The truth is, finding someone who actually makes an appointment with a program has become quite rare in my circle of acquaintances. We all use PVRs, or we watch on Hulu. But we generally don't sit down at an appointed hour to consume television in the old fashioned way.
I suppose there's good news and bad news in that fact. If you're buying programs based on audience, I have news for you: there's no guarantee that we're consuming your commercials. We know how to fast forward to watch an hour show in forty minutes. So it becomes really a challenge of marketers to become creative in ways that make commercials an event in and of themselves. Probably the best example would be Super Bowl Sunday. Ad time is outrageous and probably for good reason; not only is the audience bigger, the recall for the ads is unbelievable.
A few marketers are smartly giving consumers reasons to record commercials by hiding events within events in the ads, or running text by very quickly that is entertaining or related to contests so consumers have to slow the ads down to be able to read the text or know how to register.
The Good news is that television programs are probably consumed more now than ever before. Audiences aren't tied to a specific time; they time-shift to more convenient times. Perhaps the single largest challenge of media in the future is arriving at a strategy for monetizing an audience that is consuming at different points across a variety of devices. But the audience is probably much bigger than anyone realizes.
Nielsen may have the toughest of jobs going forward. It's one thing to herd cats. It's another thing to try to herd cats that aren't even appearing at the same time. How does one even begin to count viewers of programming that is everywhere at all times? Good luck with that one; the task seems really daunting...
My guess is that Nielsen is hoping that everyone just stays with the same model and methodology that they've always been sucked into. I just don't see it working for them in the long run.
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