Key highlights from our analysis of TV viewing data during the calendar month of November 2015 follow:
• During the calendar month of November, on a total day L7 basis, viewing through television sets was down by -1.5% across all people ages 2-99 and down by -3.0% across people ages 18-49 (see Table 1 on the linked spreadsheet). Younger audiences aged 2-17, who account for around 15% of total viewing, drove the bulk of declines with much more dramatic fall-offs in their viewing – the worse since January of this year – with a -8.5% decline. This compared with a -1.8% decline during October. Networks owned by Disney and Viacom, which account for nearly a third of viewing for this group, faced declines of -16.8% and -9.8%, respectively last month.
• Consumption on TV sets not assigned to specific network content accounted for 23% of viewing in the month, up by 1% year-over-year. Among this grouping of viewing, Internet-connected devices once again saw a significant gain in TV consumption, nearly doubling year over year to account for 3.3% of total TV consumption. Also included in this grouping of viewing, video game consoles – on which OTT service-based video consumption will also occur – accounted for 5.4% of total TV consumption, up slightly over the year-ago period.
• In terms of national media ad inventory – which includes national broadcast, cable and syndication – commercial loads increased slightly, with 19.5% of total programming minutes on a total day basis was comprised of advertising in November 2015 vs. 19.3% during November 2014. We note a more significant gain was observed in October 2015 vs. October 2014. Looking solely at prime time, commercials accounted for 19.8% of programming in November 2015, vs. 19.7% during November 2014.
• Looking at shares of commercial impressions available for sale – which we think is ultimately the most important driver of revenue share for networks given the limited near-term impact that changes in ratings will have on total market demand – on an adults 18-49 C7 basis, broadcast networks produced 25.9% of impressions in November 2015 vs. 26.4% in November 2014. Cable commercial impressions took a 69.8% share on a full day basis during November, vs. 69.4% during November 2014. Meanwhile, during prime time, broadcast’s share rose from 37.7% to 38.8% and cable’s share fell from 59.2% to 57.7%, while syndication increased from 3.1% to 3.5%. All else equal, this means that during prime time, broadcast networks had a nearly 3% tailwind to growth in November while cable networks had a -2% headwind to growth.
FULL REPORT INCLUDING RISKS AND DISCLOSURES CAN BE FOUND HERE: TV Update 12-22-15.pdf
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