Linear TV faces tipping point within five years

Linear TV is still a thing, but across Europe and the US it is losing ground to streaming, a trend accelerated by the pandemic, and within five years fewer than half of viewers will be watching it in many markets, according to research company AudienceProject.

Why it matters

TV’s role as the go-to medium for brand-building is under threat as never before. In all countries but Finland, an AudienceProject report finds, the commercially attractive audience of 15-55 year-olds now prefers streaming over linear TV. And more than a quarter of the US and UK population are now pure streamers and can thus only be reached on streaming platforms. 

This presents marketers with a major challenge and they will have to seriously reconsider their media approach – and sooner rather than later.

Takeaways from the Insights 2022: Linear TV and Streaming report

• Linear TV viewing has dropped significantly over the past two years in the UK (80% to 69%) and Germany (80% to 72%), with most of that fall coming in 2021.
• By contrast, the US, Denmark, Sweden and Norway recovered slightly in 2021 after a fall in 2020; Finland is an outlier as linear TV viewing increased in both years. 
• Around 90% of viewers in most markets feel linear TV ad frequency is excessive (in Germany the figures fall to 75%).
• A majority in all markets bar the US feel that the ads they see on linear TV are irrelevant to them.

The big idea

With more platforms fighting for consumers’ attention, advertisers have an opportunity to extend the audience reach of their campaigns on top of linear TV and make ads more relevant at the same time.

Sourced from AudienceProject [Image: Pexels]