
Advertisers Tuning Out TV in Sign of Trouble for Media Companies - prostoalex
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-14/advertisers-tuning-out-tv-in-sign-of-trouble-for-media-companies
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John_KZ
I don't see why people think that having TV and traditional media die out is a
good thing. Major internet news and entertainment sources are not only as
biased, but also capable of colnsealing it very well. Personalized propaganda
is a nightmare we see raising. People living in the same household are so
disconnected because they get completely different news coverage for the same
events. Most content on the internet isn't of better quality either.

10 years ago I would never expect saying this, but old media (TV, printed
newpapers etc) are now more reliable than internet-delivered content. At least
TV and printed newspapers can't change history by making edits in their
articles and videos after publishing them.

~~~
madspindel
> printed newspapers can't change history by making edits in their articles
> and videos after publishing them

That's a bad thing. At least when you are reading Washington Posts online
article about the russian hack of the US power grid it says: "Editor’s Note:
An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had
penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of
that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not
attached to the grid."

In old media, people would still believe it was russian goverment hacking. Now
it backfired in the online world and "fake news".

~~~
einr
_That 's a bad thing. At least when you are reading Washington Posts online
article about the russian hack of the US power grid it says: "Editor’s Note:
An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had
penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of
that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not
attached to the grid."_

The record that a correction was made only exists if all involved parties
wants it to. If the publisher/government/Google/ISP etc. has malicious intent,
they could make changes silently and pretend as if nothing happened.

At least with newspapers, the physical copy of the previous version will
always exist (barring the implementation of totalitarian government and
1984-style memory holes, of course).

~~~
dorfsmay
This, the ability for people controlling the media to change history, is why
archive.org was created. Do think about them when you contribute to
"charities", even a few dollars per year goes a long way.

~~~
makomk
Assuming that sites don't block archiving (Vice and its sub-brands like
Motherboard were doing this quite aggressively for a while, so there's
basically no public record of what their articles used to say), and assuming
the Internet Archive themselves can't be convinced to remove the archived
copies.

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montrose
TV ad sales fell 7.8% last year. If ad sales continue to decline at that rate,
in 10 years this market will be only 44% of its current size.

~~~
dorfsmay
I'm seriously shocked that the numbers are still that high. I might be an
outlier, but I haven't watch "TV" in more than 10 years, and a lot of people
around me are the same.

We went from TV to an increase in DVD rentals, to Netflix, and now more and
more to just rent movies from google etc...

As people are more ready to pay for entertainment rather than put up with ads,
what worries me is the shift in to more insidious form of ads such as product
placement.

~~~
george_morgan
> a lot of people around me are the same

Anytime you find yourself saying this, it's worth exploring how your own
experiences might be biasing your judgement.

Recent research in the UK for example shows a much more nuanced view of the
changes in TV viewing behaviour: [https://www.thinkbox.tv/Research/Nickable-
Charts/Killer-Char...](https://www.thinkbox.tv/Research/Nickable-
Charts/Killer-Charts/TV-advertisings-killer-charts-full-deck)

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siquick
The ROI on TV ad spend is practically incalculable so is it any surprise that
advertisers would rather invest in channels where (almost) all spend is
trackable?

~~~
busterarm
That's not exactly true. TV attribution is actually getting very good these
days, especially if you're equipped with a large pool of phone numbers/coupon-
codes and a way to segment those numbers/codes in your ads.

TV advertising isn't exactly "dying" either. Personal injury law firms are
actually finding TV advertising _more_ effective in this climate and are
spending more money in it, filling the void left by other advertisers. That's
even as they're increasing their digital ad spend.

(NB: Until recently, I worked in AdTech/MarTech for a large personal injury
law firm.)

~~~
SnowingXIV
Yep, I'm seeing a lot of my competitors running these more often now. I work a
few with law firms primarily handling development and online
advertising/marketing. I've done print as well, but been dying to get into
making tv and radio commercials as the clients have requested it. I struggle
because for the ad buy itself is hard to find someone good to work with. It's
a bunch of middle-men. Everything is segmented. I also really dislike the lack
of hard figures and live data so it's difficult to give up that control.

Not to mention the commitment seems to be quite expensive. I can spend a few
grand on Adwords and then turn it off the next month if I really needed to.
It'll be amazing when I can make produce commercials and upload them to a
platform that then airs on cable TV reporting back statistics.

~~~
busterarm
You not only have to build your own attribution pipeline on the web & call
side, but you need to pay for both Nielsen reports and Google Attribution 360.

Basically you need to either be a large company or an agency with clients that
have deep pockets. We had to hire a fulltime TV buying person who had
experience working with all of the relevant parties in our market.

Our yearly ad spend, all totaled, was somewhere around $100mil/yr.

~~~
SnowingXIV
Yikes, yeah that's the thing. That's so beyond any of my clients budgets. I've
been pushing to do other things including billboards since I spend a majority
of my time these days working on online advertising and seo which has had a
wonderful ROI (putting the time in to get proper conversion tracking and
funnels has been a treat) and keeping doors open but I want to take it to the
next level for both personal growth and peeling back the curtain.

Plus, video production is something I did in the past so doing more of that
could be exciting even if it's bland lawyer commercials for Judge Judy.
$100mil/yr is a dream. Definitely get a sense of jealousy when I see other
firms showing up on TV.

~~~
busterarm
The model seems to be to land some whale client who will pay you enough to get
it and then you use it for all of your clients.

That will work for Nielsen ($100k/yr!) but likely not for Google.

~~~
SnowingXIV
Yeah that definitely seems to be the play. I didn't realize how much these
were, I just looked at google attribution 360 that seems fantastic to use. I
viewed the Nest video of how they are using it. I don't know if I could ever
get any of these lawyers to that point though. I work with newer and smaller
firms. I really enjoy the aspect of helping people grow from very little - I
just have a lot less money to play with but I can dictate where it goes, pick
any technology stack, etc.

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vinchuco
I get that advertising is effective by scale. You're more likely to choose
something you've heard of. But I still can't help but feeling resentful for a
company when they're out to steal my time and attention.

~~~
golergka
> steal my time and attention.

Is all unsolicited incoming communication such "stealing"?

~~~
dingo_bat
Unsolicited communication is generally referred to as spam. Spam is generally
considered bad because of the demands it makes of you, cognitive and resource-
related. So the answer to your question is of course.

~~~
koboll
But it's usually a price you willingly pay in exchange for a service. You gave
your email out to get something in return. You're seeing those ads because you
want to read something else on the website. You've entered into a transaction
where receiving advertising is an implicit trade you've made to get something
else.

~~~
Doxin
I don't know about you, but I've _never_ entered my email in exchange for
anything knowing I'd get spam.

At the very least the transaction is unfair since the spam part is generally
left very implicit.

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jacksmith21006
Then saw this study this morning done

"“TV ad research finds sales impact of TV outperforms Facebook and YouTube”

[https://mediaweek.com.au/benchmark-tv-karen-nelson-
field/](https://mediaweek.com.au/benchmark-tv-karen-nelson-field/)

Kind of curious did this come out intentionally right now?

~~~
george_morgan
There has been a lot of research into this topic over the past couple of
years. Particularly as the effectiveness of digital advertising & ad tech are
under increasing pressure.

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jgh
I haven't used Hulu since they phased out the free tier, but I see in the
article that Hulu generates $1bn in advertising sales per year. Do you still
have to watch ads on the paid tiers?

~~~
robotnixon
The base streaming tier is $8/month and contains ads. The next tier up is $12
and has no ads.

~~~
johnward
$12 tier has limited ads.

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erikb
of course tv ads become more profitable with more of the proactive, thinking
populace moving to more modern ways to consume like Netflix or Amazon. What's
left is more and more the passive people that are more easily influenced by
suggestions coming from ads.

This however is not a long term growth strategy. It's more like the last bump
up before everything falls down. If I had a way to bet 6-7 digit amounts of
money against tv I would do so right now.

~~~
george_morgan
It's a bold claim that Netflix & Amazon customers are more proactive &
'thinking' than others. Or that TV viewers are more passive & more easily
influenced.

The claim of 'influence' is probably worth exploring: How does advertising
work? What does it mean to influence someone?

~~~
sol_remmy
Do you remember the news that insurers found Hotmail users are more likely to
get into auto accidents and raised their rates? Hotmail users are people who
haven't bothered to a superior service for over 10 years. I would not be
surprised if those same people still exclusively watch TV instead of streaming

~~~
george_morgan
All that the Hotmail story really highlighted was the reliance on inductive
reasoning by actuaries. It also didn't make clear whether they had identified
drivers who caused accidents or had been the victims of accidents. Insurers
will penalise people who make claims regardless of fault.

It's not a particularly useful comparison for this situation.

Also when 'people who watch broadcast TV' represent an overwhelming majority,
the suggestion that they're essentially a bit stupid is well... rather
arrogant, no?

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diogenescynic
I guess that is why I am seeing so many random ads on tv for “youth hormones”
and other weird scam products.

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JustSomeNobody
They'll be back with ATSC 3.0 and targeted advertising.

