The battle for audiences as free-TV viewing continues its decline
In this cross-posting from The Conversation, Marc C-Scott looks at the growing battle for eyeballs as TV audiences continue to decline.
It’s not been a good year so far for Australia’s traditional television industry with reports that prime-time audiences are down almost 5% amid competition from internet streaming services.
But the decline in the number of Australians watching traditional television has not just occurred since the introduction last year of online streaming services such as Netflix. The trend has been evident for some time now in reports from the audience monitoring company Oztam.
The key reason for the change in television viewing habits is the internet, which has led to a large uptake of new screen media devices such as computers (desktop and portable), smart phones and tablets.
New media
If they worked at real television production, entertainment, and quality, the viewers would decline to a point, bottom out, and maybe even increase slightly. As long as they continue to treat TV audiences with disdain, and lower standards and quality of viewing, they will eventually kill the industry.
Forget the generation who thinks it is going to change everything, live forever and forever young. Concentrate upon the children and the loyal following, change and develop with the generation who will bring greatest change, they are little people right at this moment, and television has most of them within its influence as we speak.
Oooo Game of Thrones just appeared on putlocker
What about all the screens that are not based in the home?
What about all the audiences that just don’t follow YouTube creators?
We are believers in out-of-home screens and place-based media – in specialty locations where we have an understanding of the shopping behaviour thereafter. An audience that is of high value in an environment which is long-dwelling – where people are already in a certain mindset, one regarding their health or perhaps the health and well-being of a loved-ones.
Out-of-home screens playing high quality narrow-cast lifestyle television, such as Tonic Health Media are an alternative growing space which also provides value for advertisers.