Happy Friday War & Peaceniks… It’s Stream Time!
This week Nielsen broke big news with their monthly Gauge Report on our collective viewing habits in the US.
That’s right, for the first time since it’s been measured, in July, streaming video surpassed both pay and broadcast TV in total viewing time. The industry was awash in breathless reaction to this shift. But, unless you lived under a Roku the last two years, you coulda seen this coming.
Here’s an animation of TV’s evolution from cable to streaming, set to Bowie.
Streaming has regularly beaten broadcast for a while now; and it’s been gaining on pay TV for just as long. This lead may change hands between pay TV and streaming, before streaming finally takes the permanent lead - likely some time in 2023 - but it’s only a matter of when, not if.
Pay TV slumps in the summer, after the NBA and NHL seasons end. Sports viewing drops like a training camp fumble over the summer, draining viewership away from cable; conversely, movie viewing goes way up over summer months, favoring streaming services with large film libraries, with less or zero ads. Traditionally broadcast and pay TV viewing increases substantially in the fall with the return of Football. HOWEVER, with Amazon getting Thursday Night Football this fall… stay tuned.
Suffice to say, I was not surprised. In fact, while most others were tuned into the flippening from pay TV to streaming, I was focused on the horserace within the streaming horserace…
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