We had a client who was interested in reaching a broad 10 county area in Northeastern PA.

We suggested TV should be a cornerstone of the media plan.

The client responded, “Who watches TV any longer?”

The reference was to the “cord cutters” or “cord stackers.”

A cord cutter is one who no longer subscribes to cable or satellite (linear) TV but watches streaming programming through various devices. Cord stackers are those who retain connected (linear) TV service and also view streaming programs.

The streaming process is known as Over The Top (OTT) and is delivered to viewers through a variety of devices including HDMI sticks (Amazon Fire, Roku, etc.), smart TVs with built-in apps like Netflix & HBO Go, game consoles, internet-enabled smart Blu-ray/DVD players and streaming boxes (Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, etc.).

 

connect tv

 

The latest J.D. Power study shows about 60% of streaming customers are cord stackers; 23% are cord shavers (those who still subscribe to TV but have downgraded their service package); 13% are cord cutters (those who have recently canceled TV service); and 4% are cord nevers (those who have never subscribed to pay TV and only subscribe to streaming video services), according to IP Carrier.

So, does that mean advertisers can’t reach the cord cutters?

Not at all.

In fact, video messages can be finely targeted to specific audiences by geography and lifestyle through OTT. So, the targeting of commercials is much more specifically directed in this process than by broadcast or cable TV programming.

And at the end of an OTT TV campaign ad exposure results are available showing where and through what programming the commercials were viewed.

So of course, the answer to our client’s question about current TV viewers is that there are still over 80% of households who view TV as it originates.

That’s almost a half million TV viewers in our market.

OTT is a growing video medium and will affect advertisers with increasing impact in the coming years.

But TV viewing is still alive and well.

 

Note: This first appeared in our January newsletter.
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