TV marketing myopia as sales decline 2.2% and Internet usage zooms

As Gen Y grows up and broadband penetration increases the household TV is expected to decline. This is a huge shift for advertising,programming and journalism  on TV as people take more to the Internet for streaming video and social media.

Already 40% of all Internet traffic is from video according to CISCO and this is slated to rise to 91% in 2014, Broadband penetration in US households has increased to 63.5% in 2009 from 50.2% in two years and certainly higher today. The trend for young professionals is not to buy a TV and just watch streaming video on the Internet very much like not having a home land phone line and entirely depending on the cellphone. Accordingly Neilsen's are  planning to include Internet homes in their estimates of TV audience.

The implications for TV programming, journalism and associated advertising will be enormous. Think of the newspaper industry as it got into trouble losing out classified advertising to the Internet. What's surprising is that the TV industry has not really embraced  this shift to the Internet and the power of social media. One TV journalist  noted ruefully that the Bin Laden action was first reported live but inadvertently on  Twitter by Sohaib Athar an IT consultant in Abbotabad,Pakistan.

The  chagrin of the TV journalist  is understandable but the marketing myopia of the TV industry should make all marketing ,advertising and journalism  folks think. Embracing the change of the Internet much more enthusiastically and directly might be the way to go. Contact StratoServe.

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