Thursday, February 28, 2008

Product Placement Replaces TV Commercials


It may be one of the ways traditional broadcast media can save itself. Unfortuneately, it hasn't happened yet. But one of our local news channels has done it during the 11pm news.

They simply mention the sponsor several times and flash their logo and name, but keep giving us story after story after story.

Here's some research that shows what is happening right now with the current arrangement of TV show, commercial break, TV show, etc:

Time Shift TV Viewing

According to a recently released Digital Life America tracking study conducted by Solutions Research Group, nearly 80 million Americans (43% of the online population) have watched one of their favorite TV shows on the Internet, up significantly from 12 months ago when that figure was just 25%. 20% of the American online population said they watch TV on the web on a weekly basis, and that's ahead of the 14% who say they take advantage of cable's video-on-demand offerings.

The sample of Americans aged 12 and older said that 'to watch a specific show' was the main reason for 21% of all visits to major network websites in November 2007. Of the major network sites, abc.com received the highest user experience score among those who streamed a TV show, with 52% rating their overall experience as ‘excellent," followed by fox.com (44%)

Why People Visit Major Network Sites (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox)

Reason for Visit

% of Viewers (viewed 1 or more network websites in previous month)

Check schedule

30%

View specific show

21

News

24

Contests

8

Sports

8

Weather, traffic

3

Other

6

Source: Digital Life America Q4 '07, February 2008

Top major network TV shows viewed on the Internet included Heroes, Grey's Anatomy, Dancing with the Stars, Ugly Betty, Chuck, CSI and House, Kitchen Nightmares, Smallville and Gossip Girl.

Those who viewed one of the leading 20 prime time shows in the past 24 hours were asked to identify the source of viewing. Overall, 25% of prime time viewing was time shifted using a DVR, broadband, mobile or similar. Among viewers 18-34, one-third (34%) of viewing was time-shifted. And among 18-49 households with a DVR, a remarkable 55% of the leading 20 shows were time-shifted.

If a household has a DVR and broadband, DVR is the preferred means of time-shifting. DVR users are becoming more aggressive in skipping commercials-65% say they "always" skip commercials compared to 52% a year ago.

Skip Commercials on DVR (% DVR owners)

Snapshot

Always skip

Frequently skip

Oct. 2006

52%

29%

Nov. 2007

65

23

Source: Digital Life America Q4 '07, February 2008

For more information, please visit SRG here

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