A comprehensive report on the opportunities for local TV in an evolving media landscape was released … [+]
Last week CIMM (Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement) and the TVB released a comprehensive study called Local TV and Video Innovation Showcase which highlighted the innovations taking place in local television and the video marketplace. Along with recommendations and opportunities going forward as the landscape, consumer adoption, audience measurement challenges and advertising opportunities continue to evolve.
With a number of competitive elections last year, local media revenue held strong. Nonetheless, there are challenges ahead.
Cord-cutting: Continues unabated impacting local revenue from two sources; subscriber fees and ad dollars.
Competition: Newer advertising opportunities continue to become available (i.e., retail media) siphoning off ad dollars while others (i.e., YouTube) continue to generate strong revenue.
Audience profile: Simply put, the median age of the television viewers is getting older.
Audience measurement: Similar to network television, accurately measuring the audience of all 210 local television markets across multiple platforms is imperative.
Local news & sports: News and sports are primary sources for revenue. Local news is facing competition from a number of rivals including social media influencers. Also, with more and more local and national sports being streamed, it could impact another reliable revenue source.
Rick Ducey, managing director of BIA Advisory Services, noted that, “Local broadcast TV, local CTV, and local TV digital (mostly station owned web and app assets) ad spending will be over $21 billion in 2025. Cross-platform content, services, data, audience targeting, campaign optimization, and performance are critical factors in determining how successful these media activations can be. The local media industry is desperate for effective ways to address unmet needs in these areas.”
Overall, the analysis found that the industry challenges are being met with creativity, resilience, and a forward-thinking approach, showcasing the industry’s commitment to adapt and thrive. The momentum of change brings with it an excitement for what’s next and a renewed belief in the potential of local broadcasting to engage and serve communities in impactful ways.
The collaborative analysis included case studies from 17 companies that represent ad agencies, advertisers, local media companies, platforms and aggregators, measurement and data vendors, technology providers. They were; AdImpact, Ampersand, Comcast Effectv, Comscore, Consumer Orbit, Dentsu, Gray Media, HyphaMetrics, Madhive, Magid’s AD.VANTAGE AI, Nexstar Media Group, New York Interconnect, Run3TV, Spectrum Reach, Tunnl and Who’s Watching TV.
The in-depth analysis was co-authored by industry experts Patti Cohen and Matt Ross.
Here are six takeaways from the analysis.
Measurement: The use of cross-platform campaign measurement tools and advanced capabilities like Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) help local advertisers garner a comprehensive view of media consumption across all platforms – providing actionable audience behavior insights and precise, person-level data across markets to better understand and optimize reach.
Attribution: Multi-screen attribution capabilities allow advertisers to link their local TV campaigns to offline customer actions, providing a clear picture of the return on ad spend.
Cross-Platform Digital Campaigns: With real time cross-platform campaign metrics, local advertisers can leverage a unified view of performance across both linear and digital platforms – enabling greater optimization and effectiveness across multiple channels.
Data Integration and Audience Insights: By shifting focus from traditional demographics to the integration of diverse data sources – for example, the combination of TV viewing data with website retail activity – local advertisers can target consumers with actionable audience insights and enhanced precision.
Content Delivery and Engagement: A data-driven approach to TV across linear, addressable, and streaming powers highly effective targeting across advertising campaigns – empowering advertisers to deliver precise, hyper-local campaigns that drive incremental audience engagement and sales.
Operational Efficiency: Best practices like streamlining data reporting for swift analysis and providing local ad sales teams with instant, high-quality marketing content improve workflow efficiency, strategic decision making, and overall business productivity.
In the press release, Hadassa Gerber, EVP Chief Research Officer, TVB said, “Local TV and video remain a foundational element of the viewer experience, which is why innovation is imperative in maintaining its relevance in a constantly evolving market,”. What we’ve found is that the industry continues to meet new challenges with resilience, redefining what’s possible in local broadcasting and cementing it as an invaluable component of the TV and video landscape at large.
The comprehensive report can be found here.
Read the full article here