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#253/ June 20, 2021
TV STILL NOT DEAD
Maybe you've noticed that the "TV is Dead" morons who've been haranguing us for almost 15 years with their horseshit seem to have disappeared lately. As the great Tess Alps said, "TV isn't dying, it's having babies."
Along the way, these knuckleheads changed their tune..."oh, we didn't mean TV itself was dead, we meant traditional TV was dead and streaming has taken over."
This week, Nielsen gave us a little idea of what's really going on. It turns out that after all these years, traditional TV viewing (over-the-air and cable) account for about 2/3 of all TV viewing and streaming accounts for only about 25%. The rest of TV time is used for gaming. Despite all the hype about Netflix, it accounts for about 2% of TV viewing.
You may be wondering why it took us so long to get useful data from the streaming folks. The reason is simple -- they were hiding it. One thing you can always count on is that when people refuse to release info, they are hiding something.
When Facebook refused to release click-through rates...when Google and Facebook refused to allow the MRC to measure their "reported" audiences...you knew they were full of shit. And when Netflix and the rest of the streamers refused to release audience data, one thing you could be sure of was that they had something to hide.
Now, the streaming industry has some other things to worry about. During the pandemic year, cancellation of streaming services (churn) became epidemic. Here's some data from a report by Deloitte:
- Between January 2020 and October 2020 the percent of people who cancelled a paid streaming service went from 20% to 46%.
- Of the people who signed up for a paid streaming service, almost 62% did so to watch a specific show. This leads to a big problem. People sign up for a free trial, watch the show, then cancel. This was encouraged by the streaming services who released series all at once. I expect they'll be re-thinking that strategy.
- It costs paid streaming services about $200 bucks to acquire a customer and they have to keep that customer for 15 months to break even.
- Meanwhile, free ad-supported streaming services are growing quickly. Between January 2020 and October 2020 the percent of people who subscribed to at least one free ad-supported streaming service grew by 50%.
The big picture here is that people don't give a flying shit about delivery systems. The distinction between "traditional" and "streaming" is an inside-the-media-beltway thing. Real people just think they're watching television.
They don't care if the TV signal comes to their house through the air, through a cable, over the internet, or by pony express. As long as it's entertaining, easy, and affordable the rest is irrelevant.
The problem for the traditional TV industry is that their programming largely sucks. The streamers have invested zillions in quality, well-produced programs that often make traditional TV look like crap.
The problem for the streamers is that they can't afford to go on forever spending like drunken sailors on production unless their investment in programming can be supported by operating revenue.
Every company in the universe is now competing for a share of the dead TV market (Apple, Amazon, Disney, NBC, CBS, Netflix, Hulu, Google, HBO...and on and on.) This is going to be a very interesting dogfight.
One thing you can be sure of -- the "TV is Dead" clowns will be dead long before TV is.
The World's Largest Data Breach
Hundreds of billions of times every day confidential information about each of us is broadcast through the adtech "ecosystem" to potential advertisers.
This engine of this is called Real-Time Bidding (RTB.) It is the backbone of the programmatic advertising industry.
The information that is broadcast can include our sexual behavior, our religion, our wealth and income, our political behavior, our health history, and pretty much everything else about us. There is no technical way to limit the way the data is used or with whom it is shared or sold.
If you don't think this is terribly dangerous to us as individuals and to the integrity of democratic institutions, I have bad news for you -- you're a fucking idiot.
Last week, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties sued the IAB Tech Lab (part of a trade association that fronts for the adtech industry) over the use of RTB, calling it the largest data breach in the world.
To get a full picture of what's going on, go here, and listen to the great Dr. Johnny Ryan, of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties explain in two short videos how RTB works and why ICCL is suing the IAB.
Out With The Old
As predicted here a few months ago, employers have been using the COVID pandemic to find ways around age discrimination laws.
A study from the UK reported that while overall employment complaints decreased in 2020, age discrimination cases increased by 74%.
Pol Creeps vs Tech Creeps
The Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece this week on just how far the tech industry has fallen in the eyes of the Washington DC political establishment.
It wasn't that long ago that then-President Obama and others in DC were treating the technocreeps like rock stars. Those days are gone.
To give you some idea of how deeply the tech industry had penetrated the halls of power, until recently Nancy Pelosi's former chief of staff was working as a lobbyist for Facebook. Joe Biden's former communications director currently runs Amazon's Washington "policy office" (fancy talk for head lobbyist.) And let's not forget that Nick Clegg, former UK Deputy Prime Minister, is now Zuckerberg's official spokesquid.
But the tide has turned. According to the Journal, "In Congress, Democrats and some Republicans are working to rein in the largest tech companies..." Biden has named a famously anti-trust activist to lead the pathetic FTC.
The tech industry, and our friends in the adtech industry, are in for a few rough years. Google, Facebook and friends had a period in which they acted like they were more powerful than governments. The pols don't like that. A reckoning is coming.
Of Pols And Spies
A legislative group within the European Union (EU) are doing a study on the economic ramifications of putting strong limits on surveillance by the online ad industry.
Last week I was asked to add my two cents to their report. You know my POV on this. The free internet as we know it is supported in large part by advertising, not tracking. There is no reason the online ad industry needs to, or should be allowed to do what no other ad medium has done - spy on people.
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