TV Trends April 2018: Total TV Viewing +1.0%, Internet-Connected Devices +38%

BOTTOM LINE: We have analyzed trends associated with the use of television alongside commercial share trends for national media owners in the United States through the end of the calendar month of April 2018 (covering the period running from April 1 to April 30 rather than the broadcast month, which ran from April 2 to April 29 this year). Complete data contained within this report became available from Nielsen last week.

Notable observations for the calendar month of April include the following:

•     TV use grew for a second consecutive month against all audiences, but fell for adults 18-49. Total use of television as we define it across all sources of content inputs was up again, by +1.0% on a total day basis for adults during April. However, among the narrower population group of adults 18-49 viewing fell -3.0%.
•     Internet-connected devices increase in significance. Consumption via internet-connected devices (ICDs), including Roku, Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast rose by +38% year-over-year among all households, or +29% among adults 18-49 to account for 14.4% of total TV use among adults 18-49 on a total day basis and 9.7% among all people.
•     Commercial impressions continue to fall. National TV commercial impressions delivered among adults 18-49 fell -6.4% in April 2018 vs. April 2017 on a total-day basis and -3.3% for prime time. These declines were relatively better than declines observed in other recent months. However, this outcome was aided by the inclusion of more newly rated networks in the national ratings data which caused a +2.2% boost in the number of programming hours on national TV with measured commercials.
•     Commercial loads rose significantly during the month. National commercial loads which qualified for C3/C7 ratings (which exclude unencoded or otherwise non-qualifying activity in digital environments) across the industry also helped improve the availability of commercial inventory, as loads increased again from 10.8 minutes per hour to 11.1 minutes, for a +2.4% boost in available inventory at the average network during the month.
•     Viacom led with the most commercial share while NBCU had the most viewing among all audiences. Viacom produced the largest share of C3 commercial impressions during April with a 15.6% adults 18-49 share among national media owners. On a program viewing P2-99 live+7-day basis, NBCU had the highest share of viewing of rated national TV programming, with 14.7% of the industry’s total in April 2018.

Overall, our interpretation is that while TV in its totality may be relatively stable, results remain negative for ad-supported national TV as a medium, consistent with recent trends. Viewing of unrated programming through internet-connected devices and of premium video on PCs, tablets and mobile phones are undoubtedly accounting for some of these declines, and probably would bring year-over-year trends closer to flat figures if related data were included in standard measures of viewership. However, it doesn’t seem likely that this data will be included in any comprehensive industry-wide total audience metric any time soon.

We continue to believe in our maxim that television is the worst form of advertising except all those others which have been tried, at least for those advertisers focused on awareness-based media goals, and budgets are generally unaffected by changes in ratings in the short-term. Unfortunately, sentiment towards the medium worsens as commonly reported or relied-upon measures such as adults 18-49 fall, especially by the significant levels observed recently. Negative sentiment ultimately leads to advertisers’ efforts to explore and encourage the use of alternative media vehicles, or otherwise establish marketing goals that are not necessarily awareness-driven.

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