Legacy TV Faces Challenges: Maturing Streaming, Lack Of A Future Ad Vision
But perhaps not in the way you might think.
Analysts have been ruminating about a CTV business maturing with consumers who have maxed out with 4-6 streaming services — that in fact, there could be some reductions of those purchases.
But advertising and media research company WARC believes a bigger issue is the lack of effort to lure advertising money from existing competitive digital media — including social media and search.
Money for CTV is coming from existing, traditional TV advertising business — networks, TV stations, local cable TV systems. That means industry cannibalization in the future — with prospects from an existing pool of declining legacy TV systems.
This prompts a key question: What comes next?
In the short term, there will be growth from linear TV programming that is increasingly transitioning — especially live, premium sports content — that will run on streaming services on an exclusive basis.
While traditional TV-based media companies seem to be in the driver’s seat, the active interests of digital media giants — Amazon, Google, and Apple — are looming, now making major inroads into the streaming/CTV world.
These companies are continuing to rake in big digital-media advertising revenues from non-premium video business: e-commerce, retail networks, social media and other ad-related services.
This will continue to give legacy TV media companies a tougher competitive road to growth.
Does that mean legacy TV network-based companies should focus only on pure TV-movie production and experiences — for example, forgoing linear TV networks, direct-to-consumer distribution — and perhaps even advertising revenues?
Not just yet. Still, if you might have been rolling your eyes about rumored forecasts of new media merger combinations that could not possibly happen — NBCUniversal-Paramount Global, Apple-Walt Disney, Amazon-Paramount Global — you might now think differently.
The current struggles of virtually all legacy TV media companies with their premium streamers still looking to make a profit — and little vision beyond that — will tell you all you need to know.
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