Linear TV Suffers Another Devastating Blow Against Digital Media
By Movieguide® Contributor
As Americans continue to shift away from cable and broadcast TV, advertisers are cutting back on their linear TV ad spending and putting more towards reaching consumers through digital media.
2024 is predicted to be the first year advertisers spend more money on digital media — including social media ads and ads on streaming services — than on linear TV. This represents a marked shift in the industry which began in 2020. In that year, marketers put only 29% of their money towards digital media, spending the other 71% on linear TV. This year, digital media is predicted to take in 52% of the money spent on ads, topping linear TV’s 48%.
The rise in digital media ad spending comes as consumers continue to spend more and more time on social media and streaming. The latter has provided the marketing industry with more opportunities within the past year and a half as every major streamer has introduced an ad-supported subscription tier.
Streaming and social media also offer marketers more bang for their buck as they can target consumers more specifically. A recent study found that ads shown on YouTube provide double the recall with consumers than any other platform, including TV, because of its superior targeting.
The shift to digital media has also caused an overhaul in the marketing world as the traditional methods to reach consumers are proving to be less effective on this medium. The industry has long relied on selling products through celebrity endorsements and scenes of luxury. Consumers, however, are proving to be less receptive to this method when influencers who are supposed to be “just like them” indulge in luxury they could never afford.
A recent study found that 51% of social media users scroll past branded posts, and 81% admitted that sponsored posts have either no effect or a negative effect on their perception of the company. Thus, advertisers have had to get creative in their strategies and can no longer simply rely on a large budget to produce a positive marketing campaign.
This shift to digital media is expected to continue to grow in the coming years as 69% of companies plan to increase their spending on this form of advertising in the future, while 27% plan to cut back on their budget for national TV.
As more money comes the way of digital marketing, the industry’s top dogs fight for the largest piece of that pie.
Movieguide® previously reported:
Disney is cutting costs for ad space in an effort to attract more advertisers.
“In a bid to win overall commitments, Disney has been striking deals that call for significant ‘rollbacks’ in the rates it charges to reach 1,000 viewers — a measure known as a CPM — on its Disney+ streaming hub,” Variety reported.
The outlet shared that Disney has cut costs for ad space on Disney+ by as much as 10-15% for advertisers who commit to “a certain level of volume of ad support across its portfolio.”
The company is targeting “mid-market advertisers” — companies that spend between $30 and $300 million on ads — with this new strategy.
“It doesn’t mean our main, top 100 advertisers aren’t growing and spending money, but there’s a real significant opportunity for us there,” Disney’s president of global advertising Rita Ferro told ADWEEK. “We’re starting to see growth in that biddable channel—double-digit growth, quarter over quarter, and we want to enable the least amount of friction possible in order to continue to drive that growth.”
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