Cable TV Advertising Down Just 1% Despite Cord Cutting Despite 2015 being a banner year for cord cutting, "cord trimming" and Internet video in general, the cable industry's response in 2016 has so far been to simply raise rates further and hope for the best. Similarly, while you'd think that the cable and broadcast industry would ease off advertisements slightly to cater to Millennials used to ad-free streaming, companies have been working to actually shove more ads into each television hour (sometimes by even speeding up or editing down the content).

quote: Todd Juenger of Sanford C. Bernstein says that ad loads were down 1% for non-kids programming, but were up 1% in kids programming. And Juenger says there were many non-kids networks where ad load went up in the quarter. “For all the promises we have heard from network executives about reducing ad loads, this doesn’t seem like much progress.” And while companies like Viacom showed a 4% reduction in its non-kids programming ad load, ad loads on Viacom networks are still 11% higher than the industry norm. In other words, the cable industry's response to cord cutting continues to be to change as little as possible. And while many industry executives promised a lower ad load, that doesn't appear to actually be happening. Research from Todd Juenger of Sanford C. Bernstein shows that the overall ad loads on television remain largely unchanged And while companies like Viacom showed a 4% reduction in its non-kids programming ad load, ad loads on Viacom networks are still 11% higher than the industry norm. In other words, the cable industry's response to cord cutting continues to be to change as little as possible.







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Most recommended from 23 comments

mikesco8

join:2006-02-17

Southwick, MA 4 recommendations mikesco8 Member It makes sense . The people who are still subscribing to cable tv are those who are willing to buy overpriced products and have money to burn. Cntdwn

join:2009-09-05

Chatham, ON 4 recommendations Cntdwn Member Ads I've just recently 'cut the chord' and now relying on things like Nextflix, Shomi, "The Internet" to do my bidding. One of the main reasons for cutting was the advertising (and the fact that Cogeco could only provide me half the HD cables I actually subscribed to...)



Now, don't get me wrong, I fully understand advertising is needed. It's what pays a huge part of the bills and makes them money.



I just find that we're losing more and more run-time of the shows and it's adding more commercials. For example, Big Bang Theory is less than 20 minutes now. Heck, they had a 18.x runtime a couple shows ago.



And to boot, there are so many shows...just after doing almost 5 minutes of commercials...have commercials displayed DURING the show now. I've missed out on subtitles maybe a handful of times already because they're letting us know (again...just after we saw it DURING a commercial set) to watch the new show "Toronto Cop Syndicate: Calgary Edition Mondays at 9PM EST, 9:30PM Newfoundland only on CTV". And heck, if those 'in show' commercials take up maybe a 1/4 of the screen it's lucky. Showcase flipping makes those things a bloody 1/3 of the screen. They popped up on Lost Girl so many times I was wishing I had some sort of Fey power to destroy them. The only time one of these 'in show' adds made me laugh was during a Family Guy ep. and Stewie acknowledged it. I think it was a Cleveland pop up or something.



The last straw was (and I forget what show I was watching...) there was one of those 'in show' commercials that popped up...it was a Burger King ad that LITERALLY (yes Lana, literally) counted down 3 or so seconds before the commercials were to start. It seriously was friggen letting us know the commercials were going to start...by using a friggen commercial. Go figure a Burger King ad was the first to be ran! It did nothing but take me away from the tense moment of a cliffhanger just before a break to keep you hooked. I will not go to Burger King now. Not that I did before...but will go out of my way now if it's the only thing around.



I just have a bad feeling that in 5 years or so, the content being displayed will have a full time border or a full time split screen of commercials playing. Heck, sometimes I think the Demolition Man movie has it correct. Soon we'll be singing along to the top commercials instead of actual songs.



Buying stuff on BR or waiting for NF/Shomi to get the content must be the "premium" way to get ad free stuff these days.



/rant

battleop

join:2005-09-28

00000 2 recommendations battleop Member That head line should be in all caps... To match the blaring commercials that go with cable tv.