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Viewing habits are changing but live is still central to the TV experience
Television’s biggest shows are amongst the most timeshifted, and therefore have an outsized impact on the decline of live viewing debate
Viewing—not just of news and sport—is still overwhelmingly live, despite differences across genres and broadcasters
Sales of used and new cars fell 18% in 2020, impacted by the pandemic’s closure of forecourts, and bottlenecks in the supply chain. Consumer demand for private over public transport has strengthened, however, pointing to a recovery of car sales in 202.
Market leader Auto Trader posted a 29% revenue decline in the year ending in March 2021, largely from necessary but self-imposed subscription holidays. Auto Trader revenues are set to rebound in 2021 as the car market’s recovery emerges.
The pandemic accelerated the transition of the consumer car buying journey from the physical forecourt to the digital space. Fully digital transactions are edge-case, but there is huge opportunity for scale players to facilitate transactions—needless to say, Auto Trader looks to be a key winner.
Across a range of genres, distinct local programming skews in popularity with the regional audiences it reflects. For example, Derry Girls’ viewing share in Northern Ireland is over 40% higher than across the rest of the UK.
However, market forces have cemented the dominance of London and the South East in terms of television production.
Moving more Public Service Media activity outside the M25 will rebalance production away from London, help fulfil a key commitment to serve all UK audiences, and differentiate PSM content from international services.
Gill said “There's been a lot of stuff that Ofcom have done in the past with the industry as well about actually trying to understand the number of different ethnicities that are employed behind the screens, in front of camera, on the production side [and] across the entire industry."
Jamie said GB News had succeeded in winning over a dedicated audience even if viewing numbers were below what the channel might have hoped for.
“It is becoming clear that fewer and fewer are experimenting with the channel, but it is finding a core audience.There was always going to be a launch pop and then a decline."
Claire said it felt like a “renaissance [in media] that is just getting going."
“There’s an awful lot of liquidity in the US market in particular, and huge amounts of consolidation there. It’s basically incredibly cheap debt."
With the O2/Virgin Media merger now approved, VodafoneZiggo in the Netherlands may hold clues to their likely approach to the market although their starting point is not quite the same and some lessons may have been learned.
We remain sceptical of the merits of discount-led convergence strategies. The pandemic, however, has eased the route to cross-selling and strengthened the case for convergent technologies.
Virgin Media’s network strategy will be key with significant risks from wholesaling their cable network and from expanding their footprint.
Julian said "With the increasing fragmentation of viewing across different platforms, ITV remains one of the few places advertisers can go to reach mass audiences simultaneously, which is why it commands such a premium for its airtime during a big event such as an England football game.”
