Death and Life of TV

The Death And Life Of Television
A post I missed from The Ad Contrarian: “Even though people have the opportunity to watch video on their computers and cellphones, TV accounts for 99 percent of all video consumed in 2008…” Interesting point of view and an unarguable stat (there are many more in the article). Except: what are people watching and how are they watching it on “TV” – in its many forms? I don’t think we should return to the TV-Centric dystopia of th3 50s-90s, but neither should we discount TVs undoubted power. I wonder if the Contrarian was railing against :30 ads back in the day they were the advertisers’ default choice?

DVRs: Not quite such a threat after all
According to the most recent estimates from Nielsen, nearly one-third of all television households have a DVR, and the device is far from its saturation point. Still, media people may not need to fear a huge dropoff in commercial viewing due to time-shifted viewing.

Stats: Twitter (50%), DVRs (20%), Web Banners (1%)

50% of Twitter Registrants Have Never Tweeted

Despite significant growth in the number of Twitter accounts since last year, 53% of those who have registered with the much-publicized micro-blogging service have no followers, 56% are not following anyone, and 55% have never even tweeted, according to a report from HubSpot.

Soon 20% set to ad-skip on DVR

About one-third of homes now have DVRs, and the total number of ads skipped is only about 6 percent across DVR and non-DVR households, but Schultz is predicting that in two years the number of DVR households will increase to 50 percent and the percent of ads skipped in all TV households will rise to 20 percent.

Only 1% find web banners “helpful”

A new report from Harris (measuring the temperature with a ruler again) claims that over one-third of Americans (37%) say TV ads are most helpful to them in making a purchase decision, while nearly half say they ignore internet banner ads. In terms of the helpfulness of ads in other media, newspapers rank second behind TV, with 17% reporting that newspaper ads are most helpful, while 14% say the same about internet search-engine ads. At the other end of the spectrum, Radio ads (3%) and internet banner ads (1%) are not considered helpful by many. The poll found that more than one fourth (28%) of Americans say that none of these types of advertisements are helpful to them in the purchase-decision-making process.

US Adults Spend Eight Hours A Day In Front Of A Screen

Adults Spend 8 Hours a Day in Front of a Screen, Study Finds
The average American adult is exposed to various screens — TV, personal computers, cell phones, video games, GPS units and more — for about 8.5 hours every day, according to a Nielsen-backed study conducted by Ball State University‘s Center for Media Design. The study followed 350 test subjects and tracked their viewing instead of using the traditional method of allowing subjects to report on their media consumption. Adults ages 45 to 54 spend on average one hour per day more with screens than others. Overall, Americans are exposed to just more than five hours of live TV per day compared with 15 minutes of DVR playback and 2.4 minutes of computer video.

Among other finds:

– computer video consumption tends to be quite small with an average time of just over two minutes a day.

– Adults spend an average of 6.5 minutes a day with videogame consoles with the number rising to 26 minutes a day among those aged 18-24

– Adults spend an average 142 minutes a day in front of computer screens

– Adults spend an average 20 minutes a day engaged with mobile devices with the highest usage — 43 minutes a day — among the 18-24 age group

WANT, Hand Me Down

WANT: Fake Retail Encourages Saving Money

WANT is an interactive (anti) retail experience created by the the University of Washington’s Environmental Design class. The exhibit is designed to make learning about saving money a pleasurable experience. Actual goods are replaced with lookalike objects that preach the benefits of thrift. It’s an interesting subversion, encoding a message at-odds with the inherent nature of the retail environment.

Less stuff

Clearly, most of us are consuming far more than we need or should. We live in a culture characterized by planned obsolescence and throwaway fashion. And some progressive brands like howies with their hand me down range are beginning to address the issue.