Bottom-Line: Media Cos. Must Restructure Or Face Consequences

TV's SHRINKING AUDIENCE NOT ALL SHIFTING TO WEB
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Abbey Klaassen]
Last week a meme rumbled through the web touting the writers strike as the booster behind increased online-video traffic. The assumption was logical but incorrect. To be clear, online video is growing, strike or no strike. But a look at the Nielsen Online video trend report (a compilation of 10 major video sites) suggests little visible acceleration between November, when the strike began, and December, the most recent month for which viewer data are available. In fact, by unique visitors, December was actually down from November, although time spent with video sites was up. And a look at the past 13 months indicates that the recent fluctuation is nothing out of the ordinary. Online-video usage grew more in June than it did in December or November. Even if marketers looking to replace the 11% drop in prime-time ratings decide to shift millions into the online-video marketplace, there's not nearly enough inventory. And a big issue is the scale difference between the two channels: 1.5 million views online is considered a hit, while an audience of 1.5 million on broadcast is a failure.
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