After years of feeling threatened by technology, executives in the television business are seeing paths to profits from changes in the way viewers are consuming programming.
The threats have been clear: While Netflix and Amazon and other over-the-top streamers would steal viewers, Google, Yahoo and other online powerhouses are pushing to do upfront deals, grabbing TV ad dollars, and DVRs like Dish Network's Hopper and its auto-hop feature could make watching commercials a thing of the past. But for 2013 at least, traditional TV has stood its ground, and that should continue in 2014.
Ads and the Economy
On top of a slowly improving economy, ad spending will get a boost from the Sochi Olympics and midterm elections in 2014. And among media, TV seems to be standing up to the shift to digital better than other traditional forms. In a recent forecast, Interpublic Group's media-buying unit, Magna Global, said it expects 8.6% growth for TV spending in the U.S., with national TV up 4.3%. TV ad spending has been buttressed by new research techniques that come closer to pinpointing the return on investment advertisers get when they buy commercials-something marketers believe they get when they advertise online.
Cashing in on Delayed Viewing
Compared with the 2012-13 season, when viewership for the broadcast networks dropped sharply, ratings, especially commercial ratings, have been stable. And without falling ratings to worry about, networks have turned their attention to measuring and monetizing more of the delayed and on- demand viewing of their programming. CBS CEO Leslie Moonves continues to agitate for using C7 ratings- which would include commercials watched during DVR playback for seven days after air instead of the current three counted in C3 ratings. The change would benefit some programmers more than others. Broadcasters would cash in because network shows account for about two-thirds of DVR playback, while 39% of live viewing goes to cable. Sports networks, powerhouses in other departments, would see scant gains from a change in the ratings currency.
Dollars on Demand
While the DVR has long been seen as a threat to advertising, TV programmers are enamored of VOD, especially as part of the TV Everywhere ecosystem, which has been slowly but surely developing. VOD deals with cable operators call for the fast-forward button to be disabled, which means subscribers almost have to watch commercials. Comcast, which, not incidently, owns NBCUniversal, says that commercial ratings are much higher in its markets than elsewhere, because of the way it has been pushing VOD. During last year's upfront, many networks sold VOD ads, believing that in 2014, dynamic ad insertion, which enables cable operators to insert new commercials into older shows viewed on-demand, should reach critical mass.
Young and Online
On top of that, more viewers are finding network shows online on those network's websites. That allows the programmers access to the younger viewers who aren't watching on traditional TV. CBS says viewers of its content online have a median age of 40, or 16 years younger than its on-air viewers. Both online viewing and TV Everywhere should get a boost from Hulu, which owners Disney, 21st Century Fox and Comcast decided not to sell and named longtime distribution exec Mike Hopkins to run.
Fees Going Up
CBS' beat-down of Time Warner Cable in their retransmission battle in August was a harbinger that retransmission and other carriage fees are likely to continue to rise in 2014. Speaking at an investor conference in December, 21st Century Fox COO Chase Carey said the company is getting only a fraction of what it should receive and that fees should be an area of long-term growth. And the networks expect affiliates to kick in their share of retransmission costs. When CBS hired Elizabeth Tumulty as president, affiliate relations, it noted that a key part of her job would be ensuring that CBS receives full value for its content.
Wall Street Is Watching
In a rising market, TV stocks have been among the best performers. Wall Street likes predictably rising fees and steady ad revenue. Even better, investors like the way media companies are taking the profits they're making and returning them to shareholders in the form of stock buybacks and dividend increases. Add in the possibility of mergers and acquisitions creating a more consolidated business and things are likely to be looking up in 2014 from a financial perspective.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
After years of feeling threatened by technology, executives in the television business are seeing paths to profits from changes in the way viewers are consuming programming.
