TV Predictions: What Will Happen in the Next 3 Years?
Author: Kelly Dulin
I recently read a CNBC article titled: "What will TV look like in three years?" and was struck by the range of answers given by industry executives. I also didn't see any representation from the ad agency side, which I feel is valuable given how closely we watch these trends.
So here are my thoughts and answers to the questions posed in this article.
In three years, will legacy TV effectively die?
I believe Mark Twain wrote, "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated," and I believe the same is true regarding the so-called demise of linear television. Nobody will deny we're living in a world where big changes are happening—and happening very quickly. According to insiderintelligence.com, households subscribing to traditional cable television will decrease from 90.3 million in 2018 to 54.3 million in 2026, with 2023 being the first year non-pay households outnumber cable households.
Credit: insiderintelligence.com
That said, however, in terms of sheer scale, it's hard to beat linear TV. When cable and broadcast TV are combined, they account for 55.6% of television viewing compared to 38.1% for streaming, according to Nielsen.
Credit: Nielsen
One only has to look at the Nielsen Top 10 Rated programs on a weekly basis to see that Live Sports dominates viewing for both broadcast and cable. Most awards shows, like the Grammys or Oscars, are viewed on linear TV. Local news is, too. In comparison, what tends to dominate streaming platforms is fiction programming such as (recently) The Last of Us (HBO Max), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Disney+), and Your Place or Mine (Netflix).
At Eicoff, our job as media buyers is to place our clients' ads into the programs and platforms that make sense for them. In most cases, the answer is a combination of linear and streaming. The reality is they reach two different audiences. We can see outcomes for both linear and streaming (aka Connected TV or CTV) in the same measurement platform, and for clients that do both, we've never seen the overlap in audiences from both campaigns be higher than 10%, meaning each campaign is doing its job reaching its own audience with their allocated dollars.
So no, I don't think traditional linear TV will be anywhere close to dead in three years. I think budgets will follow viewership, and as streaming grows, more dollars will be allocated as such.
In three years, which major streaming services will definitely exist?
I'd be hard pressed to say any of the current services will shut down in the next three years, but I do think the amount of original content being produced will certainly slow down. As a reminder, Eicoff's own Bill McCabe predicted in 2016 that Netflix would start accepting ads to help generate revenue to offset the cost of producing the expensive shows that are their mainstay.
What happens to cable entertainment networks? Will they be sold? Shut down? Or will it look the same?
I'm of the opinion that a few cable entertainment networks will cease to exist and be replaced with over-the-air diginets. When broadcast stations made the switch from analog to digital in the mid 2000s, they were given subchannels to program and most, if not all, used their existing libraries full of classic reruns to start new stations. The trend lately with diginets is to launch with content that mimics existing cable stations—smart thinking because these stations know cord cutters are looking for that same content they loved in the cable universe. Two recently launched stations include: 1) Story Television, which has content originally from the A&E/History Channel libraries, and 2) Twist, which carries programming similar to what HGTV and the old DIY network aired.
What’s one thing that will become a TV standard that doesn’t exist today?
This is certainly fun to think about! I imagine there might be one-off ways to purchase content from streaming services without buying a monthly package. If there's a movie or one program you want to watch, you could do so for a nominal fee.
While it’s impossible to predict the exact path of TV and all its platforms as they continually evolve, I’m excited about the ever-growing opportunities we’re seeing across both linear and streaming.