Is TV dead? Streaming and video-on-demand services are growing, so does that mean regular, scheduled television is finished? investigates.
Jack van Beynen
If you’re a New Zealander, there’s a good chance you watch TV. A lot. Nearly four million of us plant ourselves in front of the box every week, and a typical viewer spends more than three-and-a-half hours a day there. That’s a full 24 hours of screen time every week.
However, the way we’re choosing to spend that full day of screen time is changing. A growing number of Kiwis are going online to watch when they want to instead of when the TV schedule allows. We’re ditching the flat-screen for smartphones, laptops, and tablets. We’re being seduced by subscription video on demand (SVOD) services.
These changes have led some commentators to proclaim that TV is on the way out. There’s talk about market fragmentation and disruption, plucky streaming services beating the broadcast dinosaurs at their own game.
But is television facing extinction in New Zealand? Or are claims of its death premature?
In September, New Zealand On Air (NZOA), the agency that funds New Zealand broadcast projects, proposed a new strategy for distributing money to people making TV shows.
If the new strategy is adopted, web series and other online-only content will be funded from the same pot of money as television. For the first time, broadcast TV and online video will be on the same footing.
You could read the new policy as a sign of TV’s decline – but if you did, NZOA chief executive Jane Wrightson would disagree with you.
Under NZOA’s new strategy (again, presuming it’s adopted in its current form), shows will receive funding if they’re set to be broadcast on a platform that can guarantee a certain number of viewers.
‘‘The larger the amount of money, the more eyeballs or ears we would expect,’’ Wrightson says.
In practice, that makes it unlikely online-only content will receive big money from NZOA; the vast majority of New Zealand’s ‘‘eyeballs’’ are fixed on broadcast television.
NZOA’s new funding strategy was informed by detailed research into the country’s viewing habits, which the organisation undertook earlier this year.
The research found that linear TV – that’s free-to-air or paid television watched on the box at the time it’s scheduled – reached 86 per cent of New Zealanders every week, more than any other form of media.
Although linear television has seen a nine per cent decline in reach since 2014, it is still the most popular media platform in the country.
‘‘You need to understand that an average television audience still is tens of thousands of viewers or hundreds of thousands of viewers. And it’s rare for online content to be in the tens of thousands – it’s often less than that,’’ Wrightson says.
Online video’s limited reach means that for the forseeable future, linear TV will be getting the lion’s share of NZOA’s video budget.
‘‘I don’t think we’re, any time soon, going to be seeing a $6m drama for online only, because the eyeballs simply aren’t there,’’ Wrightson says.
In August, TVNZ commissioned similar research that aimed to find out how New Zealanders were watching television.
For TVNZ – and other broadcast networks – that’s a multi-million dollar question. TVNZ is New Zealand’s biggest broadcast network, with an average of 2.2 million viewers every day. It owns the nation’s most popular channel, TVNZ 1, which reaches 40 per cent of the population daily.
Kathryn Mitchell, TVNZ group insights manager, says the TVNZ study confirmed that linear TV is ‘‘still the biggest game in town’’.
Importantly, it showed New Zealanders aren’t just tuning into freeto-air TV for a few minutes – they’re spending significant amounts of time there. A segment of viewers watched more than eight hours each day, and even viewers who mostly used SVOD services like Netflix or Lightbox to watch content still tuned in to free-toair every week.
Mitchell says one of the big takeaways from the research was that people wanted simplicity and ease when finding something to watch.
To meet that need, TVNZ has been investing in its OnDemand platform, which makes TVNZ content available to watch online. The platform now has more than 1.3 million registered users, of which around 270,000 use it each week.
TVNZ has also recently changed its approach to adding content to OnDemand. Previously the service has been seen as a way for viewers who missed an episode of their favourite show to catch up, but it’s now You need to understand that an average television audience still is tens of thousands of viewers or hundreds of thousands of viewers. And it’s rare for online content to be in the tens of thousands . . . becoming a destination to watch entire series. Where possible, TVNZ uploads all episodes of a show – The Hard Stuff with Nigel Latta, Our Big Blue Backyard and Terry Teo being recent examples – to the platform before they go to air. That means viewers don’t have to wait for the show to air on linear TV before they can watch it online.
‘‘We just want people to watch the content. We’re an ad-funded model, whether the ads are funded through linear or on demand, we just want to make sure viewers get to see our content,’’ Mitchell says. ‘‘If you’re on a TVNZ platform, we’re happy.’’
Mediaworks, which owns free-to-air channels TV3 and Bravo, is putting a similar emphasis on its online platform, 3NOW.
Chief commercial officer Glen Kyne says there’s ‘‘no question’’ viewer behaviour is changing – but that doesn’t mean they’re abandoning linear TV.
‘‘Our perspective is there’s no question that audiences are changing how they’re consuming, hence why TVNZ and us are investing heavily in our online platform.
‘‘And so what we’re seeing is not total audience loss, we’re seeing transition of audiences.’’
Kyne’s role at Mediaworks sees him pitching to prospective advertisers, and when he does he emphasises that the size of television’s audience makes it the best platform to drive both revenue and brand awareness. In the UK, television spend is on the increase among advertisers.
He is quick to point out that in 2015, more people watched more hours of television than in 2005. The reason for that, Kyne says, is because there’s better content available across all channels.
‘‘There’s all this talk about fragmentation and disruption, but at the end of the day the reason you and I flick the channel or do what I do is because of content choices. And the content choices on free-to-air TV are better than ever.’’
As a brand, Mediaworks’ focus is