Discuss the ways in which the major Television Networks have tried to Stop Audience Erosion over the years without much Success. What should they do?

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nIntroduction

nThe major television networks have tried to stop audience erosion by introducing youth-oriented TV stations, gaming, and social media programs, but these efforts have produced limited success. In the recent past, major television networks have recorded a significant drop in the viewership. For instance, the viewership of the Big Four Broadcaster in the US including the Fox, NBC, CBS, and ABC has dropped alarmingly over the past two years. The advancement of technology and rise in the use of social media has greatly revolutionized the preference of television. Conventional television networks are facing stiff competition from new kind of entertainment such as Snapchat, Facebook, and Netflix, which young generation prefer to use and spend much of their time (Jordan 2012). In this regard, the television networks are grappling with this disturbing trend. Audience erosion precisely refers to the migration of a particular age group especially the youth generation from the use of television to other new media. The age group is very crucial to the success of television industry since they are young, and with the desire to spend more (Landau 2015). Additionally, the youth are the major targets of the advertisers using television channels to promote their products. Consequently, ratings have noted that televisions stations such as BBC, MediaCorp in Singapore, American Broadcast Company (ABC), and have registered a drop in revenue because a small number of advertisers are willing to pay more for a fewer number of targeted TV audiences (Evans 2015). Therefore, audience erosion must be managed to prevent undesirable effects witnessed in major television networks across the globe.

nTelevision has lost its popularity among most of the young people. The current generation of youth below 25 years considers television to be an old-fashioned form of communication and entertainment. For instance, television has fixed programme schedule, hence becoming unpopular among the young people (Jordan 2012). Instead, they need a flexible channel, which can provide an opportunity to view whatever they desire at their desired time and place (Westlund and Weibull 2013). In fact, many youths across the world have shunned television but have migrated to their favourite platforms such as Amazon Prime or Netflix, which allows them to enjoy any show at the desired time. For that reason, this has contributed to rise in audience erosion among this group of people.

nOn the other hand, the popularity of digital channels has risen in the recent past. The use of Snapchat and Facebook has increased to the detriment of TV because it enables them to watch and share videos from celebrities and friends (Evans 2015). Therefore, the internet has transformed the tastes and preferences of the viewers, the type of existing video programming, and the manner in which they watch it. Gradually, it has started to interrupt television programmes, and earnings (Cushion and Sambrook 2016). The popularity of the TV in America is declining immensely. For instance, viewership of cable and broadcast TV has dropped by 11 per cent by all ages since 2010 (Sehl, Cornia and Nielsen 2016). More importantly, the trend among persons aged 12-24 years have declined by 40 per cent. Most of these people never pay for television bundles. In this regard, the television stations have failed to adapt to the new trend.

nStrategies to stop Audience Erosion

nSome television companies have launched TV stations exclusively for the youths. For instance, BBC has launched youth-oriented TV station in order to arrest audience erosion. The BBC3 was paying close attention to the programmes, which were previously ignored by commercial channels (Newman, Levy and Nielsen 2015). In addition, the channel was designed to offer only 15-minute news per day with numerous 60-second updates (Landau 2015). It dedicated less than 15 hours on business, religion, and science combined. Later in early 2016, the company decided to switch off the station to save the cost of running the channel, which would be redirected, into drama programs, which are aired on BBC1. It shifted its focus to online viewing (Westlund and Weibull 2013). Notably, the move has led to negative effects on the company as it has recorded a drop of over 20 per cent in viewership, especially among the younger viewers. The statistics illustrated that audience aged 16-34 years have not benefited from the transfer of BBC3 to the online-only TV. The research noted that some of the viewers are affected by the slow connection of the broadband or the internet hence they could not stream effectively (Barnett 2011). Additionally, the new online TV has increased the barrier to access, as many young people could not access some of the programmes on the television. It also suffered from lack of diversity since it failed to demonstrate representation of minority people such as Asians, Africans and Latinos. The move to initiate online-only TV has also caused massive harm to the future development of TV viewers and the new talents. Reports also suggest that the online TVs have compromised on the quality of the content (Sehl, Cornia and Nielsen 2016). Therefore, the strategies implemented by the TV channel were counterproductive in reducing audience erosion because the shift to online-only TV may promote further downfall of BBC.

nOther TV stations have also attempted to use innovative strategies such as gaming, youth-based videos, and social media programs to deal with audience erosion. For instance, MediaCorp in Singapore has devoted its finances on production of online gaming to attract young viewers. It entered a deal with Asian Cubinet Interactive aiming to acquire the diversity of casual online games. The main aim is to capture the youth market in Asia and arrest the audience erosion (Cushion 2011). In turn, it intends to convert the online content into popular television shows. Other media such as NBC News have initiated a program dubbed “Stay Tuned” which is designed to serve social media users, particularly through Snapchat. Based on Nielsen reports, the number of its viewership is on a downward trajectory since most people are receiving news through the internet (Westlund and Weibull 2013). The introduction of “Stay Tuned”, was also aimed at delivering news of greater interest to the young people between 18 to 24 years. Moreover, ABC News also launched an initiative named ATTN, which offers up-to-date issue, and youth-based videos through the social media sites. The ATTN was designed to meet the demands of the younger generations. Other companies such as ABC have introduced “The Briefing Room” which allows users to stream online through its website (Evans 2015). Nonetheless, the initiatives have not recorded significant success in stopping the audience erosion.

nMajor television networks have over the years used subscription systems for audiences to watch entertainment videos at home but this has been hampered in several ways. Firstly, many youths are moving towards the Internet where they can watch the free videos on Snapchat, YouTube, and Instagram (Cushion 2011). Advertisements support free videos on the social media sites, which reduce the conventional TVs revenues currently, valued approximately $185 billion. Moreover, the social media such as Snapchat, Whatsapp, and Facebook have scale required to engage their users for a longer period as compared to TV. A survey conducted by Sehl, Cornia and Nielsen (2016) noted that users of Facebook use more than an hour a day on this platform. Therefore, major television stations appear unattractive to the young generation to the detriment of their viewership.

nAudience erosion is causing a crisis among the conventional TV networks. For instance, the ratings of prime time in the Big Four Broadcaster including the Fox, NBC, CBS, and ABC have dropped alarmingly over the past two years (Evans 2015). Some of the hit TV programmes such as “Dancing with the Stars” and “American Idol” have recorded lower ratings. Following the slumping of TV viewership due to audience erosion, many television networks have attempted to persuade advertisers to expend more resources on the reality shows and latest drama (Sehl, Cornia and Nielsen 2016). Nonetheless, most of the promoters argue that the use of television in advertising their products is untenable owing to its higher charges coupled with declining number of viewers especially their target customers (Jordan 2012). For this reason, the ads buyers are convinced that they cannot achieve their objective of reaching a higher number of potential customers from television. Subsequently, to compensate for the audience erosion and maintain the high rate of ad sales, the major TV networks have continued to increase their rates, thinking that ad purchasers will have to expend more financial resources to reach their target customers (Westlund and Weibull 2013). Moreover, TV ratings have shrunk for more than 33 per cent in the past half a decade. Surprisingly, the charges for the TV ads have increased for than 20 per cent in the same period. In this regard, most advertisers are concerned about the audience erosion to other new media. Therefore, they are interested in investing money to where they have a higher chance of reaching their potential consumers (Landau 2015).

nThe social media platforms are more popular than TV subscription services because they are cost effective. For instance, they can view the finest quality video on Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix as well as other streaming channels. Such channels have lower subscription rate of between $8 and $12 per month to watch videos as compared to over $100 per month for TV bill (Newman, Levy and Nielsen 2015). Therefore, the economies of scales are encouraging audience erosion to social media at the expense of cable TV. Furthermore, as the number of televisions continued to increase, audiences had a wide range of stations to choose from, which discouraged subscription televisions (Jordan 2012). Subsequently, most of advertisers have been transferring their promotion advertisements to the Internet where they intend to interact with more target clients.

nMajor television networks in the world are changing the programming of dramas, documentary and business in an attempt to attract more viewers and stop audience erosion. The majority of the television networks have changed their outlook in respect to the audience (Landau 2015). They pay more attention to trying to please the audience by generating programmes that would charm to the audiences tastes. Nonetheless, in doing so they are drifting away from the perfect mission and role of the public service stations. Additionally, they are delivering viewers to advertisers. On the other hand, influential digital media are evolving from outside the conventional television programming (Jordan 2012). The new form of media is equipped with essentially unique business models and inspirations to participate with customers through video services. The digital media have facilitated in altering the responsibility of distribution as a crucial source of value (Napoli 2011). As the television, industry drifts from incentives-based models that are connected to the value chain to one in which disintermediation is promising than ever before (Evans 2015). Already, the new media is able to conduct three functions at simultaneously such as distribution, aggregation and content creation. Moreover, TV networks are trying to take advantage of the latest concerns about the products being advertised next to violent and unpleasant videos on YouTube and Facebook (Napoli 2011). For this reason, they have portrayed television networks as a safe mode of promotion relative to social media networks (Landau 2015). However, this has not prevented viewers and advertisers to migrate to new and popular social media sites in a bid to get up-to-data information and share their favourite videos and movies while companies intends to boost their performance in the market.

nThe digital media have transformed the consumer services in many ways. For instance, for a long time, streaming video failed to threaten conventional TV programming because the files shared through these systems were exceptionally huge, and they needed significant network and bandwidth capacity (Westlund and Weibull 2013). However, the advancement of technology has enabled digital media to catch up as it has invested in infrastructure, which enables delivery of long content to the mass audience. Consequently, the new developed has put at risk the traditional television programming at risk (Landau 2015). Digital over-the-top (OTT) which relies on the Internet such as Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Netflix has matured swiftly. Consequently, they are reducing the market share of conventional satellites and cable television companies. Reports indicate that OTT is expected to develop from nearly 10 per cent of the entire value of video industry in the US in 2014 to over 20 per cent by 2018 (Westlund and Weibull 2013). Notably, there are over one hundred subscription-based, ad-free OTT services functioning in the US, which increased the challenge of how to stop audience erosion (Jordan 2012). In this regard, digital media has succeeded in attracting more young people since they are innovative, interesting, and easily accessible as compared to the TV.

nThe extra costs charged by the TV networks are acting against attempts to prevent audience erosion. In this respect, most young viewers are interested in using the multichannel-video-programming distributors (MVPDs) as compared to traditional televisions. More recently, most of TV networks entered distribution deals intended to gain better rates in return for lesser penetration floors (Küng 2015). Therefore, where televisions stations may previously have needed MVPDs to dispense their content to about 90 per cent of their subscribers, the new agreement have reduced the floor 70 per cent. For this reason, MVPDs have acquired the ability to sell a series of pared-down, lower-priced services to entice charge-mindful consumers who are not interested in payment of $80 per month for television subscriptions (Evans 2015). In addition, the introducing of digital MVPDs has also encouraged most viewers. The promotion of PlayStation Vue and Sling TV has transformed the viewers tastes because they have access to a collection of online channels that offer competition to the traditional television since they provide linear and live programming (Sehl, Cornia and Nielsen 2016). Therefore, high cost of subscription of TVs has worked against the attempts by the networks to control audience erosion.

nDue to effects of globalization, the majority of traditional television networks have been significantly affected by consumerism. Most of the television stations including the public TV networks have concentrated on the generation of profits at the expense of their viewers. The TV networks have substantially become dependent on the advertising resources (Jordan 2012). Moreover, most of these use visuals to communicate a story, which works against the audience. For this reason, it does not arrest the audience erosion. Moreover, in an attempt to stop viewership erosion, most media have neglected other crucial roles in the society including being a source of information and education. However, most of the public television broadcasters are funded through taxpayers money (Landau 2015). Overemphasizes on profits instead of quality affects the type of content produced. Traditional TV stations have also abandoned their main role by adopting populist mode. For instance, they have established many programmes to entice the youths. However, research by Newman, Levy and Nielsen (2015) noted that traditional media have failed to arrest audience erosion, as the Internet through social media becomes the new source of information (Newman, Levy and Nielsen 2015). Therefore, TVs have lost their relevance among most young people across the world as they consider digital media as the most essential and relevant for entertainment and education purposes.

nThe traditional media stations have also modified their content distribution and development in order to eliminate audience erosion. As the audience turn out to be more conscious of the value-to-price ratio in TV viewing, the time of passing permit payment upsurges along to customers is over. Consequently, it has escalated tension between multichannel-video-programming distributors (MVPDs) and cable networks (Evans 2015). Television networks are spending huge amount of resources to improve must-see programming. They are inclined to produce hit content, which has turn out to be a key differentiator and a rising source of opportunity for cable networks (Jordan 2012). Subsequently, the TV networks have started to reduce on administrative, general, and selling expenses to acquire money for content development. Since 2004, the expenses on the three areas reduced from 35 per cent to less than 22 per cent in 2015. In the meantime, expenses on innovative programming have risen. Television networks used more than $45 billion to improve the content of their programming, which led to invention of nearly 350 innovative titles (Evans 2015). However, this strategy is not effective in reducing viewership erosion because the on-demand audience is changing. In fact, most young viewers are inclined to online linear programming. For instance, they are interested in studios operating directly with networks as well as MVPDs functioning directly with networks (Sehl, Cornia and Nielsen 2016). Additionally, they tend to favour multiplatform, which further alienates them from traditional televisions. The new trend is a huge problem for television journalism. It threatens the role of TV news has contributed in the past century in different parts of the world (Westlund and Weibull 2013). In addition, it affects the business models used by TV especially commercials applicable in the news.

nSolutions

nTelevision remains an important part of human tradition because of its usefulness in the society. Therefore, there is need to initiate a number of restructuring in order to remain competitive and viable in the market (Sehl, Cornia and Nielsen 2016). One of the key solutions to arrest audience erosion is to introduce ad breaks in the TV news. Although viewers have embraced commercials that are predominantly relevant, it prevents trends towards viewing ad-free sites, fewer commercials can be extremely exciting (Jordan 2012). Some of the TV networks are reducing the amount of time per hour spent on commercials during primetime. For instance, Viacom has slashed commercial time from 18 to 14 while TNT and TruTV to less than 10 minutes per hour. Similarly, the amount of commercial time in dramas should be reduced (Küng 2015). For instance, Fox aired “Empire” with minimal commercials in order to encourage viewership. The move promotes brand effect, establishes higher brand affinity, engagement, and recall (Lotz 2014). Studies have indicated that reducing the advertisements clutter offers the audience a good experience and better outcome to the advertisers with success in both ad purchase intent and recall (Cushion and Sambrook 2016).

nSecondly, the industry should also establish adverts that are more engaging to customers. More importantly, there should provide opportunities for both the viewer and the markets (Napoli 2011). Similarly, the TV networks should also create private exchanges to sell both digital and traditional advertisement inventory with a higher level of automation and utilization of data (Lotz 2014). In this regard, a programmatic approach should be used to automate the exchange of adverts.

nIn order to remain relevant in the industry by stopping the audience erosion the major television networks such as BBC should start production of the Subscription video-on-demand services (SVODs). In this way, they would succeed in creating valuable content for more young people in their networks (Doyle 2016). Because of fragmentation in the TV industry, introduction of new networks does not arrest the trend. Therefore, the TV networks should structure and design a release sequence that accomplishes exposure to large section of the population. Since the youth market is drifting towards SVODs through Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, the TV networks should also create a distinctive platform that would be sustained by this ever-increasing demand (Doyle 2016). More importantly, they should invest in programs that ensure that they come up to be different from a local broadcaster.

nConclusion

nMajor television networks are facing a major challenge as one of the most important segments of their customers – the youth, are migrating to digital media. The audience erosion is a big problem to the TV industry because young people between below 25 years are no longer interested in watching television (Küng 2015). In fact, it has threatened the industry as the revenues and profits decline. On the other hand, online-based platforms such as Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Netflix have attracted a significant number of youth owing to their innovative process (Barnett 2011). The subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) in such sites has increased tremendously in the last few years (Lotz 2014). Most of the strategies such as establishment of youth-oriented media and online-only television have failed to arrest this migration. Therefore, in order to remain relevant in the industry, the TV networks should invest in creating SVODs, which supplies unique content for the youth.

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nReferences

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nCushion, S. 2011. Television Journalism. Sage

nCushion, S. and Sambrook, R., 2016. The future of 24-hour news: new directions, new challenges. Peter Lang International Academic Publishers.

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nWestlund, O., and Weibull, L. 2013. ‘Generation, Life Course and News Media Use in Sweden 1986–2011, Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook 11 (1): 147–73. doi:10.1386/nl.11.1.147_1