Popular opinion says television audiences are collapsing. But the data tells a different story. Amanda Wisniewski reports.

The popular narrative on the primetime drama that is the Paradox of Television Advertising holds that audiences are falling off a cliff, with our favourite anti-hero, digital media, poised to soon administer the coup d’grace with a hard shove from behind.

The problem with this scenario is that, like many scenarios that play out on TV, it isn’t happening in reality. Despite all the talk of plummeting TV audiences, and of consumers turning to streaming and skipping the ads, the truth is TV advertising still delivers an incomparable level of mass reach that other channels can only aspire to.

Let’s look at some numbers: broadcast TV still reaches two million people every day, 3.1 million people every week and 3.8 million people every month. That’s two-thirds of all adults watching broadcast TV every week, with more than three in five of them in the coveted 25 to 54 demographic.

Richard McRae is Head of Media and Digital Marketing at One, specialising in media. “You can get cheaper reach running on other media platforms,” he says, “but you’ve got people’s attention for about two seconds. “On TV, you have a longer time to tell your story, and you can also earn audience engagement through the quality of your advertising. A little bit before my time when everyone watched the six o’clock news, Shortland Street and Country Calendar. If you put an ad in those three spots you could reach half the country. “That’s not quite the case today, but a well- planned media schedule on TV will still allow you to reach a significant amount of people at the same time.”

If no one is watching, then who are all these people?

A truer criticism of TV is not that it’s losing reach, but that average daily time spent viewing has fallen – from around 260 minutes a day five years ago, to 216 minutes a day last year. It’s still three and a half hours a day. This drop-off in time spent viewing is probably predictable, given the multitude of options now competing with TV for viewers’ attention, but it also shows that overall the medium has held its ground remarkably well.

The ‘audience loss’ that TV is apparently experiencing, isn’t actually an audience loss at all. Broadcast TV is delivering to the same number of adults in a week as it was five years ago – in the crazy days of Covid, when we couldn’t do anything much except walk the dog and watch our screens all day. While TV’s plunging audiences are a constant source of conversation, in truth the reach of broadcast TV across almost every demographic has remained incredibly stable over time.

Even the elusive younger market is still watching TV, and their numbers are relatively stable, with 44% of the commercially desirable 18 to 39s watching TV every week, and a five-year compound annual growth rate analysis showing a fall of just 2.9% per annum.

While TV is traded mostly against a commercial demographic of 25-54 year olds, who represent 41% of the population and 43% of TV’s total audience delivery, the medium actually delivers to a much broader audience than that. There are another 3.1 million consumers outside of that group, and on average for every 25 to 54-year-old reached by a campaign, another 2.4 adults outside of the target are also reached.

“Then there’s attention.” McRae says. “Reach and share of voice are just two of the metrics we look at. With our agency, FCB, we use attention modelling alongside marketing mix modelling to determine our optimal channel splits and ROI. “We also track brand awareness and consideration. What we’re really after is meaningful reach – people who are not just watching, but actually paying attention. Two seconds of someone watching an ad doesn’t count for much, but watching the entire ad does. “TV is particularly effective at driving the consideration we need. Creative storytelling is a great way to engage people, getting them interested in what you’re communicating, and TV is a medium where our brand work has a significant impact, including when it comes to driving sales.”

The highest ROI of any channel – use it or lose it

The growth of digital has been exceptionally powerful for marketers, and especially for smaller brands with tighter constraints on budget. But there’s nothing in digital yet to rival the reach of TV, or its ROI.

Recent research published by ThinkBox in the UK shows TV consistently delivers the highest return on investment of any medium across both the short and long-term. “I’ve heard people say, ‘Use it while you can,’” McRae says. “I don’t know if I would agree with that, but it is still one of the most effective ways to reach a large amount of the population at once. There are too few opportunities now to do that on the media landscape. “I also know that we see from our recent brand work it’s a great way to become ingrained in the culture. “I hear my kids quoting lines from different ads, ours included, which happens when you’re running a consistent presence on TV and other channels as well. TV is a big part of getting that repetition, using the reach and the frequency.”