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First there was the Golden Age of TV. Then there was Peak TV. Now … all hell is breaking loose.
“We’re amid a linear to streaming transition, and it’s being accelerated by a pending content drought from the Hollywood strikes,” Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at Forrester, told Adweek. “Just like many of us are experiencing hybrid work, we are also experiencing hybrid television.”
Hybrid TV is leaving consumers confused and increasingly penny-pinched as networks and streamers fight for ad dollars and attention through rebrands, bundles, ad tiers and content cross-pollination.
As an example of the disruption, Max, which dropped HBO from its name last year, is now streaming live news from CNN; Disney, which is fast-tracking its Hulu and Disney+ merger, is bringing its streaming-only series Only Murders in the Building to ABC; and, most confusingly, Paramount has rebranded Showtime’s linear channel as Paramount+ With Showtime, but it won’t include all the Paramount+ offerings.
“It’s kind of this messy middle right now,” Proulx said.
Emphasis on messy.
Adweek recently caught up with more than two dozen analysts, TV executives and ad sales insiders to see where the industry was headed in 2024. Within the wide-ranging responses, several themes rose to the top:
The battle for ad dollars
Linear TV fell below 50% of viewing for the first time in 2023, and according to Insider Intelligence, retail media spend will soon pass traditional TV and double it by 2027.
So the new fight for video dollars is all digital.
“The next phase of the streaming war is embarking on the battle for ad revenue and profitability,” Proulx said.
SVOD is already a thing of the past. Now, streamers blatantly raise ad-free prices to push consumers to ad-supported plans and CTV offerings as they look to ramp up revenue per user.
“The proliferation of ad-supported streaming such as AVOD and FAST channels has shaken up the streaming landscape,” Dina Roman, senior vice president of global ad sales at Fubo, said.
And the ad push is working.
Paul Verna, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, told Adweek the number of streamers making more than a billion in advertising will jump from four in 2023 to seven in 2024, with Pluto, Tubi and Peacock joining Hulu, YouTube, Roku and Amazon. Meanwhile, Disney and Netflix aren’t far behind.
Prepare to bundle up
In addition to ad dollars taking center stage, experts expect more consolidation, bundling and licensing in the upcoming year as streamers and networks reach across the aisle to fight fragmentation and reduce churn.
“What’s really interesting is some of the recent alliances or bundling between competitors in digital. That’s something that hadn’t happened much before,” Verna said. “Under pressure from consumer sentiment and consumer behavior, these rival streaming services are going to have to work together.”
Plus, even more disruption is on the way.
“In 2024, the blurring of the lines between linear, digital and streaming will lead to an active period of creative ways of bundling and re-bundling premium video, which will transform the TV industry,” said Marianne Gambelli, president of ad sales, marketing and brand partnerships at Fox Corporation.
The rise in AI, new measurement and targeted tech
With the rise in streaming comes an increase in TV tech, and 2024 will accelerate that trend for targeted marketing, predictive audience behavior and creative opportunities.
“In 2023, there were a lot of general conversations around AI,” Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. advertising sales officer, Warner Bros. Discovery, said. “The focus in 2024 should be on actual use.”
Along with upgraded tech comes new measurement standardization and adoption as the industry continues to shift away from Nielsen as a de facto currency.
“Ad buyers and sellers in the TV advertising ecosystem are bracing for a sea change in measurement,” Verna said.
Everything is cable
With the caveat of the added capabilities that come with streaming, such as on-demand consumption and viewing across devices, the cable TV ad-supported paradigms of the past are the way of the future.
Or, as Proulx puts it, “What’s old is new again.”
“Ads are back. Bundles are back. Appointment viewing is back in vogue, and prices keep going up for consumers,” Proulx said. “What changes at the end of this transition is simply the delivery mechanism.”
