- Linear TV consumption and daily reach have fallen from their pandemic highs but remain above their pre-COVID levels.
- Despite this, linear TV advertising spend does not show the same recovery.
- Linear TV consumption and daily reach have fallen from their pandemic highs but remain above their pre-COVID levels, according to data from smart TV devices from viewership data company Samba TV.In Q2 2021, linear TV consumption has fallen for all four countries when compared to the number of minutes watched one year earlier. This ranges from a 5% decline in Australia to a 14% drop in the United States.
However, Q2 2021 consumption remains significantly above pre-pandemic levels. Linear TV consumption is up by 74% in the United Kingdom from Q2 2019 levels, with Germany seeing the smallest increase at a still substantial 28%.
The same trend is visible in linear TV's daily reach – all four countries have seen a double-digit decline when compared to Q2 2020. However, reach is higher in Australia (7%), Germany (6%) and the United Kingdom (4%) than the level before the pandemic.
Only in the United States is this not true, with daily reach being down by 9% from the level in Q2 2019.
Although connected TV audiences have grown in importance, linear content remains fundamental. As a result, some advertisers have been using video-on-demand platforms to achieve incremental reach.
Despite audience activity being above pre-pandemic levels, linear TV advertising does not show the same recovery. WARC Data forecasts a 11% decline in investment between 2019 and 2021 in the United States and a 2% drop in the United Kingdom and Germany. Australia is the only country to see TV ad spend grow, up 2% from 2019.
Source: origin.warc.com
