Borrell Associates’ annual panel of media and advertising experts are making several predictions about media’s future.
Some 60% of the 300 or so experts predict “the second screen” will dominate the first screen by 2018, with so-called “smart” TVs helping to move along that transition.
This is not a negative, “but rather a positive opportunity to increase engagement in their product with smart ads and click throughs to a show’s site — encouraging sharing with other viewers on social sites,” according to the report.
Over half of the panelists think it’s at least 40% likely that the average local TV station will derive more than half of its revenue from areas other than TV advertising in the next 6 to 10 years. “Other” is comprised of tower leases, re-broadcasting fees from cable systems, online advertising and mobile app subscriptions. Since it takes time for consumers and advertisers to adapt, the migration probably won’t happen for at least two years, believes the rest of the panel.
And finally, experts are divided over how fast the growth of streaming audio over PCs and mobile devices will cause the number of broadcast radio stations to drop — by half. The consensus seems to be if this does happen it would occur within the next 3 to 10 years. They reason the timeframe differences result from the distinctions in regions throughout the country and the differences in how radio stations are used.
RBR+TVBR observation: I don’t see half of radio stations going away. Sure, AMs will continue to go dark, unfortunately as the FCC’s “AM revitalization” efforts are probably too late for many of them, however overall, this prediction seems pretty stark.
