Streaming Steaming Ahead

The day we all knew was coming has finally arrived. In July, combined Broadcast and Cable TV dropped to a new low in terms of total share among American viewers — falling below 50% of total TV usage. On the flip side, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and YouTube reached new all-time highs in July.

While this shift has been expected for quite some time, it will likely not sustain into the fall. July is a slow month for sports in the U.S., which is the dominant driver of linear television. Once football season starts again this month, we are likely to see the tides shift with linear TV once again being above 50% of total TV usage.

One interesting thing to note about the rise in streaming in July was that the main factor in driving the viewership was acquired content, not original content. While the current WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes will certainly impact the volume and timing of original content down the road, there was still a good amount of original content dropping on streaming channels in July. However, it was Suits, the USA Network original that dropped on Netflix on June 17, which made a major impact as it set new viewing records for an acquired title. We're interested to see if the discovery (or rediscovery) of past content continues to trend (particularly while the strikes continue) and how that might impact our TV and connected TV buying choices for Broadway.

And going back to sports (and still thinking about strikes), the other thing that's in the back of our brains is the 1994-1995 MLB strike. It lasted 232 days, and it took baseball a decade to see attendance return to the averages they were seeing before the strike. Is this comparing apples to oranges? Or is there something to be learned here about consumer behavior? Only time will tell.

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