Pew’s annual report on the state of the news media, video advertising on smartphones and tablets, multiscreen viewing, email fail, and more are covered in this month’s installment of TFP’s Media Metrics roundup.
To help you keep up with trends and prepare for changes just around the corner, each month we compile excerpts from some key reports covering issues affecting the publishing and media industries. Here are our top picks.
5 Key Takeaways From State of the News Media 2015 (Pew Research Center)
- Out of the top 50 digital news sites, 39 get more traffic from mobile devices than from desktops. But on only 10 of the top 50 digital sites did mobile users spend more time than desktop users.
- Combined median prime-time viewership for cable channels CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC was down 8% last year, while newspapers saw declines in circulation (3%) and ad revenue (4%).
- But evening network news viewership was up 5% in 2014. Local evening and morning news viewing was up as well, with ad revenue increasing 7% to almost $20 billion.
- The percentage of U.S. consumers who have listened to a podcast in the past month has almost doubled since 2008, from 9% to 17% in January this year.
- Digital ad revenue grew 18% across all media to more than $50 billion last year. But five technology companies, rather than legacy news companies, took in half of all display ad revenue, with Facebook alone raking in 24%.
Video Advertising on Smartphones and Tablets Is 
Growing Three Times Faster Than Video Ads on Computers (Business Insider)
- A new BI Intelligence report estimated U.S. digital video ad revenue will reach $5 billion in 2015 and see a five-year compound annual growth rate of 21.9%.
- By year-end 2020, total revenue is projected to hit $13.3 billion.
- Video will make up 41% of total desktop display spend by 2020, up from 26% this year.
The New Normal: Multiscreen Viewing (Media Life Magazine)
- According to a report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, use of smartphones during TV viewing has jumped 40% in the past year, while simultaneous tablet and TV use has increased 39%.
- Some 78% of TV watchers use a second device of some type during viewing, whether a computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
- In terms of attention given to devices, the report said 60% of smartphone users’ attention is devoted to TV viewing while 40% is on their mobile device.
- For laptop or desktop users, attention is more evenly divided with TV viewing, at 50% for each screen.
Email Marketers Are Failing to Engage New Subscribers (Direct Marketing News)
- Epsilon’s Q4 Email Benchmarks study found that three months after opting in to email programs, most people fail to engage with senders in any way.
- Only 34% of new subscribers interacted in the quarter, down four percentage points compared with last year.
- It said half of the average company’s email file was active during the quarter, but just 14% on the list were classified as “Superstars” who clicked on an email within the previous three months.
- A third of the file engaged further back than three months, but 41% were “Dormants” who had been inactive for at least a year.
The U.S. Is Going Gaga for Giant Phones — Here’s Proof (Business Insider)
- Kantar Worldpanel’s latest figures on smartphone sales shows those with screens bigger than 5.5 inches (so-called phablets) accounted for 21% of all sales in the U.S. in Q1 2015, a 6% increase from last year.
- It said the increase in large smartphones is being driven by the release of the iPhone 6 Plus in September, which is now the No. 1 phablet device in the U.S. with 44% of sales.
- With 27% of sales, Samsung is the No. 2 phablet vendor in the U.S., and LG follows with 22%.
Survey: No One Trusts the News Media (Fishbowl NY)
- A recent survey commissioned by the American Association of Advertising Agencies found that only 4% of respondents trust the marketing industry.
- Nearly 50% of those surveyed said they don’t trust the news media.
- When asked “Who acts with integrity,” newspapers were cited as the most trusted, but only by 10% of respondents. Some 74% answered the same question with the response “You yourself”.
Mobile Ad Spending Lags Use, But Not for Long, eMarketer Says (Advertising Age)
- While research indicates mobile advertising is primed to take off, eMarketer found an imbalance in today’s spend on mobile video: almost 12% of total video viewing time is via mobile devices but only 3% of total video ad budgets is spent on mobile.
- TV takes in nearly 90% of advertising money but accounts for only 77% of total time consumers spend watching video.
- The report also showed an increase in total daily media time per consumer in the U.S. this year: 12 hours and four minutes a day, up seven minutes from last year, due to simultaneous device use.
Programmatic Sellers vs. Buyers: Who’s More Hooked On Mobile? (eMarketer)
- Recent research by Advertiser Perceptions shows U.S. media sellers allocate almost 40% of their programmatic ad inventory to mobile.
- But among buyers, display is still tops, taking up 41% of programmatic budgets, versus 28% of inventory.
- Mobile real-time bidding inventory rose 177.4% in Europe and 150.4% in North America in the last quarter of 2014, compared with desktop increases of 85.0% and 56.6%, respectively.
Bing Passes 20% Search Share in the U.S. for the First Time (VentureBeat)
- ComScore’s U.S. desktop search share report for March showed that for the first time Microsoft Bing passed the 20% mark.
- Both Google and Yahoo slipped 0.1 percentage points, while Bing gained a 0.3 percentage point.
- One in five searches in the U.S. are now conducted on Bing, but Google still has more than triple Bing’s share.
Some of Us Are Fed Up With Technology (Media Life Magazine)
- According to a survey by market research firm Toluna, 50% of U.S. consumers feel that they don’t need any more technology in their lives.
- But 69% said they are excited by the Internet of Things, technology that connects everyday devices to networks.
- While 80% of respondents said technology makes their lives easier, 42% reported that they are tired of having to learn new technology and 44% viewed the Internet of Things as technology that can go wrong.
Global Tablet Audience to Total 1 Billion This Year (eMarketer)
- The latest eMarketer estimates show 1 billion people worldwide will use a tablet at least once per month this year, reflecting a 19% growth rate.
- By 2019, it projects that 1.51 billion people worldwide will use tablets monthly.
- Asia-Pacific has the largest number of tablet users in the world, with 458.7 million projected this year. The region will see a half-billion tablet users by 2016 and more than three-quarters of a billion by 2019.
Media Metrics is a monthly feature from Technology for Publishing, aimed at keeping you armed with the latest industry data. If you’d like to share something you’ve read, drop us a note. And keep up with the latest industry news coverage by signing up for our This Week in Publishing emails or our monthly Publishing Innovations newsletter.
Posted by: Margot Knorr Mancini
