Older TV Viewers Also Gravitate To AVOD

 

COMMENTARY

Older TV Viewers Also Gravitate To AVOD (Ad supported video on demand)

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, August 13, 2021

Let’s get a bit granular in terms of demographics about those consumers of ad-supported video streaming platforms, such as Roku, Tubi, Pluto, Vudu, IMDb TV and others.

Increasingly, they are older, less-affluent consumers (55-64 years old), according to a recent Ampere Analysis report. It says this group is growing at a faster pace than with subscription video on demand (SVOD) platforms.

This may reflect the type of product seen on AVOD versus SVOD -- the general consensus being that much of AVOD comes from "older" library product from media companies.

And those newer, original, watercooler (old-school!) TV series? Many are from premium streamers -- Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video -- for series like “Bridgerton,” “The Mandalorian,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “WandaVision.”

Don’t think this is an issue for AVOD players? OK. Name me a top TV show on Tubi, Roku or Pluto. (Time’s up!)

Still, there is overlap says Ampere -- 12% of that library product on AVOD services also sits on those more expensive subscription/no advertising video on demand platforms.

This isn’t to say older library off-network product aren’t a big hit. Netflix can show you how well “Grey’s Anatomy,” “NCIS”” and “Manifest” and other TV network-based shows have been doing.

Ampere’s opinion is those lesser-profile premium video AVOD streamers will need to boost original content for TV marketing/promo spin.

So, it makes sense that Roku bought new premium yet-to-be-aired original programming from the former mobile-first, video platform, Quibi. Additionally, Roku will restart NBC’s “Zooey’s Extraordinay Playlist,” as a movie and possibly a continuation of the TV series.

Tubi is doing the same by starting up some originals. At the same time, Fox Corp. executives have talked up the service more as a utility video on demand platform looking to garner the easiest and quickest way to gain big advertising revenues.

If this sounds like something familiar to the growth of cable TV in the mid-1990s, you wouldn’t be far off.

Ad-supported basic TV networks were fertile ground for buying plenty off-broadcast TV network prime-time series. All that left premium, no-advertising cable channels like HBO and Showtime, the only network groups financial capable of creating new, broadcast-network quality original TV series.

That said, basic cable did catch up some -- in terms of viewership, as well as financially via big carriage fees and advertising revenues.

Many of those basic ad-supported cable TV networks also skewed heavily to older demographic 25-54 and older 55+viewers.