The Great Debate: TV or Digital TV?
The debate is raging: Some believe TV is going down, and others believe this is the “platinum era for TV.” When you look at who is saying what, you can quickly see built-in bias.
Needless to say, TV is changing. And the word video is quickly replacing TV, primarily due to the popularity of YouTube. The hard part in all the numbers is that some people are watching TV, but it is time-shifted or on a digital device. This complicates reporting and analyzing the numbers. If you watch a replay of the news on your iPad, are you watching TV or are you watching digital?
So as you look at this chart and its predictions for 2020 and 2021, know there is a huge note at the bottom. I really like that multitasking was accounted for. However, time spent with video via social networks was excluded. I guess we are not counting Facebook’s video power for live and recorded programming.
This chart is for adults 18 and older. It’s a high-level look at the change coming. Deeper in these numbers is our love for screens and video — more than five hours a day on average. That’s the equivalent of 2.5 months a year or 21% of our lifetime. Sobering. Pass the chips and the remote.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
