the TV business is set for a profound upheaval

Unlike newspapers and the music industry, which saw their businesses sink with the rise of the internet, change has come gradually (for television). So far the TV industry has been a story of powerful and rich characters intent on keeping things just as they are. Network-owners and pay-television distributors made a pact not to sell each other out, and worked to preserve a business that has been extremely lucrative for all of them.

Advertisers and analysts have started to use the word “video” instead of “television”, because they consider online video an increasingly important part of their ad spending. The doomsaying may be premature. Viewing habits have changed, especially among the young, who watch more online video and time-shifted television, and often prefer to stare at a tablet than at a TV. But Americans continue to watch a remarkable amount of TV the old-fashioned way: around four-and-a-half hours a day, on average.

Many younger people will never shell out for traditional pay-television but advertisers have few alternatives to reach big audiences besides television, so for now have stuck with the medium in spite of flagging ratings. That should give TV bosses a bit of comfort for the upcoming season but they would do well not to lose sight of the wider narrative arc.

Read more in the Economist

Tech industry’s restructuring

Another trend is that consumers are spending more time on mobile devices. This, among other things, has hit Google, which is selling more advertisements on smaller screens, where rates are lower, whereas growth in more lucrative ones on bigger devices has slowed. For other firms this shift has been good news: Yahoo, a struggling online conglomerate, joined Apple in exceeding analysts’ expectations in large part because of a notable increase in mobile-advertising sales, which accounted for 17% of its revenue of $1.1 billion in the past quarter.

Read more in The Economist

Politicians know which TV shows you watch, and tailor their advertisements accordingly

Cable-TV firms sell campaigns data about subscribers’ individual viewing habits. It arrives anonymised, but with addresses, which can then be matched to the addresses on voter-registration and canvassing databases. So if, for example, people living at addresses marked as potentially Republican happen to watch lots of golf, then a Republican candidate might buy ads on the Golf Channel. Indeed, according to a study by Echelon Insights, a political consultancy, 93% of political spots on that channel are Republican; on Comedy Central, by contrast, the ads are 86% Democratic.

By 2016 advertising will be even more precise, reckons Mr Goldstein. The newest thing offered by cable and satellite TV companies is called “addressable advertising”. This allows advertisers to buy the viewers they want rather than slots on particular programmes. So whatever the target voter watches, a campaign advertisement will appear in the middle of that show, via the set-top box.

Read more at the Economist