US TV ad volumes falling now, will fall faster later

A report out this week from eMarketer says that US TV advertising is declining and will continue to decline for years to come. Our only problem with it is that we don’t think the report goes far enough. A fall of just 0.5% is predicted for this year, and 1% the following year, followed by 0.5% in 2020. There is, as usual, a belief that things will not deteriorate rapidly, something we attribute to a rigid belief in the status quo. The truth is that as more original content is created for OTT services, the divide between advertising on linear TV and the potential for a drift into digital and programmatic advertising, is getting bigger. Right now people do not…