TV Viewing Feeling the Economic Pinch

Attest’s US media consumption tracker for Q4 2022 shows a general decline in media usage among consumers, whether it be social media, newspapers, or subscription TV services. The losses reflect a general trends towards belt-tightening by consumers, and seem to indicate a downward trend that may linger for a few quarters more.

Granted, global FAST channel revenues are supposed to increase, and while that may be an indicator that television viewing has not actually changed that much, and may even increase, it has two possible implications for displays. First, if you downgrade your TV subscription spending you are also cost cutting on your TV spending. You can’t assume that this kind of cutback by consumers is just freeing up discretionary funds for spending somewhere else. Secondly, and this may be a pandemic anomaly, the idea that you could have cinematic experiences at home with large, powerful displays that were becoming more affordable, and premium TV apps providing first release movies at home, may just wither. That’s another hit on the TV watching experience.

It changes the product mix in stores and in e-commerce when you have to shift priorities to match those of cost-conscious consumers who are, for the most part, weaning themselves off of that premium TV experience. It was a lot easy when you had hard media, like Blu Ray, as your only option. The consumer experience of that second run of content was always guaranteed and priced to be at a premium. With streaming, you get what you are given and it comes at you in whatever shape or form the operator of the service decides. You don’t get the pristine experience. For a brief period, when HBO Max was showing first releases at home, you felt like you would never have to go to a movie theater again. That was pretty good for the display industry.