Analysts Discuss Where Television Viewership Has Gone

Viewer ratings have become a difficult game these days, thanks to the different platforms that users can view content. With streaming services continuing to gain ground over conventional television broadcasters, measuring user viewing is going to be even more difficult in the near future.

Chris Marangi, portfolio manager at Gamco Investors, and Invesco Fixed Income Chief Strategist, Rob Waldner, were on Bloomberg recently to discuss how to measure viewer ratings for streaming media, following an announcement by Nielsen that it plans to measure Netflix, Inc.'s NFLX viewership.

"Television viewership in the United States has declined in high single digits, so where have all the eyeballs gone? Probably a lot of them have gone to subscription VOD services like Netflix like Amazon, more of them will soon go to other services. It will be nice to know for a fact, where they have gone," Marangi said.

When asked about the old methods to gather viewership data that companies like Nielsen have been employing until recently, Marangi said, "there are other companies who have better data, like Rentrak for example that gets data sets from set-top boxes, so they know exactly what you are watching, when and for how long."

Waldner explained how viewership has changed by citing his family viewing habits: "The only thing that my family watches on the TV is sports, everything else is Netflix, Amazon, we have paid subscribers to both of those."

Marangi is of the view that streaming services are here to stay and big broadcasters and media houses have already worked on strategies to adapt to the changing viewership habit.