Much has been written about the demise of television at the hands of the web. The recent report issued from Nielsen may put a snag in the theory that TV is a dying medium.

The graph below indicates that TV viewership continues to grow, and hit an all-time high last quarter. This by no means diminishes the role of the internet (and, more importantly, its role as a DRTV response option), but it does give one pause to think that HD-quality 52-inch television viewing is going to be replaced by people viewing shows on their cellphones anytime soon.

The skeptics will say that viewership may be increasing for viewers 18+ but the next generation of viewers will act differently. This may be true, however Nielsen’s latest data on viewers 2-11 indicate that viewership is increasing there as well.

Web Impact on DRTV

Many of us remember the heady times of the late ‘90’s in Silicon Valley. Start-up internet companies in garages were receiving millions of dollars in seed money. As the web continued its growth, one had to naturally begin to wonder what the web’s impact would be on the television industry, and on DRTV specifically.

Looking back on it, the internet is the best thing that ever happened to the DRTV industry. The primary benefit: accountability. Marketing and product managers have had to become much more accountable when it comes to their marketing budgets. And for many marketers, take a guess what is usually the largest line item in their marketing budget: TV.

DRTV has allowed marketers to better justify the dollars they spend on TV. As the technology continues to evolve, there is no doubt this efficiency and accountability will continue to grow.

Bill McCabe is EVP/COO at A. Eicoff & Co., one of North America’s largest DRTV agencies.

Tags: advertising, direct response television, DRTV, short-form infomercial, short-form TV commercials

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 3:47 pm and is filed under DRTV Messaging, DRTV News, Emerging Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.