Tag Archives: VIX

Millennials and Media

I’ve read a lot recently in various trade articles talking about the percentage of Millennials that are watching (or not watching) traditional TV content. The various polls and studies show that Millennials are far less interested in watching linear TV than older generations. They are far less likely to buy a traditional cable TV subscription.

Millennials are starting to have a huge impact on our society. They now make up 32% of all adults in the US. They are more educated than earlier generations and 40% of Millennials between the ages of 25 and 29 have completed a bachelor’s degree compared to 32% for Generation X and smaller numbers for Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation.

But I have rarely read anything that describes what Millennials are doing in place of watching traditional TV. We now know from a study by Nielsen that part of the answer lies in the fact that Millennials read a lot more digital content than older generations. Digital content is content generated by online sites. Nielsen says digital content is now the primary source of news, sport, fashion trends and general knowledge for this generation – to a far greater extent than older generations.

Nielsen has begun tracking digital content and has begun to rate it much like they do for television viewing. Since advertising is shifting towards the web this tracking is of great value to potential advertisers. Historically we’ve been ranking websites by the number of ‘hits’ on their website. But the Nielsen digital tracking goes much deeper and measures time spent at each web site – which is what advertisers want to know. Advertisers have been able to get this kind of information from huge sites like Facebook, but never for everything else on the web.

Here are just a few of the things that Nielsen found about Millennials and digital media:

  • In terms of volume, the leading website used by Millennials is BuzzFeed. This site reaches 83% of US Millennials each month. The content on BuzzFeed is aimed at Millennials and the average BuzzFeed viewer sees an astronomical 38 videos on the site per month. Users don’t have to go to BuzzFeed to see the content, which is widely distributed through the various social media platforms. The platform carries news, the many videos, quizzes and the popular Millennial food site Tasty.
  • Just behind BuzzFeed is Group Nine Media. This company has four web brands including NowThis, The Dodo, Seeker and Thrillist. The companies content is aimed at younger audiences and now reaches 81% of Americans in their 20s. The platform has grown quickly to 1 million minutes per month of streamed content.

Another popular digital content site is MIC. This site offers news aimed at younger viewers and reaches over 25% of people between 21 and 34 years old each month. They are now attracting over 40 million unique viewers per month. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the site to advertisers is that 56% of their viewers are female.

Refinery29 is a site aimed at young women. It’s a mix of fashion, beauty, entertainment and money news. The platform is a mix of text articles and videos and reaches 62% of women between 18 and 34 each month, but a huge 88% of women between 21 and 24. In 2017 Adweek reported that the site reached 500 million viewers worldwide.

Another web site that caters to Millennials has an interesting distribution network. Rather than maintain a web site, VIX distributes content on social medial sites like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The site carries video content on lifestyle tips, entertainment, food and life hacks. 62% of VIX viewers are female and VIX reaches 40% of US women between 18 and 49 each month.

All of this is bad news for companies that advertise on TV. Statistics show that linear TV audiences are aging quickly as younger viewers abandon watching real-time TV and its associated ads. Anything that is bad for TV advertisers is ultimately bad for the TV product and anybody that sells it. But the reality is that younger generations are abandoning the programming made for and watched by older generations. This is almost inevitable and is a market reality that the whole industry needs to come to grips with.