Forecast: Cord Cutting To Continue Impacting Cable/Satellite Biz

BIA/Kelsey has released four of its top trends to watch in local media in 2017. These predictions are taken from the new report, What’s Next: BIA/Kelsey 2017 Analyst Predictions, which is an annual report BIA/Kelsey issues to identify and explain the developments it anticipates the year will bring in mobile, social, video, programmatic, digital and traditional advertising and promotions.

“We expect this year to be a transformative period for technology and media,” said Tom Buono, CEO BIA/Kelsey. “In our predictions report, we dive into key topics such as programmatic, mobile advertising revenue, online video, small business advertising trends, local television and radio versus competing media, local on demand business models and small business advertising and marketing trends. Our examination represents the synthesis of our forecasting and analyses to help businesses get a lead on 2017 so they can approach the market with the right combination of strategies and offerings.”

Prediction #1: National brands will outpace regional and local SMBs in total ad spend to target local audiences.

Rick Ducey, BIA/Kelsey’s Managing Director expects, “National brands will outpace regional and local small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in total ad spend growth targeting local audiences. Agencies and marketers for these national brands will increase their ad spend targeting local audiences by $17.1 billion from 2015 through 2020. Regional advertisers’ spending will be relatively flat, and local SMBs will increase their spend by $10.6 billion.”

Prediction #2: Voice search will reach 25 percent of mobile search volume.

Michael Boland, BIA/Kelsey’s Chief Analyst and VP, Content, predicts, “Voice search will reach 25 percent of mobile search volume. This will mostly happen through personal assistant apps such as Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana, Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. Google will emerge as the winner in what will be known as the “personal assistant app wars.” These wars will be won with data, which Google possesses from its search index and knowledge graph. Amazon’s Alexa will shine for product and commerce applications, while Microsoft and Apple will seek to excel with vertically specific content niches where they can establish best of breed content with data partners (i.e., using weather data).”

Prediction #3: The provision of “skinny bundles” and consumers opting to “cut the cord” will negatively affect the cable/satellite business.

Mark Fratrik, BIA/Kelsey’s Chief Economist and SVP, foresees, “The provision of “skinny bundles” and consumers opting to “cut the cord” will negatively affect the cable/satellite business during the next five years, with a possible benefit accruing to local television broadcasters. Those consumers will have fewer cable networks to choose from and could easily start watching more local broadcast programming, so long as they are equipped with receivers connected to digital antennas.”

Prediction #4: Print will continue to evolve and maintain a large share of small businesses’ dollars by extending campaigns with digital media.

Celine Matthiessen, BIA/Kelsey’s Vice President, Analysis & Insights, anticipates, “Print is evolving and still holds a large share of small businesses’ ad dollars. This will continue as smart companies extend print campaigns through native and digital targeted media. In our forecast for 2017, $53 billion will be spent on local print. Newspapers, magazines and Yellow Pages are offsetting declines in print revenue with digital. These traditional digital efforts are projected to grow 4.0 percent annually from 2017 to 2021. Newspapers and Yellow Pages companies continue to extend their advertisers’ reach through large networks via programmatic ad buying beyond their owned and operated properties, which levels the playing field and helps them to retain advertisers that are shifting their share to digital.”

The full 2017 predictions report, which includes over 20 predictions, is available for clients of BIA/Kelsey’s advisory services. The report can be purchased online. For more information, contact info@biakelsey.com.