Watching Superbowl for the Ads

15% Watching Super Bowl for the Ads| 43 Million Viewers for Obama’s State of the Union
Published on January 27, 2011
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Only slightly more than half of Super Bowl viewers will be watching for the football, according to a report from Lightspeed Research, a unit of WPP’s Kantar. The report, based on a survey of 2,000 online respondents earlier this month, found that nearly as many viewers will be watching for the ads, the halftime show or “just for the fun of it.” Fifteen percent said they’d tune in primarily for the ads, read more at adweek.com.
Nielsen Media Research tells us almost 43 million viewers tuned in to President Obama’s second State of the Union address Tuesday evening. This viewership number is down 11% from his 2010 State of the Union address and 18% from his address to the joint sessions of Congress on Feb. 24, 2009, shortly after he took office. The speech, which was carried live from approximately 9-10:15 p.m. on 11 networks earned a combined 26.6 household rating, reports broadcastingcable.com.
Time Warner Cable’s lost a net 141,000 video subs in the last quarter. At the same time, fuel for cord-cutting conspiracy theorists, TWC also added 94,000 internet customers, reports paidcontent.org.
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association suggests that the free market forces behind video’s move to broadband have outpaced the FCC’s attempt to put its shoulder to that wheel. The FCC is looking to create a gateway device that weds over-the-air, over-the-wire and over-the-top video as a way to drive broadband adoption. NCTA says video is already moving online without the government having to step in and mandate a technological path via its AllVid inquiry. The FCC has been looking to put out a rulemaking proposal in the first quarter, reports broadcastingcable.com.
The 7.7 million new subscribers to Netflix services last year was double Netflix’s own expectations. Netflix now has more subscribers (20 million) than premium channels Starz and Showtime, according to Lostremote.com
“Everyone says that social television will be big. I think it’s not going to be big — it’s going to be huge,” said Ynon Kreiz, CEO of the Endemol group, the largest independent television production company in the world. Kreiz told attendees at the Digital Life Design (DLD) conference this week to “get up, leave this room” and run to their garages to get to work designing the future of social TV. “Whoever figures it out,” Kreiz thinks, “will be the next Steve Jobs of this generation,” reports LostRemote.com.