VIA BEETCAM -- The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent guidance or orders to stay home are leading to an unexpected boom in home entertainment consumption, with with Netflix and Disney+ reducing their bandwidth consumption by 25% in Europe to ease under-pressure broadband networks.
For ad-supported TV and streaming services, you might expect that would entice advertisers in pursuit of captive audiences.
But eMarketer analysis shows the opposite is happening - placing video and TV services at risk of a downturn.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, eMarketer senior analyst for global trends Jasmine Enberg, explains: "I think that during this time when we're all cooped up at home, people are spending more and more time on digital media, whether it's to be informed or to be entertained.
"But, even as we're spending more time, we are actually seeing advertisers start pulling back some of their spend on these digital platforms. "I think this is going to negatively impact their revenues, at least in the short-term Q1 and Q2.
That's happening all across the board." Ads lagging virus demand The finding runs contrary to the consumer trend.
AT&T reported Netflix traffic on its network hit an all-time record high.
Although it was facing growing competition, Netflix's share price has rebounded on this pattern.
Suddenly, on Enberg's analysis, it is the emerging wave of AVOD, advertiser-supported services which could find themselves challenged.
She says brands actually have an opportunity to tap in to consumers' latent interest in the virus.
"On the content side, what is interesting is, I've been seeing a couple of different studies that consumers are actually very receptive to advertisers mentioning or referencing Covid-19 in their messaging, which is more so than for other sort of social topics," Enberg says.
"They tend to say that only brands (for which it is) authentic to them to talk about specific topics should be mentioning that in their messaging.
But it seems that, across the board, people want to know where brands stand on Covid-19 and what they're doing to help the situation." Ultimately, however, advertisers may be pulling back because newly downbeat consumer sentiment, employment outlook and simply ability to get out of the house to stores all conspire against retail sales.
Forecast factors eMarketer has revised-down its global ad spend forecast, but only slightly - thanks largely to ad retrenchment in China, the apparent origin of the Covid-19 outbreak.
In their Behind The Numbers podcast, eMarketer analysts said: Reduced commuting would lead to lower radio and audio consumption and ad spend.
TV ad spending is due to slow down or decline in 2020.
Digital platforms would see reduced ad spending partly as travel companies shut their wallets.
A major recession would show some "nasty numbers".
But, right now, forecasts encompass the next two quarters.
The forecast was produced before the Summer Olympics, a major quadrennial ad spending draw, were postponed.
NBCU's plan to leverage the Olympics to drive Peacock consumption and ad spend will be hurt.
Television's "upfronts" ad sales season converting from in-person events to virtual ones could hurt upfront ad commitments.
Https://soundcloud.com/behind-the-numbers https://twitter.com/BenMorgan47/status/1242376992760053761 Enberg was interviewed remotely at home by BeetCam.