Broadcast television is under sustained pressure from structural, technological, and behavioural shifts that are reshaping how audiences consume content. The challenges facing broadcasters today are not cyclical – they are fundamental. Traditional models built around linear scheduling, mass reach, and predictable advertising revenues are being eroded by on-demand consumption, platform fragmentation, and changing viewer expectations.
The most immediate problem is the transition from broadcast to IP delivery. Viewers increasingly expect content to be available anytime, on any device, with full control over playback.
This undermines the core advantage broadcasters historically held: scheduled programming that aggregated large audiences simultaneously. Maintaining infrastructure for both legacy broadcast and modern streaming environments also creates cost duplication, squeezing margins. At the same time, competition has intensified dramatically.
Broadcasters are no longer just competing with each other, but with global platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, all of which operate at a scale and with a data advantage that traditional players struggle to match.
Audience decline is both a symptom and a driver of these pressures. Linear TV viewing, particularly among younger demographics, has been in steady decline for over a decade. Viewers under 35 are increasingly disengaged from scheduled television altogether, favouring short-form, mobile-first, and algorithmically curated content. Even among older audiences, total viewing time is fragmenting across multiple platforms. The concept of “prime time” is losing relevance as consumption becomes asynchronous.
This decline is not just about fewer viewers – it is about the loss of attention density. Where broadcasters once delivered millions of viewers simultaneously, they now deliver smaller, more dispersed audiences, reducing the impact and value of advertising slots.
In my view, this fragmentation raises serious questions about measurement, particularly the continued relevance of Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB). BARB has historically been the gold standard for UK television measurement, providing trusted, panel-based viewing data for linear broadcasts. However, its methodology struggles to fully capture the complexity of modern viewing behaviour. While BARB has expanded into measuring some on-demand and streaming activity, it still relies heavily on extrapolation from relatively small panels. It cannot match the granularity, scale, or real-time insight available to digital platforms, which track user-level behaviour directly. As a result, there is growing tension between traditional currency metrics and the data-rich environments offered by streaming and social platforms. BARB remains important for standardisation and trading, but it is increasingly seen as incomplete rather than definitive.
Advertising spend is following the audience and the data. Budgets are steadily shifting away from traditional linear TV toward digital channels that offer better targeting, measurement, and performance attribution. Platforms like Google and Meta have captured a significant share of global ad spend by providing highly granular targeting and measurable outcomes. Streaming platforms are now accelerating this trend. The introduction of ad-supported tiers by Netflix, Amazon, and Disney has further legitimised premium digital video as an advertising channel. These platforms combine high-quality content with advanced targeting capabilities, making them attractive alternatives to traditional broadcast advertising. Their scale and user data create a feedback loop that broadcasters cannot easily replicate.
Compounding this shift is a more fundamental change in how content itself is consumed, particularly on mobile. Increasingly, audiences are engaging with video in vertical, short-form formats optimised for smartphones. Platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts have redefined expectations around pacing, framing, and storytelling. For broadcasters, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. Traditional 16:9 content does not naturally translate into vertical formats; it requires re-editing, reframing, and in some cases rethinking editorial structure entirely. Simply clipping horizontal footage is not enough. Effective vertical video demands content that is immediately engaging, visually centred, and designed for sound-off consumption. A topic we’ll be exploring in more detail on May 6th at TV: The Bigger Picture.
The strategic implication is significant. Broadcasters must treat vertical video not as marketing output, but as a core content format. This means investing in workflows that enable rapid versioning of content into multiple aspect ratios, as well as editorial teams that understand platform-native storytelling. Done well, vertical video can extend the reach of broadcast content, capture younger audiences, and drive discovery back to long-form programming. Done poorly, it risks devaluing content and reinforcing the perception that broadcasters are out of step with modern viewing habits.
The rise of global streaming platforms has undoubtedly accelerated the decline of traditional broadcasters. They have reset consumer expectations around content availability, pricing, and user experience. Importantly, they have also normalised subscription and hybrid monetisation models, reducing reliance on advertising alone. For broadcasters, this creates a strategic dilemma: invest heavily in direct-to-consumer platforms to compete, or risk becoming irrelevant as audiences migrate elsewhere.
However, the idea that platforms like YouTube represent a universal solution for broadcasters is flawed.
While YouTube offers massive reach and discovery, it operates on fundamentally different economics and control dynamics. Broadcasters do not own the audience relationship on YouTube; the platform does. Algorithms dictate visibility, monetisation is subject to platform rules, and revenue per viewer is typically far lower than direct distribution channels.
Additionally, content on YouTube competes in an environment saturated with user-generated and creator-led material, which can dilute brand value for premium broadcasters. There is also limited control over data, restricting the ability to build long-term customer insights and retention strategies.
In essence, YouTube is a useful distribution channel, but not a strategic foundation. It can support marketing, reach incremental audiences, and monetise archive content, but it cannot replace owned and operated platforms where broadcasters control the experience, data, and economics.
In conclusion, broadcasters face a multi-layered challenge: declining audiences, evolving content formats, outdated measurement systems, shifting advertising models, and intensifying competition from global digital platforms.
That said, it’s not all doom and gloom. Broadcasters still have what most platforms are desperately trying to build: trusted brands, premium content, and the ability to create culturally relevant moments at scale. The winners won’t be the ones who cling to old models, but those who adapt, embracing IP delivery, rethinking formats, and meeting audiences where they actually are. After all, television isn’t dying, it’s just had to download an update.
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