"2018/19 saw the steepest year-on-year drop in the amount of broadcast TV watched by under 35s [in the UK] on the TV set"

"Changes in how people consume media continue to be rapid and profound, especially so among younger audiences.
2018/19 saw the steepest year-on-year drop in the amount of broadcast TV watched by under 35s on the TV set – down around two hours per week in a year to ten-and-a-half hours. By contrast, the time they spent using the TV set for purposes that include SVOD, YouTube and gaming increased again – up an hour a week to eight hours weekly. Music streaming by young adults also rose by around an hour a week to almost six hours weekly. Around the same proportion of under 16s now use YouTube each week as use the BBC (81%).
While these changes have so far affected young audiences the most, increasingly they impact the media behaviours of older audiences. For example, in 2018/19 more than half of over 35s used the TV set for purposes such as SVOD, YouTube and gaming and one in six used music streaming services each week.
Within this changing landscape, the time people spend with the BBC is trending downward year-on-year for both BBC TV and BBC Radio. The BBC is still the media provider that UK adults overall use the most, and audience performance for the year was within the target range set out in the 2018/19 BBC Annual Plan*.
91% of online adults used the BBC each week in 2018/19, in line with the target of 88-93%. UK adults spent 18 hours on average per week consuming BBC services, down on the year but within the target range of 17:15-18:45. They rated the BBC at seven out of ten, on average, in terms of their general impression, scored the quality of programmes and services at seven out of ten and value for money at five out of ten, all within target."
Source:  BBC Annual Report, July 2019

Over 400,000 homes 'cut the cord' in the UK in 2018

"Declining pay-TV subscriptions in the UK suggest that cord-cutting, which is well established in the US, is now beginning to affect the European market, according to findings from research firm Strategy Analytics.
Its report, European Pay TV Index, found that the UK saw a net decline in pay-TV households of 424,000 in 2018, the largest decline of any European country. Other countries with falling subscriptions include Denmark, Switzerland and Germany, although the rates of decline are less significant."
Source:  Advanced Television, 26th April 2019

Music piracy has fallen in the UK

"The number of Britons that are illegally downloading music is decreasing, according to new custom research from YouGov.
YouGov’s Music Report reveals that one in ten Britons (10 per cent) download music illegally, down from 18 per cent five years ago.
This number looks set to decrease. While 63 per cent of those that illegally download music expect to still be doing so in five years, 22 per cent do not. Added to this, 36 per cent say that using unverified sources to access music is becoming more difficult.
This decrease can be in part attributed to the rise of streaming services. Over six in ten (63 per cent) that have stopped illegally downloading music now use streaming services."

Source:  Advanced Television, 3rd August 2018

300 ATMs are closing in the UK each month

"Doubt has been cast over the future of cashpoints in the UK as it was revealed that 300 ATMs are closing every month.
Consumer champion Which? analysed data from ATM network manager Link to find that 1,500 ATMs had closed between November 2017 and April 2018 - which represents a six fold increase from 2015.
The closures also ramped up after Link announced changes to fees that ATM operators can charge banks to use cash machines.
Link is introducing a phased 20 per cent reduction over four years to the so-called interchange charge, with the first 1p cut down to 24p per withdrawal set to come in on Sunday. Though this seems like a small amount, operators claim the rise will lead to some machines being financially unviable to run.
The firm which oversees cash machines argues the changes will provide an incentive for operators to put more machines in rural and less affluent area to keep the network sustainable.
But the ATM Industry Association told Which? the move had triggered the network on a "path to disaster" and had simply led to the number of cash machines decreasing."

Source:  CityAM, 29th June 2018

Apple's app store shrank for the first time ever in 2017

"The Apple App Store endured its first ever contraction in 2017 — dropping from 2.2 million published iOS apps in the beginning of the year to 2.1 million by year-end.
The news comes from a new report from Appfigures, according to TechCrunch. The App Store’s contraction was paired with the Google Play stores’ expansion — in 2017, it reportedly grew 30 percent to around 3.6 million apps.
The drop off, according to Appfigures, comes as a result of a few issues. Apple has begun pushing for stricter enforcement of app guidelines — meaning more apps were categorized as spam and removed. There were also technical changes to the App Store that required developers to adopt 64-bit architecture.
The change also reflects a purge of apps that were considered abandoned, outdated, or those that were out of step with current app-development guidelines. That clean-up began in 2016, but analysts suspect that purge may well have continued into 2017.
Other explanations for the great app thin-out include a temporary move to template-based apps, but that policy was relaxed over SMB complaints that the requirement made the App Store inaccessible for smaller businesses."

Source:  PYMTS, 5th April 2018

Smartphone sales fell for the first time ever in Q4 2017

"Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled nearly 408 million units in the fourth quarter of 2017, a 5.6 percent decline over the fourth quarter of 2016, according to Gartner, Inc. This is the first year-on-year decline since Gartner started tracking the global smartphone market in 2004.
"Two main factors led to the fall in the fourth quarter of 2017," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. "First, upgrades from feature phones to smartphones have slowed down due to a lack of quality "ultra-low-cost" smartphones and users preferring to buy quality feature phones. Second, replacement smartphone users are choosing quality models and keeping them longer, lengthening the replacement cycle of smartphones. Moreover, while demand for high quality, 4G connectivity and better camera features remained strong, high expectations and few incremental benefits during replacement weakened smartphone sales.""

Source:  Gartner, 22nd February 2018

ITV's ad sales fell by 8% Y-o-Y in H1 2017

"UK commercial broadcaster ITV has reported its H1 results, with a decline in advertising revenue blamed on “ongoing economic and political uncertainty”.
Advertising revenue fell 8 per cent to £769 million (€862m) in the first six months of the year. However, that fall was offset by growth at ITV studios, which makes popular shows such as The Voice and Poldark. The broadcaster’s sales rose by 5 per cent.
Peter Bazalgette, ITV Executive Chairman, commented: “ITV’s performance in the first six months of the year is very much as we anticipated and our guidance for the full year remains unchanged. Total external revenue was down 3 per cent with the decline in NAR partly offset by continued good growth in non-advertising revenues, which is a clear indication that our strategy of rebalancing the business is working.  We are confident in the underlying strength of the business as we continue to invest both organically and through acquisitions.”
“ITV Studios total revenues grew 7 per cent to £697 million including currency benefit. ITV Studios adjusted EBITA was down 9 per cent at £110 million. This was impacted by our ongoing investment in our US scripted business and the fact that the prior year includes the full benefit of the four year licence deal for The Voice of China. We have a very strong pipeline of new and returning drama and formats and we are building momentum in our US scripted business. We continue to grow our global family of production companies and in H1 we further strengthened our international drama and format business with the acquisition of Line of Duty producer World Productions in the UK, Tetra Media Studio in France and Elk Production in Sweden.”

Source:  Advanced Television, 26th July 2017

Twitter's Q2 ad revenue fell 8% Y-o-Y; Ad engagements rose 95% Y-o-Y

"In Q2, product contributions to Twitter’s engagement and audience growth continued to increase. Monthly active usage (MAU) increased 5% year-over-year [to 328m] and daily active usage (DAU) increased 12% yearover-year, marking the third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.
• Underlying business fundamentals also improved. We saw an improvement in the year-over-year growth rate for total revenue (relative to Q1), driven by accelerating year-over-year growth in our data products, continued strong growth in video with a very strong debut at the 2017 Digital Content NewFronts, and an improvement in the yearover-year growth rate for owned-and-operated (O&O) revenue.
• Finally, we achieved greater operating efficiency. Our GAAP net loss was $116 million. Excluding a $55 million cost-method investment impairment charge, we would have made progress toward GAAP profitability and further reduced our GAAP net loss. We also delivered better-than-expected adjusted EBITDA margins in Q2, despite the yearover-year decline in revenue.
Specifically, in Q2, we achieved the following results:
• Q2 revenue totaled $574 million, a decrease of 5% year-over-year.
• Advertising revenue totaled $489 million, a decrease of 8% year-over-year.
• Data licensing and other revenue totaled $85 million, an increase of 26% year-over-year.
• US revenue totaled $335 million, a decrease of 7% year-over-year.
• International revenue totaled $239 million, a decrease of 1% year-over-year.
• Total ad engagements increased 95% year-over-year.
• Cost per engagement (CPE) decreased 53% year-over-year."
Source:  Twitter's Q2 Letter to Shareholders, 27th July 2017

Hashtags appeared in 30% of Super Bowl ads in 2017, down from 57% in 2014

Hashtags appeared in 30% of Super Bowl ads in 2017, down from a high of 57% in 2014 https://t.co/84rr0dWFV6 https://t.co/A4kw8sp7u7

— Techmeme (@Techmeme) February 7, 2017

View counts for Snapchat stories has fallen 15-405 since the launch of Instagram Stories

"Good enough and convenient. That’s proved a winning strategy for Instagram’s clone, according to a dozen analytics providers, social media celebrities, and talent managers who told TechCrunch they’ve seen a decline in Snapchat Stories usage since Instagram Stories launched on August 2nd.
Most reported declines in Snapchat Stories view counts ranging from 15 to 40 percent, and a reduction in how often they or those they monitor post to Snapchat Stories. Meanwhile, our sources report rapidly growing view counts on Instagram Stories, and engagement-to-follower rates one social influencer talent agent called “Insanely f*cking high”.
The success of Instagram Stories, the decline in Snapchat usage we’ve heard from a wide array of sources, and Facebook’s relentless drive to compete with the startup could spell trouble for Snapchat’s IPO on the NYSE market that’s expected in March. Snap Inc declined to comment for this story."
Source:  TechCrunch, 31st January 2017

Growth in mobile app usage by category in 2016

Source:  Report from Flurry, 12th January 2017
Note - 'Personalisation apps' include ones that crate backgrounds, ringtones etc
Data is global

Christmas Day TV ratings in the UK fell to their lowest recorded level

"Christmas Day TV audiences on December 25th 2016 were at their lowest level since records began in 1981.
BBC1 period drama Call the Midwife was the most-watched programme attracting an audience of 9.2 million. BBC1 had eight of the 10 most-watched programmes overall on Christmas Day, while ITV had two.
Audiences for Christmas Day – which traditionally attracts big audiences – have been falling in recent years with the introduction of catch-up and on-demand services. No programme has attracted more than 20 million viewers since 2001, and the figure of 15 million has not been achieved since 2008. 2016 marked the first time no programme attracted an audience of 10 million."

Source - Advanced Television, using data from BARB, 5th January 2017

Apple's revenues have declined for the first time in 15 years

"For the first time in 15 years Apple's revenues have declined, the latest earnings figures from the Silicon Valley giant show.
Financial details from Tim Cook's company show at the end of the 2016 fiscal year it earned $217 billion (£178bn).
While the year on year $217bn figure is more than most companies would dream of, it represented a nine percent drop from $233.7bn (£191bn) at the end of 2015.
The cause of the $16bn decline? A continued drop in iPhone sales. During the previous three months Apple sold 45.5 million iPhones, which was a decrease of 5 percent on the 48m handsets it sold during the same period last year.
Its overall revenue for the fourth quarter was $46.9bn (£38bn) and Apple also posted a quarterly net income of $9bn (£7.3bn).
Despite the slightly gloomy figures Apple has little to worry about going forward. The most recent quarter doesn't take into account most of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus reviews, which were released towards the end of the period. "“We’re thrilled with the customer response to iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus and Apple Watch Series 2, as well as the incredible momentum of our Services business, where revenue grew 24 percent to set another all-time record,” Tim Cook said in a statement."

Source:  Wired, 26th October 2016

The average app loses 77% of its daily active users in 3 days

Based on Quettra’s data, we can see that the average app loses 77% of its DAUs within the first 3 days after the install. Within 30 days, it’s lost 90% of DAUs.2 Within 90 days, it’s over 95%. Stunning. The other way to say this is that the average app mostly loses its entire userbase within a few months, which is why of the >1.5 million apps in the Google Play store, only a few thousand sustain meaningful traffic.
Source:  Data from Quettra, reported by Andrew Chen, July 2016

A quarter of US households are cord cutters

"Findings from market and consumer information firm GfK show that US TV households are embracing alternatives to cable and satellite reception. Levels of broadcast-only reception and Internet-only video subscriptions have both risen over the past year, with fully one-quarter (25 per cent) of all US TV households now going without cable and satellite reception.
The research, from GfK’s 2016 Ownership and Trend Report from The Home Technology Monitor, shows that 17 per cent of US TV households now rely on broadcast-only (a.k.a. ‘over-the-air’ or OTA) reception, up from 15 per cent in 2015. Another 6 per cent say they only use Internet services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or YouTube and do not have traditional broadcast or pay-TV reception at all; this compares with 4 per cent a year ago.
TV households with a resident between 18 and 34 years old are much more likely to be opting for alternatives to cable and satellite; 22 per cent of these homes are using broadcast-only reception (versus 17 per cent of all US households), and 13 per cent are only watching an Internet service on their TV sets (versus 6 per cent of all TV homes). Overall, 38 per cent of 18-to-34 households rely on some kind of alternative TV reception or video source, versus 25 per cent of all homes."

Source:  Advanced Television, 13th July 2016

Instagram posts per user is falling

"Five times as many people now use Instagram as did in 2013. But despite that strong growth, Instagram has seen a worrisome trend. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of photos shared on average by each Instagram user fell, said two people briefed on the app’s internal data.
And just as its parent Facebook has been trying to reverse a drop in how much people share about their lives on the social network, Instagram has to figure out how to deal with the decline in “sharing” on its service. Otherwise over time people may gradually visit Instagram less and gravitate to rival apps, particularly Snapchat, which in the past year or two has gotten much more buzz than Instagram."

Source:  The Information, 30th June 2016

App downloads are falling

Source:  Recode, 8th June 2016
Note - what i wonder about this is whether people actually download apps to new devices any more.  When I got a new phone I tapped it to my old one, and then it replicated the apps.  But I'm not sure whether it downloaded these apps again from the app store, or just transferred them across.  If it just transferred them across then app downloads will fall, as the number of people getting smartphones for the first time falls.

A lot of popular Vine users are no longer active on the platform

"Once a social media darling, Vine is falling out of favor. After analyzing 9,725 Vine users with more than 15,000 followers, influencer marketing company Markerly found that 52 percent of them have exited the platform since Jan. 1. Instead, they have moved to YouTube and Snapchat for different reasons.
“I used this account a lot before Snapchat came out,” influencer Nash Grier wrote in his Vine profile.
The finding may not surprise many. Compared to Vine, Snapchat offers features like geofilters, 3D stickers and My Story that allow would-be influencers to create more vivid in-the-moment content than they used to share on Vine. YouTube, on the other hand, lets creators make more polished long-form video content, which is becoming appealing to more and more Vine stars. For example, Zach King, one of the biggest celebrities on Vine, started to move his content over to YouTube where he updated three or four times a month. His most recent Vine clips, in comparison, were posted in January."
Source:  Digiday, 17th May 2016
Note - Zach King has started posting again

Netflix' US catalogue is 30% smaller than in 2014

Source:  AllFlicks, 23rd March 2016

American pay TV lost 385,000 subscribers in 2015

"Findings from Leichtman Research Group (LRG) suggest that the thirteen largest pay-TV providers in the US – representing about 95 per cent of the market – lost about 385,000 net video subscribers in 2015, compared to a loss of about 150,000 subscribers in 2014, and a loss of about 100,000 subscribers in 2013.
The top pay-TV providers account for 94.2 million subscribers – with the top nine cable companies having over 49.0 million video subscribers, satellite TV companies about 33.7 million subscribers, and the top telephone companies nearly 11.5 million subscribers.
Other key findings include:
The top nine cable companies lost about 345,000 video subscribers in 2015 – compared to a loss of about 1,215,000 subscribers in 2014
Top cable MSO losses were the fewest in any year since 2006
Satellite TV providers added 86,000 subscribers in 2015 (including gains from DISH’s Internet-delivered Sling TV) – compared to a gain of 20,000 in 2014
Not including gains from Sling TV, DBS providers lost about 450,000 subscribers in 2015
The top telephone providers lost 125,000 video subscribers in 2015 — compared to a gain of about 1,050,000 net additions in 2014
Telco net adds in 2015 were the fewest in any year since the services started in 2006
In 4Q 2015, the top pay-TV providers added about 110,000 subscribers – compared to about 90,000 in 4Q 2014
Top cable MSOs added about 125,000 subscribers in 4Q 2015 – their first quarter for net video additions since 1Q 2008
DirecTV net adds of 214,000 subscribers in 4Q 2015 were higher than in any quarter since 4Q 2010
AT&T U-verse lost 240,000 subscribers in 4Q 2015 – compared to a gain of 73,000 subscribers in 4Q 2014"

Source;  Advanced Television, 11th March 2016