In this week’s Week in Charts, the BBC tops YouTube’s UK reach, existential threats drive brands’ adoption of AI, and AI dents Future Plc’s traffic.
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Charts of the Week
BBC Retakes UK Lead in Four Screen Viewing
The start of the year brought a number of headlines proclaiming that YouTube had overtaken BBC’s total reach in the UK, judged by Barb’s four-screen viewing data, a watershed moment for the UK media industry. A glance at this reporting could have easily created an impression of YouTube in ascendance and the BBC in decline.
A deeper look at the data paints a different picture. Barb only started measuring YouTube’s four-screen viewing in October last year, by which point the tech giant had already surpassed the broadcaster. And rather than continuing to rise since then, Barb’s data shows that YouTube’s reach has actually fallen over the past five months. As a result, the BBC’s UK reach was actually greater than YouTube’s in both January and February.
Netflix Ushers Users Into Ads Tier with Price Rises
Netflix has announced another round of price hikes this week, set to come into effect in May, upping the cost of its ad-free Standard subscription from $17.99 per month to $19.99 per month. Its Basic with Ads subscription meanwhile has increased from $7.99 to $8.99.
These adjustments increase the price differential between the two tiers, a move which may be designed to encourage more users into its ad-supported tier. This may be a tempting option for long-term users, who have seen the price of a Standard subscription rise from $8.99 in 2014 to $19.99 this year.
Social Leans on Video in UK, with Growth Starting to Stall
For years, social media platforms have enjoyed consistent rapid growth in their ad revenues. But judging by IAB UK’s new Futurescape report, that might be starting to change.
Social media ad spend is still expected to grow in the UK over the next five years, but not at the same rate as the industry has become accustomed to. Social display is predicted to flatten out in 2028, and actually dip slightly in 2031. Social video is expected to be the primary growth driver going forward, but even that is expected to slow down past 2030.
Global Turbulence Weighs on EMEA Consumer Spending
It’s been widely noted how ad spend no longer tracks economic growth in the same way as it used to, as brands are increasingly spending through macroeconomic turbulence. But as Dentsu’s latest EMEA Consumer Navigator report shows, many EMEA consumers dialled back their spending in the past year due to the state of the economy in their countries.
Italian consumers reported the biggest drop-off, with 59 percent saying they had decreased spending in the last year. The picture was more positive in Spain, where 42 percent of respondents said they had decreased spending, and 27 percent reported they had increased spending.
The Week in Stocks
Agencies
S4 Capital’s share price shot up following a trading update, which predicted that like-for-like revenues will dip slightly this year, in line with market expectations. The marketing group’s stock is up by almost 75 percent since a historic low in November, though it’s still down by nearly 97 percent from its all-time high nearly five years ago.
TV
Most TV stocks fell over the course of the week, though the European broadcasters fared better overall than their US counterparts. RTL Group saw the biggest jump, as parent company Bertelsmann talked up its M&A intentions, and reports emerged that the German media company has offered concessions to the European Commission to speed up antitrust approval for its acquisition of Sky Deutschland.
Publishers
Future Plc’s share price was down by nearly 4 percent week-on-week when markets closed yesterday, but it’s seen a much bigger fall this morning following a disappointing trading update from the company. At the time of writing, Future’s share price was down by nearly 30 percent since the market opened.
Ad Tech
The Trade Desk’s stock saw another big drop this week, following reports that Omnicom has authorised an external audit of the demand-side platform. The Trade Desk highlighted that there was no indication from Omnicom’s previous audits of anything untoward.
Tech
The big tech stocks all fell again this week. A landmark legal ruling which found that Meta and YouTube have intentionally built addictive social media platforms added to broader concerns relating to the Iran War and AI uncertainty.
