CANNES, France — Advertisers will spend less on US broadcast TV this year because viewers are moving gradually to other platforms, according to media agency OMD’s regional boss.
“We will end up seeing US upfront total spend being slightly down versus a year ago,” OMD US CEO Monica Karo tells Beet.TV.
“That is this natural progression of more and more viewing shifting to other distriburion formats and more people watching different content – not only the television content but other video content. The dollars are following where the audience is. Their ratings are still dropping unfortunately.”
But the migration is not precipitous, Karo says: “A lot of the live programming – sports in particular, big entertainment programs – that audience is still holding. So there’s more and more of that in our plans.”
Karo was speaking with Beet.TV during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. You can find more of our Cannes coverage here.
