Half of TV viewers (those who consume the most linear TV) are seeing the vast majority of ads (89%), while the other half of TV viewers (those who consume the least linear TV) are seeing just 11% of ad impressions, according to Samba TV's State of Viewership report.
Covering Australia in H1 2023, the report found that while that bottom 50% of Australian households were underreached or not reached at all, the heavy linear viewers who make up the upper half saw 70 TV ads daily. In comparison, the bottom 50% of linear viewers only saw nine TV ads on average per day.
Looking at the top 10 linear and OTT advertisers by impressions, Samba TV found that though McDonald’s and Woolworths remained the top two advertisers based on impressions served during the first half of 2023, newcomers to the charts included Chemist Warehouse (fifth) and AAMI (tenth).
Advertisers like Sportsbet.com and Hungry Jacks slipped in the ranks out of the top 10, and absent in the second half of 2022 but climbing the ranks to land back in the top advertisers of the half was the Australian Government (eighth) who launched a campaign aimed at providing voters with information on the referendum about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Harvey Norman was third, Coles was fourth, Telstra was sixth, Toyota was seventh and Cadbury was ninth.
The way Australian viewers engage with TV continues to change, with the total hours of linear watched throughout the second half of 2023 dropping to the lowest it’s been in the past two years, declining 4% year on year. In line with this trend, linear's average daily reach was slightly lower than last year, with about half of Australian households (5.2M) watching linear each day on average.
As viewers spend less time on linear TV, their interests are turning to streaming platforms: subscription OTT penetration increased by 3% year-over-year, building off of a 5% increase from 2021 to 2022.
The report found that over half (52%) of the Australian population uses OTT video services, and throughout the first half of 2023, 75% of households watched content across two or less streaming services.
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