The combined weekly reach of Philadelphia's broadcast television stations has slipped to 73.9% of all adults, according to Nielsen. These stations include KYW, WPVI, WCAU, WHYY, and WTFX.  

The combined Philadelphia TV audience now falls behind cable programming at 76.0 and just ahead of streaming platforms at 63.6%. To put this virtual dead heat into perspective, none of the three video media is a match for Philadelphia radio which reaches more than 86% of local adults every week.

But although the reach of broadcast TV, cable, and streaming are neck-and-neck, the share of time consumers spend with each of these media is dramatically different.

According to Nielsen research, 3.5 million people in the Philadelphia area will likely participate in the upcoming election on November 8th. To sway these voters, candidates and political action committees are expected to spend a record amount on advertising.

AdImpact, a company that measures advertising expenditures by political campaigns, says more than $3.6 billion have been spent to reach voters so far in 2022. This puts spending on a course to obliterate the record level of campaign dollars set during the 2020 presidential elections.

Despite crumbling ratings, through August 1st, 58% of all political spending has been dished out to local TV stations, according to AdImpact.

Nielsen reports that since 2017, the reach of broadcast TV stations like KYW, WPVI, WCAU, WHYY, and WTFX has decayed by 10%.

During the past seven days. according to Nielsen, only 73.7% of local consumers tuned in to Philadelphia television stations like KYW, WPVI, WCAU, WHYY, and WTFX.  TV's diminishing reach among adults 18 and older has been eclipsed by the audience size for social media, cable, and Philadelphia radio. Furthermore, streaming video services such as Netflix, Hulu, Prime, and Disney+ are quickly reaching parity with over-the-air options.

The erosion of local TV station audiences is stunning when comparing prime-time ratings from the past.  In 1980, the highest-ranked TV show was Cheers with a 21.3 rating. The 30th-ranked show was The Wonder Years with a 14.2 rating.

Twenty years later, Survivor was the number one show with a 17.4 rating and Family Law was the 30th ranked show with an 8.8 rating.

Finally, in 2019, Sunday Night Football was the number one ranked show with a 10.9 rating. Survivor tied with Dancing With The Stars in 30th place with a 5.5 rating.

It is stunning to think that the number one TV show in 2019 had a 24% lower rating than the 30th-ranked show in 1980.

Every week, 4.1 million Delaware Valley consumers watch something on TV.

Not too many years ago, when a Philadelphia consumer sat down to watch TV, the program options were limited to what was on KYW, WPVI, WCAU, WHYY, WTFX, or, maybe, what was on a handful of cable channels.  That was then. This is now.

Today, according to Nielsen, each time a TV is turned on in a Philadelphia living room, the viewer has more than 817,000 options not only from broadcast stations and cable systems, but also from streaming video platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Peacock, YouTube, Amazon, Tubi, Crackle, and FreeVee.

Of course, Philadelphia consumers don't even need to sit down in front of their big-screen LCD, anymore. Most of the 817,000 available programs can also be viewed on their computers, tablets, gaming devices, and smartphones. But as far as viewers are concerned, though, it's all just television.

It wasn't too long ago when advertising on Philadelphia television stations was considered the gold standard for marketing by local business owners. But over the past few years, the number of viewers reached by KYW, WPVI, WCAU, WHYY, and WTFX has plummeted. In all only 75% of adult consumers now tune-in to at least one of these channels during the week, according to Nielsen.

The consumption of video content isn't diminishing among Delaware Valley consumers. What has changed, though, is how they are watching it.

In November, according to Nielsen, the share of time watching broadcast television has fallen behind other video options including cable programing and internet-delivered choices such as Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and hundreds of other streaming networks.

Every week, according to Nielsen, 4.1 million adult consumers in the Delaware Valley watch something on television. But, of course, the definition of what it means to watch TV has changed since the time when the number of available viewing options could be counted on the fingers of a single hand.

Today, Philadelphia consumers have a gargantuan number of viewing choices. This includes programs from stations like KYW, WPVI, WCAU, WHYY, and WTFX. Or maybe cable and satellite systems like Xfinity, DISH, DirecTV, and Comcast. There's also content delivered over the internet from Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon Prime.

No longer are Philadelphia consumers tied to the 21-inch Zenith in their living rooms. Instead, TV can be watched on giant LCDs, smartphones, and tablets from any room in the house, in the backseat of their cars, or practically anywhere else.

The best way to think about TV watching in Philadelphia is in terms of three buckets:

1. Over-the-air...including all broadcast channels
2. Cable...including all premium and non-premium programming
3. Internet...including all streaming services. This is also known as OTT or CTV

Here's how many Philadelphia adult viewers fall into each bucket. Remember, viewers are not limited to a single bucket.

Delaware Valley business owners are expected to spend $524,032,000 on streaming video advertising in 2021, according to Borrell Associates, a company that tracks online marketing expenditures across the country. This spending will be 26.0% higher than in 2020.

Streaming video advertising expenditures are accelerating as Philadelphia area consumers continue to abandon shows on local TV stations and cable systems in favor of programming streamed via an internet connection. These online channels include Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock, Prime Video, Roku Channel, SlingTV, PlutoTV, and dozens more.

This type of streamed video content is known collectively as OTT (Over-The-Top-Television) or CTV (Connected-Television). These two terms are sometimes used interchangeably but do have a subtle difference.

OTT generally means the video is watched on a small device like a computer, tablet, or smartphone.  CTV, on the other hand, typically means the content is viewed on a smart-TV or a regular television using a streaming device like a Roku or Amazon stick.

In Philadelphia, according to Nielsen, OTT/CTV has exceeded the weekly reach of local newspapers and streaming audio services such as Pandora and Spotify. The medium is rapidly approaching the reach of local cable and broadcast TV stations.

Broadcast television came to the Delaware Valley in 1941 when WPTZ-TV (now KYW-TV) signed on for the first time. In those days, only about 0.5% of local households actually owned a set, a number that would grow 100-fold by the mid-1950s.

At first, Philadelphia consumers needed rabbit-ears or outdoor antennas to receive signals from a small handful of local stations, including  WCAU and WFIL (now WPVI). The quality of reception varied day-to-day.

By the early 1960s, however, local cable systems began to bring higher-quality, reliable reception to households throughout the Philadelphia area. The number of programming options, though, remained limited to affiliates of ABC, NBC, and CBS.

In 1972, viewing options began to expand as local cable began offering Philadelphia area consumers the opportunity to purchase premium services, including HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax.  Five years later came an explosion of non-premium cable channels such as TBS and CNN.

In the early 1990s, Philadelphia viewers could not only receive their television programming over-the-air or by cable, but options expanded to include satellite delivery by DishTV and DirectTV.

The next TV innovation came in 2007 as Philadelphia consumers started turning to the internet to watch streaming channels like Netflix and Hulu.  These new services allowed viewers to watch TV on their phones, computers, and tablets as well as their living room LCD and Plasma screens.

Today, all of this video technology offers viewers the ultimate flexibility to choose how, when, and where to watch TV.  So, what are they watching?

Every week, according to Nielsen, significantly more consumers are reached by local radio than by Philadelphia TV.

For Delaware Valley small business owners whose marketing budgets have been ravaged by the pandemic, though, the question is which of these media can provide the best return for their advertising investments. An ROI study conducted by Nielsen and commissioned by Cumulus Media | Westwood One provides a conclusive answer.

Between April 30 and May 27 of this year, Nielsen analyzed the sales results of a major retailer who conducted an advertising campaign on both radio and television during that period.  

Using  their Portable People Meter panel of 80,000 consumers, Nielsen measured the purchase behavior of consumers who were exposed to the advertiser's commercials on both radio and television. To learn more about the methodology, click here.

The result of the study indicates that the money invested in radio advertising had a much stronger return than the money spent on TV.

Here are the key findings of the ROI study: