Free to air TV networks are worried for their futures as teenagers spend 83% less time in front of TVs and more on their phone.
👉 Background: In terms of the broadcasting market in Australia, Channels Seven, Nine and Ten, have more than 75% of the broadcasting market. But overall, this market has been in major decline.
👉 What happened: Now, free to air TV networks are worried for their futures as teenagers spend 83% less time in front of TVs and more on their phone. In fact, according to industry body Free TV, teenagers used to spend 75 minutes every day watching commercial TV but now, they spend just 13 minutes per day, which is an 83% decline.
👉 What else: The problem is that not only are they competing against each other, but also competing for attention against Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, TikTok and Instagram. And industry insiders believe that at some stage in the future, protectionism of this industry will eventually come to an end.
💡Protectionism is when governments shield a country's significant industries from competition. In the case of free to air TV, there are anti-siphoning laws for live sport events.
💡For almost 30 years, the government has prevented pay TV companies like Foxtel from paying to air major sporting events unless one of the free-to-air networks has had a chance to make an offer first.
💡But this law has not changed to also prevent the streaming services from streaming matches. And given the value live sports to free to air networks, this poses an existential threat to their businesses.
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