Cable TV networks are facing a doubly hard situation not only with subscribers leaving in the millions but also advertisers cutting back in both the cable and streaming arenas.
Many cable TV networks thought streaming would keep advertisers and Americans happy, but streaming services like MAX, Peacock, Paramount+, and Disney+ have failed to replace revenue lost by the decline in cable TV viewership.
More importantly, advertisers are increasingly turning away from traditional advertising. According to the Wall Street Journal, when Oreo launched its space-themed cookie they spent zero dollars on television advertising using social media and websites like Amazon and Walmart to promote it instead.
According to that report, advertising on both streaming and traditional TV will be just $60 billion this year. That is down from $64 billion five years ago.
The numbers are even worse if you look at cable TV. In 2016, advertisers spent $60 billion on traditional TV advertising. Now that number is projected to drop below $30 billion for traditional TV. This is a huge blow for cable TV as in 2025 it’s projected that even digital TV sales will drop close to $50 billion.
Increasingly, the decline in viewership has hurt cable TV networks, but advertisers pulling away has dropped the revenue even farther. Even more painful is that streaming has not replaced the ad revenue losses.
The continuing drop in advertising revenue has impacted the future of cable TV more than cord cutting. If this trend continues, lack of money may force many small cable TV networks to shut down far faster than what cord cutting alone would have done. The question now is how fast will advertisers ditch cable TV.
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