YouTube CPMs Fall As Viewing Spikes; Kids TV Loses Ground To Streaming

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Junior Streamers

Children’s TV shows are losing out to new streaming options. Just look at Disney. Disney Plus passed 50 million subscribers last week while prime-time viewing on its cable network, Disney Channel, slumped 37% in mid April. The network is cutting back on programming for preschoolers and running marathons of popular shows for older kids, Bloomberg reports. But the streaming shift is well underway. Netflix, Amazon Prime and Roku are gaining subscribers, while 35 of the largest cable nets have lost an average of 7% of their viewers so far this year. Eight percent of consumers are likely to cut the cord this year due to the economic downturn, Convergence Research predicts. COVID-19 is “accelerating an evolution already on its way,” said Syracuse University media studies professor Robert Thompson.

What Do You Make?

YouTube creators are seeing significant CPM declines, according to a Twitter thread started by Hank Green, co-founder of VidCon and an advocate for transparency among creators so they have a stronger hand in dealing with Google. Green said the eCPMs for his YouTube accounts (which have a combined 17 million subscribers) are down 28%. Some creators are bucking that trend, such as those who make videos for home education, or who are posting content after long hiatuses because they’re stuck inside. But the broad decline doesn’t necessarily mean the creators are earning less overall. They’re making less per impression, in large part because there are so many more views on the platform. Online ad exchanges have recorded similar changes to their auction dynamics.

Stock Shopping

Shopify shares reached an all-time high last Friday in response to an accelerated shift of US shopping activity to ecommerce. Shopify stock had a seven-day winning streak, over which it gained almost $24 billion in market cap. And Shopify isn’t the only ecommerce winner on the stock exchange. Amazon shares are up by a third in the past month, and with a market cap of $1.17 trillion the ecommerce leader may surpass Apple ($1.22 trillion) as the world’s second-largest company, trailing Microsoft ($1.34 trillion). Wayfair has more than tripled its market value, reversing a painful slide that started last year.

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