Streaming Keeps Growing Like Crazy; Omnicom Gears Up For A Data-Related Acquisition

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

Subscription Overload?

The amount of time consumers spend with media increased by one hour and 24 minutes between 2018 and 2019 to almost 12 hours per day – and that time continues to fragment across media channels as new content offerings hit the market, according to Nielsen’s Total Audience Report. (Before your eyes bug out, please note that “media” in this case includes TV, TV-connected devices, radio, computers, smartphones and tablets.) On TV, consumers had more than 646,000 unique program titles to choose from last year across streaming and linear TV, up 10% from 2018. Netflix has the largest share of streaming eyeballs with 31% market share, followed by YouTube at 21%, Hulu at 12% and Amazon at 8%. Despite the fear of subscription fatigue, almost half of respondents ages 18-34 subscribe to three or more paid TV services. But 84% of consumers said that cost is the reason they’d be most likely to cancel a subscription, and 64% said they limit the number of services they subscribe to for the same reason. Read the report.

In The Market For Data

Omnicom met the high end of its growth expectations for 2019 with $1.3 billion in revenue, up 2.8% from the year before. For Q4, organic growth was 3.5% to $415 million. Omnicom continues to outperform peers on organic growth, thanks in large part to its unloading of nonstrategic assets over the past few years. Advertising and media grew 5.1% and CRM and consumer experience grew 3.3%, although Omnicom’s CRM execution and PR businesses continue to lag. While most of the other holding companies spend big on buying data brokers, Omnicom has been a notable holdout, but CEO John Wren said that the company has set aside $120 million for acquisitions for 2020 – likely related to data and analytics. “Expect acquisition-related activity to pick up in 2020,” he said. Wren also said he was glad to hear that Accenture is folding its media auditing division, and that he sees an upside for Omnicom from the Chrome cookie fallout. “Expect a very minor impact on media activities because we’ve been adjusting and anticipating this for some time,” he said. “And it makes us more valuable.” Read the release.

Not All Right?

The ad industry joined forces to pen a tetchy letter to House lawmakers in Washington state on Tuesday, warning that one provision in a newly proposed privacy bill could “unleash a flood of frivolous litigation.” What’s getting the industry’s knickers in a collective twist? The bill, which was introduced in mid-January, includes a private right of action that would allow consumers to sue a business for any violation of their data rights, MediaPost reports. In their letter, the IAB, 4A’s, AAF, ANA and NAI argue that a private right of action would only wreak havoc and enrich the plaintiff’s bar. “Beyond the staggering cost to Washington businesses, the resulting snarl of litigation could create a chaotic and inconsistent enforcement framework with conflicting requirements based on different court outcomes.” By contrast, the California Consumer Privacy Act has a limited private right of action and only in the case of a data breach. A California Senate bill last year tried, but failed, to add a private right of action to the CCPA. AdExchanger has more on Washington’s privacy bills.

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