The recent Supreme Court hearings for Brett Kavanaugh not only
sparked greater in-home viewing for news, the event also caused a surge in
out-of-home viewing. Paul Lindstrom, Head of Research and Analytics, Tunity,
shared his company’s data with me and we discussed the insights drawn from it.
When it comes to OOH, it is location, location, location… and
sports. Lindstrom explained, “It is clear to me that there are dynamics in
terms of traffic to locations and there are dynamics in terms of curation.
These two factors combine to create the potential for a dynamic profile in
terms of users at any given point in time.” He believes that the Kavanaugh hearing
is a great illustration of OOH having the ability to draw all types of viewers
in who might not normally view news on TV or not necessarily be watching news
OOH. Notably, he referred to the
ten-fold upswing of viewing in colleges and airports and that the viewing to
CNN skewed much younger.
Charlene Weisler: Overall,
how did the full Kavanaugh hearings do OOH? What were the overall takeaways?
Paul Lindstrom: Overall the Thursday session of the Kavanaugh
Hearing averaged 4,035,400 OOH viewers according to Tunity Analytics for the
full 10 AM to 7 PM duration. The highest overall usage occurred during the
first portion of Kavanaugh’s testimony.
The OOH usage, according to Tunity Analytics, returned to nearly the
same level following a drop during his break.
Weisler: Overall how did
the hearings rank among all Tunity OOH programs ever?
Lindstrom: The overall OOH average viewing levels for the Thursday
full session were comparable to what we have seen for the Conference Finals of
the NBA Playoffs. This is pretty remarkable given the weekday daytime time
period for the hearing versus prime time for the NBA Playoffs.
Weisler: Is this the
highest news event?
Lindstrom: This is the highest audience level for a news event
since January of this year when I began to track this data.
Weisler: How did the hearings
do comparatively in the time period?
Lindstrom: In total OOH usage was up almost 2.5 times indexing at
247 over the same hours from the previous week. CNN and Fox News received the
bulk of the OOH increase indexing 755 week over week for CNN versus 431 for Fox
News. CNN has historically gotten larger bumps in OOH usage for major news
events than Fox News despite Fox News generally having larger OOH audiences on
a day to day basis. It appears as if it is a curation issue. CNN is more likely
to be tuned in at locations that are generally not carrying news during that
daypart. Both Fox News and CNN brought in substantially younger audiences OOH
they normally do. These young audiences found places to tune in.
Weisler: What OOH venues
did the best?
Lindstrom: I think that this is a question that can be answered in
two ways. First, the location with the largest degree of OOH viewing of the
hearing on CNN was Offices. This was followed by Bars/Restaurants and
interestingly Airports and Gyms. The three locations which showed the largest
indices for week over week changes in overall OOH usage were Government
Buildings, Colleges, and Airports.
Regardless of political persuasion we should all be encouraged to
see the large increases for Colleges where viewing was up more than ten-fold. Airports
had a week over week index of 825 compared to 247 for all locations and
Government Buildings, not surprisingly were up twenty-fold. Let me illustrate this using CNN as an
example, although Fox News would show similar patterns. We see that the share
of all OOH usage in this daypart was in single digits for most locations
(Offices and Government buildings being exceptions) during the 10AM to 7PM time
period for September 20th – the week prior to the hearing. CNN’s
share of total OOH usage rose to 26 to 53% across all locations.
Weisler: And what tuning
during the voting process and aftermath such as the announcement by Susan
Collins?
Lindstrom: On Friday 10/5 Susan Collins announcement was seen by
2,232,300 OOH viewers on CNN and Fox News combined. This represented an
increase of over 1.5 million OOH viewers compared to the hour prior. The
audience returned to the normal viewing for the hour following the
announcement. CNN accounted for 1,342,000 of the additional audience.
The results of the final vote drew in OOH viewers but not to the
same extent as Friday. CNN and Fox News combined for 1,113,000 viewers at the
peak of 4 o’clock. This represented an increase of 478,930 over the prior hour
for the combination of networks. Interestingly on Saturday the increase in
viewership was split nearly evenly between Fox News and CNN. The difference
between Friday and Saturday in regards to increase in OOH viewing was almost
entirely a result of CNN not getting the same magnitude of boost they did
before. This is likely a curation issue. CNN has historically gotten the
greatest lift for breaking news as a result of locations that do not normally
carry news tune to CNN. It is reasonable
to assume that on the weekend many locations that do not normally have news on
but tune in to CNN for breaking news did not because of the heavier degree
sports programming.
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