How Americans tuned into Thursday night’s presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump highlights a thorny issue for media consultants this cycle.
According to data from AdImpact, traditional linear TV commanded 42 percent of the audience while streaming platforms accounted for 41 percent of viewership of the CNN-hosted debate. The rest of America tuned in via YouTube (7 percent) and YouTube TV (10 percent).
Where’s the tension? Well, there’s a battle for CTV dollars right now in terms of who’s allocating them: the campaign’s digital consultant or its traditional media buyer.
“I think right now, on the Republican side anyway, you see this battle for CTV dollars that doesn’t always lead to the best allocation,” said Chauncey Southworth, head of revenue at Cross Screen Media, which works with Republican media firms to optimize ad placements.
“Back in the day, it was pretty split. It was digital firms did this and TV firms did that…CTV really changed that because the TV-first buyers think that they should get the dollars because it’s on the TV screen, and digital buyers think they should get the dollars because it’s bought like digital.”
Southworth said his firm is neutral in that debate.
“We have customers on both sides of that. Our model is to provide both sides of that divide [with] the data and the measurements to say, ‘let’s actually see what’s happening and make the decisions that are best for their campaign, being agnostic for who has the dollar.'”
He continued: “But we think that the group that ultimately should allocate the CTV [ad dollars] is a group that is able to look at the entire body and is able to make the best decision for the end campaign.
“I don’t know if that’s always happening right now.”
Southworth described a perfect world of supply and demand allocation.
“You’d be allocating your budgets based on where your audience is, where they’re consuming media, [and] where the most efficient prices are.”
Instead, what’s happening, he said, is you’re seeing “a little bit of fighting over budgets.”
Bottom line, even with the growth of CTV/OTT spending this cycle, he said, “there’s still a lot of older habits that are still going on in the industry.”
