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I've always believed that media consumption is zero sum; or at least has been for a few decades. The reason is simple: we only have so much time in the day. Me

by exelius 11y ago

I've always believed that media consumption is zero sum; or at least has been for a few decades. The reason is simple: we only have so much time in the day. Media consumption takes up a huge part of that. And while an individual's level of media consumption may rise or fall, it's relatively consistent across a large number of people. I have a hunch the author is stumbling onto the problem of media measurement. Basically, as more forms of media are available, we tend to consume more of them at the same time. For example, in the 80s I may have watched TV while reading the newspaper. As we have added more types of media in the form of mobile, video and games, we just add more potential "double counting" (or even triple counting!) scenarios. Also, many of these usage measures tend to be self-reported; and the more dimensions you have in a self-reporting questionnaire the less accurate the results are likely to be when you add them up (rounding error, poor recall of actual times leading to "proportional" times, etc). Media measurement is hard. We still haven't figured it out for online advertising, which should arguably be easier than other types of media since we have better mechanisms for measuring things automatically. Things are moving towards the long tail though, so I do expect to see a continued growth in the variety of media available. But if you want to see a "zero sum" media in action, just consider that the average ratings for "Seinfeld" were 21 million viewers per episode. 20 years later, the most popular show on TV was "Sunday Night Football" with an average of only 13 million viewers. TV ratings have actually been on a steady decline since the 1950s [1]. So if you give people more options, they will watch them -- at the expense of other forms of media. That's a zero-sum market in my book. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts#Most_watched_series_per_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_televisio...

TeMPOraL 11y ago
> For example, in the 80s I may have watched TV while reading the newspaper. As we have added more types of media in the form of mobile, video and games, we just add more potential "double counting" (or even triple counting!) scenarios. Exactly. I sometimes find myself watching a TV series while simultaneously reading and commenting on HN, while simultaneously playing a slow-paced videogame, while simultaneously browsing Facebook and holding several conversations on it. I often try to bundle media that don't overlap cognitively together, like series episode + HN, in order to save time.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  It's zero sum at best. The TV may be on, but if I'm on HN, either HN or the TV has my attention - I'm not really "doing both". But it may be even less than zero sum, because I may decide to turn it all off and go take a walk (and not look at my phone while I'm walking).
dangoldin 11y ago
That's definitely fair - I was approaching it from the measurement perspective but I'm not sure there's a real distinction. Think of the use scenario of the self driving car - that's a bunch of time that's immediately opened up that was used doing something else and can now be filled with consumption. Of course we have a max of 24 hours * our concurrency level each day but we're nowhere close to saturating that.
- exelius 11y ago
  I'm not sure the impact of the self driving car will be as profound as you think. First, people already consume media in the car -- unless you drive in silence, you're sitting around listening to the radio, podcasts, streaming music, something. Second, while we may be able to increase our consumption concurrency for that period of time, I'm not entirely sure it's new consumption -- it's just displacing radio. It could also drive consumption down if people choose to work in the car and not consume any media at all -- they can't do that today because they're busy driving. The big problem with using media measurement to gauge media consumption is that we can really only measures access, not consumption. The advertising world is built around impressions for that reason; there's an implicit assumption that some percentage of "impressions" will go unnoticed. Measuring that and trying to get your ads in a format where they will be consumed more often when they are shown is pretty much the focus of the entire advertising industry. For a very concrete version of this, think of how DVR users skipping commercials has led to an increase in product placement within shows.
  - dangoldin 11y ago
    Good point - I'm one of the few drivers who like doing it in silence so definitely biased. Agreed that measuring consumption is tough - even if it's as simple as measuring an ad view, ad click, and then a purchase you need to take into account everything the customer has seen before. No way to currently measure something like that. We're going to be stuck in perpetuity with John Wanamaker's: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

by exelius 11y ago

TeMPOraL 11y ago

> For example, in the 80s I may have watched TV while reading the newspaper. As we have added more types of media in the form of mobile, video and games, we just add more potential "double counting" (or even triple counting!) scenarios. Exactly. I sometimes find myself watching a TV series while simultaneously reading and commenting on HN, while simultaneously playing a slow-paced videogame, while simultaneously browsing Facebook and holding several conversations on it. I often try to bundle media that don't overlap cognitively together, like series episode + HN, in order to save time.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
It's zero sum at best. The TV may be on, but if I'm on HN, either HN or the TV has my attention - I'm not really "doing both". But it may be even less than zero sum, because I may decide to turn it all off and go take a walk (and not look at my phone while I'm walking).

dangoldin 11y ago

That's definitely fair - I was approaching it from the measurement perspective but I'm not sure there's a real distinction. Think of the use scenario of the self driving car - that's a bunch of time that's immediately opened up that was used doing something else and can now be filled with consumption. Of course we have a max of 24 hours * our concurrency level each day but we're nowhere close to saturating that.

exelius 11y ago
I'm not sure the impact of the self driving car will be as profound as you think. First, people already consume media in the car -- unless you drive in silence, you're sitting around listening to the radio, podcasts, streaming music, something. Second, while we may be able to increase our consumption concurrency for that period of time, I'm not entirely sure it's new consumption -- it's just displacing radio. It could also drive consumption down if people choose to work in the car and not consume any media at all -- they can't do that today because they're busy driving. The big problem with using media measurement to gauge media consumption is that we can really only measures access, not consumption. The advertising world is built around impressions for that reason; there's an implicit assumption that some percentage of "impressions" will go unnoticed. Measuring that and trying to get your ads in a format where they will be consumed more often when they are shown is pretty much the focus of the entire advertising industry. For a very concrete version of this, think of how DVR users skipping commercials has led to an increase in product placement within shows.
- dangoldin 11y ago
  Good point - I'm one of the few drivers who like doing it in silence so definitely biased. Agreed that measuring consumption is tough - even if it's as simple as measuring an ad view, ad click, and then a purchase you need to take into account everything the customer has seen before. No way to currently measure something like that. We're going to be stuck in perpetuity with John Wanamaker's: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."