Behind the Numbers: Forecasting Trends for 2025—Digital Pay-TV Petering Out and Why Livestream Shopping is (and Isn't) Taking Off | Jan 24, 2025

Summary

Behind the Numbers: Forecasting Trends for 2025—Digital Pay-TV Petering Out and Why Livestream Shopping is (and Isn't) Taking Off

Podcast Episode Summary – January 24, 2025

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Introduction

In the January 24, 2025 episode of Behind the Numbers, EMARKETER's daily podcast dedicated to unraveling the complexities of digital media, host Marcus engages with senior director of forecasting Oscar Orozco and principal forecasting writer Ethan Kramer to delve into two pivotal trends shaping the marketing landscape: the decline of digital pay-TV and the nuanced rise of livestream shopping. This episode provides an insightful analysis of these trends, exploring their current trajectories, underlying causes, and future implications for marketers, retailers, and advertisers.

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Round One: Signature Take

Ethan Kramer on the Decline of Digital Pay-TV

Ethan Kramer kicks off the discussion by addressing the ongoing decline of traditional and digital pay-TV. Highlighting a significant shift in consumer behavior, Kramer explains that the era of cable TV is waning, citing a notable transition from cord-cutters to "cord-nevers"—consumers who have entirely bypassed pay-TV subscriptions.

“At a certain point, the number of cord cutters and cord nevers exceeded those still subscribing to cable TV,” Kramer states ([03:55]). This pivotal moment underscored that despite the growing popularity of digital alternatives like YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, and Fubo, the overall landscape was still dominated by pay-TV subscriptions. However, Kramer forecasts that the surge in digital pay-TV is losing momentum due to escalating costs and lack of sustainable growth, leading to a projected decline where by 2025, the majority of American households will no longer subscribe to any form of pay-TV.

Oscar Orozco counters with optimism about livestream shopping, asserting its increasing popularity despite being on the fringes of mainstream consumer habits. He cites that over 40 million Americans have already engaged in livestream shopping as of last year, with projections rising to 60 million within three years ([03:17]). Orozco emphasizes the potential for livestream e-commerce to diversify beyond apparel and beauty products, envisioning growth across various categories fueled by platform advancements and influencer partnerships.

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Round Two: How It Would Technically Play Out

Ethan Kramer on the Practical Implications of Pay-TV Decline

Expanding on his initial assertion, Kramer provides a detailed projection: by 2025, approximately 65 million households in the United States will maintain access to linear pay-TV channels, while 70 million households will forego any pay-TV subscriptions ([13:19]). He discusses the challenges faced by digital pay-TV providers, including rising subscription costs—YouTube TV, for instance, has seen its price escalate from $35 in 2017 to $83 in 2025—and the lack of sustainable growth. Kramer points to industry consolidation, such as Disney's acquisition of a majority stake in Fubo and the folding of Hulu with Live TV into Fubo, as indicative of the sector's instability ([13:55]).

Furthermore, Kramer highlights the broader impact on the TV industry and advertisers, noting that the diminishing reach of pay-TV limits access to audiences and undermines traditional advertising models. The increasing fragmentation and expense of digital pay-TV services are not only curbing consumer subscriptions but also threatening the long-standing viability of linear TV channels.

Oscar Orozco on the Evolution of Livestream E-Commerce

Orozco delves into the mechanics of livestream e-commerce, emphasizing its rapid growth and the factors driving its adoption. With over 40 million participants last year—a number expected to swell to 60 million by 2026—livestream shopping is positioned as a significant trend within the broader scope of social commerce ([07:31]). He attributes this growth to increased platform support, particularly from influencers and brands that create engaging, interactive shopping experiences.

Orozco underscores the importance of platforms like Pinterest, which are enhancing their shoppable media capabilities, and notes that retailers are increasingly partnering with third-party infrastructure providers to facilitate livestream events. This collaboration is crucial for maintaining consistency and scalability, allowing livestream shopping to expand beyond occasional events and become a more integral part of the consumer shopping journey ([12:30]).

However, Orozco acknowledges the challenges in replicating China's highly developed livestream e-commerce ecosystem in the United States. He points out that the success in China is driven by continuous, high-frequency livestream events that keep consumers engaged, a model that may not be economically feasible in the U.S. market. Despite these hurdles, he remains optimistic about the potential for growth through strategic partnerships and platform innovations.

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Round Three: Show Stopping Arguments

Ethan Kramer's Closing Argument

Ethan Kramer asserts the inevitability of digital pay-TV's decline, framing it as an unstoppable trend driven by shifting consumer preferences and unsustainable business models. “TV's been dying for ages. I came on. I'm riding the most obvious wave,” Kramer declares ([21:29]). He envisions a future where linear TV becomes a niche medium, barely recognizable from its past incarnation, and emphasizes that the integration of digital pay-TV into existing streaming services is insufficient to reverse its downward trajectory.

Oscar Orozco's Closing Argument

Conversely, Oscar Orozco emphasizes the growing awareness and adoption of livestream shopping, particularly among younger demographics like Gen Z and the emerging Gen Alpha. “Awareness is increasing,” he states ([23:09]). Orozco argues that as these younger generations mature and gain spending power, they will drive the continued adoption and normalization of livestream e-commerce. He highlights the adaptability of platforms and the diversification of product categories as key factors that will sustain and propel the growth of livestream shopping.

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Conclusion

The episode culminates with a balanced acknowledgment of both trends. While Ethan Kramer convincingly outlines the structural and economic factors leading to the decline of digital pay-TV, Oscar Orozco presents a compelling case for the resilience and potential of livestream e-commerce. Both forecasts are deemed equally robust by the hosts, Marcus, who humorously declares Ethan the "star taker" despite recognizing the strength of Orozco's arguments.

As digital media continues to evolve, the insights from this episode underscore the necessity for marketers and advertisers to adapt to the diminishing relevance of traditional and digital pay-TV while capitalizing on the burgeoning opportunities presented by livestream shopping. The contrasting trajectories of these trends highlight the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the digital landscape, emphasizing the importance of agile and forward-thinking strategies in the ever-changing world of digital media.

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Notable Quotes

• Oscar Orozco ([00:31]): "Hello, everybody. Hello, listeners. Happy New Year. By the way, I don't know how much longer."

• Ethan Kramer ([03:55]): “The majority of America does not have pay TV. So if you add up the digital people and the traditional people, they do not come to the same total as the amount of people that just have nothing or no pay TV.”

• Oscar Orozco ([03:17]): “Live streaming E commerce is just something that is there, it's growing. We're going to hear a lot more about it and I think, you know, it's something we need to talk more about.”

• Ethan Kramer ([21:29]): “My prediction is that within five years, linear TV is basically going to be a niche medium. And right now we're talking about the death of it. But we haven't actually gotten to a point where literally no one you talk to will have seen that thing that was on tv.”

• Oscar Orozco ([23:09]): “I expect that in the next three to five years, not only will awareness increase frequency of use but also Gen Alpha is going to carry this into adulthood.”

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Behind the Numbers provides a thorough examination of two significant trends poised to reshape the digital media landscape by 2025. The decline of digital pay-TV highlights the shifting consumption patterns and the challenges faced by traditional and digital streaming services in sustaining growth. Meanwhile, the rise of livestream shopping presents a promising avenue for engagement and sales, particularly among younger demographics, despite existing challenges in scaling and replicating international successes.

Marketers, retailers, and advertisers stand to benefit from understanding these trends, adapting their strategies to leverage the opportunities presented by livestream e-commerce, and preparing for the continued transformation of media consumption habits as digital pay-TV fades into obsolescence.

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For more in-depth analysis and additional forecasting trends, listeners are encouraged to visit eMarketer.com and explore the comprehensive reports available to subscribers.

Transcript

[Marcus]

Hey, gang. It's Friday, January 24th. Ethan, Oscar, and listeners, welcome to behind the Numbers and Emarketer video podcast. I'm Marcus. Today we'll be discussing why live TV is kind of disappearing and whether livestream shopping is actually catching on. Today I'm joined by two gents, both based in New York City. One of them is coming to us live from our studio. He's senior director of forecasting is Oscar Orozco.

[Oscar Orozco]

Hello, everybody. Hello, listeners. Happy New Year. By the way, I don't know how much longer.

[Marcus]

January 24th.

[Oscar Orozco]

Yeah, I don't know how much longer.

[Marcus]

But like two weeks ago.

[Ethan Kramer]

Yeah, you're past the line.

[Oscar Orozco]

I think I can go till February with it. So happy New Year.

[Marcus]

New Year. I catch you telling me that in July, we are no longer friends. Principal forecasting writer is also joining us. It's Ethan Kramer. Flood.

[Ethan Kramer]

I am also here.

[Marcus]

Hello. That was also an awkward. That's a tough.

[Ethan Kramer]

That's a tough intro.

[Marcus]

Let's see if it gets better. Today's fact. Who designed the world's most valuable brand logo? It's Apple. According to forbes, valued at $240 billion. Rob Janoff, the graphic designer at Regis McKenna, which is the agency that handled Apple's startup, came up with the logo. The only direction he got from Steve Jobs was to he said, don't make it cute. The bite in the apple was added to distinguish it from a cherry because it's got a little stalk at the top as well as a metaphor for the knowledge users would gain from the computer. And Mr. Janoff's creative director later, after he designed the logo, later pointed out that serendipitously, the word bite with a Y is also a computer term, which.

[Oscar Orozco]

Is pretty cool, kind of clever. I like it more after hearing the story.

[Ethan Kramer]

So I think there's a story out there about the Nike swoosh. Also, like, in general, a lot of these iconic images were created by folks who were just doing their job.

[Marcus]

The amount of money that that person was paid to me was the story there. So Nike's logo is the 13th most valuable brand and it's like $40 billion or something. Back in 1971. Phil Knight, who's co founder of Nike, pays Carolyn Davidson $35.

[Oscar Orozco]

I did not swoosh. And it is the most iconic. You know, I think personally.

[Marcus]

Yeah. Quickly going back to the apple, another interesting factoid. The original rainbow stripes in the logo were because the Apple computer was the only one. Images in color. Yeah. Many iterations away from that. However, this is the great behind the numbers, takeoff forecasting trends and predictions for 2025. It's a great British bake off style show for today's episode in which our takers or bakers will be cooking up one trend each for you. Three rounds Signature take the how it will technically play out challenge and and the show stopping argument. Let's meet the contestants predictions. Ethan, what will you be cooking up for us today?

[Ethan Kramer]

I will be talking about digital pay TV and how it is unlikely to live up to its promise and as a result the decline of linear TV will continue.

[Marcus]

Okay. And Oscar, what will you be baking?

[Oscar Orozco]

Interesting. Well, I'll be talking about live streaming, e commerce, something that seems to be on the fringes of, you know, a American consumers minds these days, but that I think is going to get increasingly popular starting this year. And yeah, we'll talk a little bit about our new. It's a brand new forecast on the topic.

[Marcus]

Oh, very good. Let's get into it. Gents. Round one is signature take. Our chefs will have one minute to explain the premise of their trend. We'll start with Ethan. He's talking about digital pay TV surge petering out. Tell us more.

[Ethan Kramer]

Yeah. So we like everyone else in this business has been tracking very carefully the decline of traditional TV for a long time. So in this case traditional pay tv, which we could just call cable tv, right? People have been bailing on cable TV for a long time. That is not my big surprise revelation today. But what was interesting about that story is that even though you have been hearing about how cord cutters have been growing and growing and growing. So and eventually we had to invent this new term cord nevers, about people who not only they just skipped right over the part where you pay for cable TV and then eventually cancel and how cord cutters and cord nevers collectively were growing and growing and people aren't watching tv. People aren't watching tv. And we had this pivot point a few years ago where the number of cord cutters and cord numbers exceeded the number of people with cable tv. And that was sort of a jarring moment in theory, but it wasn't really true at the time from the perspective of the TV industry or from the perspective of advertisers and consumers because people were still watching a lot of tv, they were just doing it digitally, right? And so we had this interesting new phenomenon where digital pay TV, which for a while was called VMVPD, virtual multichannel programming, blah blah blah, but it's basically YouTube TV, Hulu with live TV, Fubo, people are paying to have the cable TV experience digitally. And we had, we had categorized that as a digital media phenomenon because it is basically streaming. And so we're saying, oh well, this is part of the digital revolution. The death of TV continues. But in reality, that experience was exactly like watching pay tv. You're paying for cable tv, you're getting all the channels, all, all those people out there that produce TV shows. It's all going the same way and you're seeing it. And for a while there, that was really going like gangbusters. So much so that in fact, the majority of this country through last year still had pay tv. It's just a whole bunch of them were doing it digitally. They still are. And you have the remnants of folks that are paying for traditional cable and satellite TV and you have all these new folks that are paying for digital pay tv. And it was sort of a quiet reality that most households in this country still actually had pay tv. That has now come to an end. And this is my statement, this is my forecast. Because the digital pay TV phenomenon that kind of was explosively successful for a few years there is starting to peter out. It's really expensive. People aren't gravitating towards it as fast as would be necessary to rescue the traditional linear TV industry. And as of 2025, we have now fully and completely reached the point where the majority of America does not have pay tv. So if you add up the digital people and the traditional people, they do not come to the same total as the amount of people that just have nothing or no pay tv that wasn't.

[Marcus]

Even close to a minute. You left your dish in far too long and is burnt as a result. But you make good points and it's interesting because the gap between any kind of pay TV households and non pay TV households is widening very quickly. It's gone from 5 million more pay TV households last year to 5 million more non pay TV households this year. So a 10 million household swing in a non pay TV direction. So it's moving quickly. I think it's like a 30 million household gap in a couple of years.

[Ethan Kramer]

Yeah, the gap is going to be enormous. The story is over, Oscar.

[Marcus]

Let's turn to yours. Livestream E commerce catching on, apparently. Tell us more.

[Oscar Orozco]

Yes, well, it's something that, for example, it wasn't in my purview about a year ago. It's something I wasn't thinking about really. And you know, as I mentioned, a brand new forecast. We've realized that there are over 40 million already. 40 million Americans that have shopped, bought an item through one of these live stream profiles or through a social platform that is hosting one of these events. That was actually last year. So we expect that by next year 2026 that number will go up to 54 million. In three years it'll be up to 60 million. So there's a to of growth there. To put it into perspective, you know we talk a lot more about social commerce and you know, social commerce. We expect that you know, sort of growth in social buyers, people who are buying on these platforms will be under 4% growth this year. When you look at live streaming E commerce buying, it's at over 19%. So you know, again a lot of conversation about social commerce is what we talk about more frequently here at eMarketer. But live streaming E commerce is just something that is there, it's growing. We're going to hear a lot more about it and I think, you know, it's something we need to talk more about. So yeah.

[Marcus]

So before we get to round two, quick pushback. The number of livestream shoppers did make a significant jump from last year. Grew like 29% I think it was last year. However, we do have it slowing down quite quickly. Right. Like in two years time it's going to be about 7% growth. So it does seem like it's reached a pretty significant milestone. You get to 50 plus million people doing anything that's not nothing. But it does seem from our forecast that it is going to slow down and hit the high single digits quite quickly.

[Oscar Orozco]

I mean I think it's fair to look at it from that angle. I mean I would also push back and say tell me the last sort of buying or e commerce behavior activity that has not only seen this growth that we've been seeing the last few years but that will sort of continue on into the future there. I mean I think a lot of this is not just the Gen Z Gen zers, but we're starting to think a little bit more about Gen Alpha as well as they begin to age in the coming years into this sort of late teen age. I think that.

[Marcus]

Because that's what 13 and down. Correct ages roughly.

[Oscar Orozco]

Yeah, let me, let me clarify that right now. This year they're either one year olds but they're going to. Yeah, so it's still very young but they're also as, they could be as old as 12. So okay. Exactly. As they, let's give it, you know, three, four years where they're becoming, you know, financially independent a little bit more their Budgets are increasing. I think that they're going to be pushing that behavior into early adulthood.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Ethan Kramer]

Let's be clear about live streaming e commerce and what it's going to take for this to become as successful as some other options. The future of live streaming e commerce rests on the assumption that people are going to voluntarily sit down and watch commercials, live commercials, for an extended period of time, just as a choice, because that's essentially what it is. And this has succeeded. I say that jokingly because it sounds terrible, but the reality is in China that succeeded tremendously because they made it entertaining. People will sit there and they will watch. You are watching a commercial for like hours. They'll sit down and watch and the products change and the hosts change, etc. And they make it entertaining. And people, young people in particular, decided that this was a worthwhile way to spend their day and that, you know, substituted in for watching a TV show or a movie or whatever. And that's what it's going to take here also in order for that growth to remain high.

[Oscar Orozco]

Yeah, I mean I would push back. Sure, you can classify them as commercials, but it's a little more complicated than that. I mean, I think, you know, people in general have favorite brands, they have favorite influencers that they, that they follow that they want to hear about the new products there. I think there's so much potential. It's not just apparel, footwear, of course, we're talking about so many different product categories. It could be tech products, products, beauty, cosmetics, things like this. And so there's just so many different avenues you can go down. I think a lot of it's just also driven by platforms too, Ethan. So I think, you know, people are spending so much more time on YouTube, on, you know, TikTok and other socials meta, you know, in 2023 seemed to pull out of, of the market. But I fully expect that this year, you know, maybe, maybe it'll be next year that they'll come back into the fray.

[Marcus]

And you know, believe Jasmine Emberg, our social expert, expects that, expects them to jump back in this, this year. Yeah, even though they did pull out really quickly. It's also hard for America in livestream shopping because to what Ethan was saying, China is such a more advanced comp. Close to half. In your report, Ethan, you mentioned close to half of digital buyers in China are live stream shoppers or buyers. And so trying to stack up against that, you know, is hard, but maybe there's a niche that, you know, America can carve out in terms of getting this right for this different type of consumer. Let's move around two gents. The how it would technically play out challenge. Our chefs will explain in a bit more detail how they expect the trend to manifest. Let's go back to the pay TV one. Ethan, tell us more about what this looks like in practice.

[Ethan Kramer]

And you're right, I really like I said way too much my opening because, you know, I already, I already explained the whole thing.

[Marcus]

Unbelievable.

[Ethan Kramer]

In practice, we're looking at 65 million households in 2025 that are still going to have access to regular linear pay TV channels as compared to 70 million that won't. So in practice, we're already starting to see the ramifications of the slowdown for digital pay TV and the fact that it is not going to probably end up being a replacement for TV. It's not going to rescue the TV industry because as I, as I mentioned, the players, YouTube TV, Hulu with live TV and Fubo. There was just news already where Disney swooped in and acquired a majority of Fubo. And I think they're actually going to fold Hulu with live TV into Fubo to create one of the larger TV providers in the country. There is a lot going on with that story. There was a lawsuit related to sports rights and the now defunct attempt to create an app called Venue that was going to combine a bunch of sports. But also what has happened is that hulu with live TVs growth, has almost flatlined. And these digital pay TV providers are confronting the same challenges that traditional cable TV providers confront, which is that it's too expensive and people don't want to pay for it. And so this is not really a growth market anymore. Five years ago or even three years ago, growth was still pretty significant. You'd say, all right, well, maybe there's a way to make money doing this now. I'm not sure if they're really, if there really is sustainable the way these things currently exist. So you're already starting to see some M and A activity. I think you could possibly see some folks exit the market. You're seeing YouTube TV, you know, has to do this massive investment with the NFL Sunday ticket in order to get. And that worked. That seems to have worked. They've gotten a lot of new people thanks to the NFL. But where is this going to go sustainably over the long term? I don't know. I don't know how far it's going.

[Marcus]

To go on the price point. I went back and looked. The price of digital pay TV has gone up. Outrageously. Fast. So when YouTube TV was launched back in 2017, it cost $35 a month. Today it's 83 bucks. So that's inflation of 137% over eight years. I went and took a look. That's five times faster than the average inflation rate over that period. Inflation's been high, but 140% is very, very fast. That's a big part of it. It's interesting though, even, because maybe the writing was on the wall here the whole time. If you look, go back and look digital paid TV household. So as you mentioned, you know, the Hulu plus live TV people, the YouTube TV, they never had that kind of up until the right growth moment. It's been kind of very smooth staircase growth since it was invented. So it is kind of flatlining now, but it's never been on this astronomical trajectory.

[Ethan Kramer]

I guess the key takeaway is that for the, for the TV industry, for these channels that are used to being in everyone's homes, and for advertisers and marketers that are used to being able to partner with them and assume that they're going to have access to the majority of the country, like that's just gone. And this isn't going to rescue it.

[Oscar Orozco]

Yeah, I think. And it's consumers who, as usual, they're going to be the ones suffering the most. Just less options, more expensive. And ultimately, yeah, we've talked about this a lot. I mean, I think this has been something we've mentioned here maybe for a few years now. It's just kind of this reverse retransformation and going back to really the same model we've always had, which is going to be this just like digital cable, you know, and then cost about a hundred dollars a month, cost the same. And none of these skinny bundles, everything's gonna have to be lumped together. The only potential I do see, guys, and it's kind of this directv really recent developments. There kind of maybe more of these sports heavy packages that, that will be expensive, but that might cater to the right people who are looking to, you know, move away from traditional cable. And it's usually sports. You know, it's sports that's driving that.

[Ethan Kramer]

And there probably is a future for linear channels in a very splintered way. So you mentioned the skinny bundle, but that it also brings to mind the way that the existing streaming services are increasingly making their TV channels available. So you go to Peacock at some point in the future and you'll have a section of it that's just showing NBC and MSNBC or whatever. Well, I guess that's not a good example because Comcast is trying to spin off all their channels, but a lot of these streaming services will have channels available. So you'll be able to see some of the things that you go to max and you can see your tnt, but you can't see TNT anywhere else. There's no longer that traditional cable experience.

[Marcus]

Oscar, let's pivot back to your trend for round two. We've got a question here. So in the report, I think Ethan, you wrote, because you wrote five forecasting trends and it's the one that Oscar was talking about, you wrote about it saying the live stream shopping is catching on. And I'm wondering whether we can say it's catching on because even though 50 million Americans will buy something off a live stream this year, our definition is people who bought something just once in the calendar year.

[Ethan Kramer]

Yeah, that's a good caveat.

[Marcus]

Yeah. How do we think about that?

[Ethan Kramer]

It's, it's the people. Increasingly people are aware of this as an option.

[Oscar Orozco]

That's an important caveat. And I think, you know, to, to your earlier point, Marcus, some of that growth, you know, might just come in something that our forecast is not quite capturing. But it's the frequency. Right. Maybe rather than just once or twice, existing buyers will be doing it three or four times. Right. Which is. Is just as important. Yeah.

[Marcus]

Because it's hard to know of that 50 million, I mean, there might be people who are doing it once a month. Maybe most of them are, but maybe most of them aren't. And so it's hard to know what the behavior looks like in terms of frequency.

[Ethan Kramer]

Extraordinarily challenging. Also from a production standpoint, if people aren't doing it regularly. So to our point here, if you're someone who only maybe checks in on live streaming, E commerce once a month because you get an inspiration for something you want to go look for, you need that product to be conducting a live stream at that exact moment in time.

[Marcus]

Yeah.

[Ethan Kramer]

Otherwise it's not going to work. Right. So in China, that's what they do. They have people there 18 hours a day. So no matter when you choose to log in to look for lipstick or to look for your whatever appliance, there is somebody there at that moment producing a live commercial for you. We're not going to be able to do that in the US that's too expensive. You can't have the talent sitting there 247 just in case somebody is like 2am wants to like do their research. Right. So if you are in a casual, occasional livestream, e commerce shopper, that reduces the chance that you'll actually find what you're looking for.

[Marcus]

Yeah, yeah.

[Oscar Orozco]

And I agree with. I was, I was going to say, I think two things. Yes. You know, the growth from the US does not necessarily, it's not going to necessarily mirror what we're seeing in China. I think it's going to look a little bit different. So it doesn't necessarily mean that that is the future of what it will look like here in five or 10 years. But there are some things to learn for anyone who is looking to get into any sort of, you know, live stream e commerce events. But a couple things I was going to say Pinterest. Look out for Pinterest. Pinterest has been doing an incredible job with a lot of their shoppable media. I think they've specifically mentioned integrating it more into the platform. I think a lot of growth will come from there and they've had success referencing what I said earlier with Gen Z users recently. So look out for Pinterest. I also think a lot of it will come from retailers sort of partnering with these third party, you know, sort of partners that help build out the infrastructure. So it might not be super consistent events, but you know, maybe once a year type of things. But I think that's where we're going to see a lot of, a lot of attention and growth coming from.

[Marcus]

Okay, let's move to round three. Real quick. Show stopping argument after. Chefs will pull out their best closing arguments. 10, 20 seconds as to why that trend is most likely to happen.

[Ethan Kramer]

Ethan, it's most likely to happen because this is inevitable. What? I have to prove it. TV's been dying for ages. I came on. I'm riding the most obvious wave. All right, here's here. My prediction is that within five years, linear TV is basically going to be a niche medium. And right now we're talking about the death of it. But we haven't actually gotten to a point where literally no one you talk to will have seen that thing that was on tv. Yeah. And if within five years, you know, we're going to be at that place really quick.

[Marcus]

And this is to both of you guys. If one has the answer over the other. This shortfall not being made up, you know, so people watching less of the live TV overall, whether it's traditional or digital, those viewers instead watching Netflix and YouTube, presumably. Or is that old pay TV time going to social media instead? Yeah, where's that time going?

[Oscar Orozco]

I think that's a great question. I think it's going to other types of video content. So the social, the short form, social media, the reels, the shorts. Absolutely.

[Ethan Kramer]

We have that data point and if I remember correctly, it's basically, it basically balances out. So the amount of time that people are spending in front of video is sort of like, you know, a huge drop in TV time, increase in subscription, ottoman, fast channels, whatever, all the streaming kind of things. And it kind of balances out. And we're all spending about as much time in front of the, in front of the big screen as we used to.

[Oscar Orozco]

And consider audio too. We keep hearing about video podcasts and videos in platforms. So yeah, there as well.

[Marcus]

Oscar, real quick, what's your closing argument?

[Oscar Orozco]

Yeah, awareness is increasing. Ethan, you said this very well in the, in the report. But I expect that in the next three to five years, not only will awareness increase frequency of use and again, look out for Gen Alpha. I think they're going to carry this into adulthood. This, this activity, this shopping behavior. So that's where a lot of the growth will come from.

[Marcus]

Very nice time to crown our star taker or baker. It's Ethan. It wasn't even close to read all of Ethan's trends. Five of them Pro subscribers can head to eMarketer.com and search for US forecast trends to watch in 2025. A link is of course in the show. Notes. I'm kidding, Oscar. They're both really good arguments. Thank you so much to you both for being here today. Thank you. First to Ethan.

[Ethan Kramer]

My pleasure. Go read the report. Three more. Three more nuggets in there for you.

[Marcus]

Yes, indeed. Thank you to Oscar.

[Oscar Orozco]

I nearly fell out of my chair, but thank you. That was, that was a lot of fun. Definitely check out the report. Yeah, always is. Definitely read the report. Great job. Thanks so much, Marcus.

[Marcus]

Yes, indeed. Thanks to the whole editing crew, Victoria, John, Lance and Danny Stuart who runs the team, and Sophie who does our social media. And thanks of course to everyone for listening in. We hope to see you on Monday for Behind the Numbers and E Marketer video podcast.