Study: $1.4B Local TV Revenue Opportunity

Share Rocket, a provider of local social media ratings for broadcast media, today said its 2018 local broadcasting estimated revenue opportunity forecast predicts sponsored premium social content for 2018 will exceed $1.4 billion.

Share Rocket’s study examined social media audiences of local television stations and the sponsored content revenue opportunities available.

By analyzing one year’s worth of historical social impressions, video views and engagement on social media across 210 television markets, Share Rocket said it determined the total estimated value for sponsored premium social content for 2018 to exceed $1.4 billion. “Armed with this valuation, TV news broadcasters can more easily quantify their social media equity for advertisers,” the company said.

The study also took into account the total addressable market, given the early stage of the sponsored content market in local TV. The addressable market estimate incorporates many factors, including the amount of time broadcasters need to ramp internal social sales efforts, speed to adapt, and the fact that stations in the top 50 markets will have the most capabilities to quickly incorporate this new advertising inventory into their sales efforts.

Share Rocket estimates that the total addressable market opportunity for 2018 is $233 million. It also determined the estimated value for sponsored content for top TV market segments, detailed below, with the top overall market in the U.S. being Chicago.

• Top 10 Markets = $446 million
• Top 20 Markets = $747 million
• Top 50 Markets = $1.08 billion
• Top 100 Markets = $1.3 billion

“Local TV broadcasters know that in this evolving media market with several options for consuming news, building their social media presence is key to tapping into additional audience segments and to developing new revenue opportunities,” said Chris Kraft, Share Rocket CEO. “Part of our mission at Share Rocket is to provide local broadcasting stations with the knowledge and supporting data to help them monetize their social media audiences. By providing a valuation of untapped sponsored premium content, we hope to help these stations create meaningful social revenue from their highly engaged and growing social audiences.”

These estimates and forecasts will be discussed further at the TVB Forward event taking place on Sept. 28, 2017, at Pier Sixty, Chelsea Piers in New York City, which takes a C-Suite look at local broadcast TV through the lens of revenue generation. Share Rocket CEO Chris Kraft will be discussing during the panel titled “The Digital Monetizers,” which will also include representatives from Dream Local, Gracenote, Graham Media and GroundTruth.

The study is available here.

Read all of TVNewsCheck’s TVB Forward 2017 coverage here.