Adding incremental reach with Local Streaming
An effective avenue for reaching presidential election voters
Introduction
Understanding how local news fits into voters’ media diet
Political campaigns must reach voters in an increasingly fragmented media landscape. To understand what role local news plays in 2024 voters’ media diet, Nielsen conducted a study in two markets—Cleveland, Ohio, and West Palm Beach, Florida—that spanned across generations and voter types.
Objective
Revealing local news consumption across key audiences
To help political advertisers understand the impact of local TV to their media plans, Nielsen studied how audiences across different generations and voting histories consumed local media. The study segmented voters by age: Baby Boomers 70+, younger baby boomers 60-69, Gen X 40-59, Gen Y 25-39 and Gen Z 18-24. The study also broke voters out into two groups: Potential Voters (those who never vote in local, statewide or presidential elections), and Reliable Voters (those who always vote).
Challenge
Identifying potential of incremental reach among voters
Once we established these groups’ media consumption behaviors, we wanted to dig even deeper into local streaming insights. We created an additional study of an ad schedule from a major advertiser in a top 10 designated market area (DMA) to understand if there was a unique audience on local streaming not reached by linear TV.
Solution
Measuring real people, not models
The study utilized Nielsen’s people panel, which collects demographics of actual persons instead of relying on modeled household data.
Key findings
1 in 3
Broadcast and cable are still dominant media channels, but 1 in 3 potential voters who watch local news watch through streaming only.
20%
Adding local streaming to the schedule increased GRPs by 20% for P25-54.
12%
Adding local streaming increased the total schedule reach by 12%.
Results
Local streaming increases reach
In Nielsen’s study, the original advertising schedule had a reach of 482,425 on linear. An additional 63,000 in incremental reach was added to the buy from local streaming. This resulted in a total schedule reach of 551,000 and an increase of 12%.
Conclusion
Local TV remains vital part of political campaign strategy
If you want to reach voters and potential voters alike, local TV should remain a vital part of your media mix.
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