The pull era: Why media survival hinges on the phone-centric consumer

“You must see the whole consumer simultaneously, because most video is now consumed on phones,” said Shapiro. “We have left the top-down era and are now in the pull, user-centric era. The phone is the remote control of our whole lives. The most important thing you need to know is who the user is, and how they behave. If you ignore them, and not putting them at the centre of what you do, you’refucked.” 

Shapiro reminded the audience that 70% of the world right now is millenials and younger and 81% of the population of Earth is under 55. Raised with phones in their pocket, they consume media very differently.  

“Most video on earth is watched on phones and in bed, waiting in line, and on the toilet. “The younger you get, the more this is true,” said Shapiro. “When I say the whole consumer, I mean living room to bed, bus to couch, and couch to toilet.” 

We are seeing this bifurcation take place in real time here in Europe, where two-thirds of people are under the age of 55. “A lot of the things that have happened in the US and other places around the world are slower to get here because you’re old, it takes you longer to adapt, and you have more free public media than we have in the US. There is a lag, but the wave is coming this way.” 

Those who expected traditional media to be replaced dollar for dollar and audience for audience by streaming were wrong. Time spent consuming traditional TV is now being replaced by a combination of streaming and social media, by televisions and phones.  

“This is what I call personalised TV,” added Shapiro. “BBC iplayer is in this continuum, but so is Tik Tok. Traditional TV is sunsetting on purpose as we switch to digital, and streaming is picking up a lot of that time, with social video, time on phone taking more of that time than television is.” 

A shrinking minority of consumer are watching hours of traditional tv, whereas under 55, the top two sources are Youtube and Tik Tok. “None of the traditional TV players are in the top 4, the only one is Netflix,” said Shapiro. “In the UK, Instagram is beating the BBC for total attention.” Social media and creators are more trusted than traditional news and to win, traditional news must lean into the creator economy and direct the narrative, concluded Shapiro.