Traditional TV news is slowly making way for new paradigms of newscasting, especially among coveted Millennial and Gen-Z viewers. While 81 percent of Americans over 65 say they turn to local television for news, only 16 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds say the same. Cord-cutting has hit a tipping point, and legacy broadcasters have finally gotten the message. Over the past few years there’s been a mad dash to adopt OTT (over-the-top) technology – with NBCU recently announcing a streaming news service of their own to compete with existing offerings from ABC and CBS.

Though they have slowly come around to this new medium, the major networks have nevertheless been hesitant to forego traditional advertising altogether. And while ad-supported OTT can work, it cannot succeed via business as usual. Appealing to changing audiences and skeptical advertisers means more than just launching an app. It means leveraging OTT technology to create content that caters to the “instant-gratification” generation, and advertising that knows how to capture their attention.