I get so mad when I open the trades! Don’t these people know not to make me angry… that they wouldn’t like me when I’m angry!!?    

“TV Ads Will Straddle Streaming and Linear For Years To Come” is this weeks headline that has me wondering…what happened to ‘TV IS DEAD’?! “Years to come”? How about “for the rest of our lives”?? According to the article, the topic du jour at the many recent industry conferences (ANA’s Masters of Marketing in Orlando, Advertising Week in NY, etc..) was “the future of TV and the forever promise of our industry that all TV advertising will finally become digital”. As usual, the author has a somewhat, let’s say, slightly impartial view on the subject matter. He is the CEO of a prominent AdTech platform. Very nice guy but….

Brosky, what are you talking about? In order for ALL TV advertising to become digital, the entire ecosystem of Broadcast and Cable would need to get plugged in to the interweb. Even if that were possible, why do such a thing? There is no need to auction prime real estate. It’s like the old adage which expresses advertising inventory to a T; cheap, fast, good. Pick TWO. If it’s cheap and fast, it ain’t good. If it’s fast and good, it ain’t cheap. And if it’s cheap and good, it’s a result of a long knock-down-drag-out negotiation.

The only place you can get the big FIVE; co-viewing, full screen, fraud free, time spent and extended reach, is OFFline. ONline advertising works best only when that same advertiser utilizes the air cover provided by TV (and it’s favorite cousin, Radio).

Linear and Digital are finally approaching a long sought homeostasis… can we drop the ‘Future of TV’ claptrap already? Everything is just fine the way it is.