The Once and Future King

The television business today faces daunting challenges. But it’s moving quickly—and often smartly—to meet the demands of a digital marketplace. Reports of the medium’s demise were clearly exaggerated. The industry is determined to reinvent itself and remain the channel of choice for advertisers.

“We have all of these digital natives who use broadband as a principal or supplemental way of consuming what used to be called television,” said Lori Schwartz, senior VP of Interpublic’s Emerging Media Lab. “You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a broadband portal.”

Here’s how Mike Lotito, president of media consulting firm Media IQ, describes it: “The television business has been entering the mature side of its lifecycle for a while, but it’s really finally coming to terms with it. Mature businesses have more competitors, price pressure and infrastructure challenges, and they’re not the most popular thing in town anymore. In the last year, the heads of the networks have realized that and are figuring out how to change their processes.”

Anne-Marie Schaffer, senior VP of media for Los Angeles agency Ignited, who formerly ran the giant Cingular account at Mediaedge:cia, observes, “The broadcasters have been pretty quick to develop good content for the Web and are providing a really engaged opportunity for advertisers to create some unique placements we can’t do on television.”

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