Vegas Buzz

TV Advertising is Dying
For advertisers that are still spending more than $70 billion on TV, a permanent slide in TV viewership levels could be the catalyst prompting a major spending shift away from TV in favor of newer media channels like the internet and multimedia cellphones. Given the ability of these new digital media forms to deliver vastly more personalized entertainment experience in tandem with a highly targeted advertising message, television's indiscriminate mass media message looks decidedly dated, and increasingly ineffective from the perspective of the advertiser.

That said, perhaps because they see the writing on the wall, the television networks have recently begun cutting deals designed to allow their entertainment content to be bought directly by subscribers, in much the same way Apple's (Nasdaq:AAPL) iTunes service sells music. These efforts are obviously on the right track and not surprisingly, form the core of the current disagreement between the industry and the striking writers, who want a bigger piece of this pie.

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