TV Is Not Dead

(Was it ever gone?)

It seems people are beginning to change their tune on the demise of TV advertising.  According to a June article in Advertising Age, auto advertisers are back and apparently they have brought some new advertisers with them, “charging in and sucking up all the available inventory.”

“I think there might be a re-examination of television,” Ed Atorino, a media analyst at Benchmark Co. told the magazine. 

Apparently this re-examination has uncovered the value of targeting a large-scale television audience that can’t be found elsewhere.  For the many advertisers who still rely on the masses to keep their doors open, the need still exists to reach lots of people – cost efficiently.  A feat that remains hard to accomplish exclusively with digital-savvy customers who hop along a myriad of websites, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages.

TV may look dowdy compared to a lot of the new technology taking center stage, but its intrinsic power has proven hard to beat. 

Two new studies add more proof that TV advertising is challenging today’s popular wisdom.  Pricewaterhouse Coopers projects ad spending on total U.S. TV will grow to 80.3 billion in 2014 from 62.1 billion in 2009, surpassing its previous high in 2006 of nearly $70 billion.  Meanwhile, Interpublic Groups Magna Global media research unit sees TV’s share of total media dollars growing to 36.8% in 2015 from 35.9% in 2009.

TV still has it challenges ahead, but for now, when it comes to reach and impact – it still remains the only game in town.