“That goose continues to lay golden eggs; they’re just smaller every year,” he continued, adding, “This is the same challenge
the record companies had: How fast do you shift to a new model at the risk of your existing, lucrative one?”
Turner Broadcasting, which owns channels like CNN, TBS and TNT, especially impressed advertisers with its presentation.
He said the company’s presentation, as well as some of the new advertising ideas discussed by Fox Networks Group and CBS, addressed the major concern
that he and other marketers shared: How do you compete for consumers’ attention, especially as they move to block ads and turn to platforms like Netflix, where running commercials is not an option?
America’s biggest television networks invited advertisers to New York institutions like Carnegie Hall
and Lincoln Center last week, giving them an early glimpse at their fall lineups and treating them to lavish parties and a parade of stars including Stephen Colbert, Kim Kardashian and Tony Romo, all with the aim of attracting billions of dollars in advertising by the end of the summer.
The Fox group also discussed a new system for measuring the effectiveness of ads on its online properties
to help marketers determine which versions to use just hours later on traditional TV.
And Les Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, cited Amazon, Apple
and Google as companies that, like the network, were “all about mass audience” while noting that all three also paid to advertise with CBS
And while the networks have spent the past few years trying to convince marketers of their digital prowess despite falling ratings
and new platforms for watching TV, Silicon Valley seemed to cast an especially long shadow this year.
“Most networks are starting to recognize that the standard model of 18 minutes of 30-second spots in a 60-minute show will never grow
and is probably not sustainable,” said Ben Winkler, the chief investment officer at the agency OMD.