Dead. Not Dead. Dead. Not Dead. TV is Currently "Not Dead."



From the NY Times this morning:


“TV is not dead,” said Michael J. Boylson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at the J.C. Penney Company in Plano, Tex., which is returning to the Academy Awards for a ninth consecutive year with six commercials during the broadcast.


This is one of my favorite nonsense arguments. Radio was dead. Radio is not dead. Print is dead. Turns out print is not dead. Not so long ago, I wrote about how Sir Richard Branson predicted the Death of TV. Heck, folks, even writing on stone tablets is not dead, although it certainly is not a currently-preferred advertising medium...for the living, anyway.


However, despite the rise of social media and self-serve advertising on Google and Facebook, it turns out the advertising industry isn't dead, either. Thankfully so, as I have three kids to put through college. As the writer for the Times notes:


SOME months back, with the national mood more “Up in the Air” than “Up,” there were doubts about ABC’s ability to sell commercial time during its presentation of the coming 82nd annual Academy Awards. Those worries were exacerbated by the low tune-in — 36.9 million viewers — for the 2009 show.

But three days before the broadcast, the spots are sold out, and at decent rates, considering the economy and last year’s ratings.

The ad sales results provide another example of how demand has held up among marketers wishing to be associated with so-called big event television programs, reflecting the recent increases in viewership for many such shows. Examples include the Golden Globe Awards, the Grammys, the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympic Games.

I believe consumers are weary of being weary, and are looking for entertainment to lift them out of our current national malaise. This is good news for advertising, because soon they'll be looking to the brands they love to outfit and feed them for the coming recovery. I expect spending to be sluggish, given the damage to consumer balance sheets in the past two years, but if demand for TV advertising like this is any indication, things are headed in the right direction.

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