In defense of TV

Something hard to imagine 10 years ago happened last week in one of the keynote speaking panels at Mixx 2006, a Senior Executive from a broadcast TV network justifying why it was still important to advertise on TV. Not long ago, on last year’s OMMA conference during advertising week 2005, Peter Widfald from Samsung presented to the audience how its company was significantly cutting budget from TV to move it to online since 2002. Apparently, based on Jeff Zucker's , CEO of NBC Universal, speach at MIXX, the TV Industry moved from a denial mode to a defensive one in 2006, showcasing their initiatives to justify the statement of “Look we can do digital as well!”.

This should not be a surprise as most of the networks introduced during their upfronts this year their digital delivery platform, integrating in most cases the availability of content for mobile devices, content for sale on itunes or other similar services as well as playing it young and cool on YouTube and Myspace.

Telemundo is one of the US Hispanic networks to bet heavily by associating with Yahoo! en espanol to compete with Univision platform which has been online since the last internet hype. However we are still waiting to see a true integration and synergy of both channels by networks in the US Hispanic other than just publishing information about their TV programs or news.

One thing is certain; TV will not die but will have to successfully overcome the challenge of adapting and adopting the new digital platform by creating new ways to leverage the coexistence of two small screens during primetime.