• Advertising Age, Monday, May 18, 2009 9:45 AM

For decades, marketers and their media buyers have been forced to buy ad positions across entire network schedules if they wanted to be in the hottest shows. But marketers' patience with this system seems to be running out. Many are pushing harder than ever before to buy programs and not networks. With audiences following specific pieces of content, marketers want to entwine themselves not necessarily with NBC, CBS or the CW, but with "CSI" or "Gossip Girl."

So far it is unusual for networks to agree to sell ads in specific shows to advertisers who don't want to make larger purchases. Specific buys currently represent only a small percentage of total spending with each network, per TNS Media. "This is going to be the battleground for the next few years," says a senior marketer.

Others aren't convinced the movement toward specificity will result in substantial change. They believe that there's a system for buying ads that has developed over decades, and any transformation will be slow and gradual. "It's talked about a lot, but it's just a small part of the business," says Ira Berger, director of network broadcasting at the Richards Group.

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