• by Paul Gough , March 11, 2004

Though television is in the throes of changes that threaten to shake its decades-old foundation, a daylong conference sponsored by TV's biggest advertisers wrestled with some of today's challenges and affirmed its top place in the media spend.

The challenges are well known: Ballooning CPMs, declining audiences, questions over audience measurements, contentious upfronts, increased fragmentation and a traditional lack of addressibility.

"With all of these issues, it would be too easy to conclude that television is headed for the junk heap," said Robert Liodice, president and chief executive of the Association of National Advertisers. The ANA held its annual Television Advertising Forum on Wednesday in midtown Manhattan, drawing a record crowd and many of the industry's top names to the panels and the audience. But Liodice set the tone for the gathering early, and reaffirmed TV advertising as still the most important tool in the marketers' arsenal.

"Although television's advantage has eroded over time, its importance to marketers can never be underestimated," Liodice said. "Television offers much potential for marketers." But that potential is tempered by a drive by shareholders and top executives for better returns on investments in advertising.

"This pressure will not go away. Not now, and not ever. Rather this pressure will only intensify over time," Liodice said. "the industry needs to collectively respond to this important dynamic, less the marketers do it for them."

Liodice, who as head of the ANA represents the concerns of the companies that pay the freight for TV advertising, offered these suggestions for the television industry to maintain its position and even grow:

-- Make network television pricing competitive with other, lesser-priced alternatives.

"Yes, we do recognize the law of supply and demand," Liodice said. "But with CPMs rapidly growing, marketers will continue their rapid exodus and find other affordable alternatives." He pointed out that in 2003, cable TV spending grew by double digits while network TV only grew by 2 percent even with a record upfront.

-- Make commercial ratings the standard.

"Advertisers want them. Nielsen has them. It makes no sense not to have them in this era of high technology, increasing accountability and heightened attention to metrics," Liodice said. "The rest of the world enjoys commercial ratings. Why not the U.S.?"

-- Raising the bar on productivity, embracing systems that will streamline television advertising efforts, such as electronic data integration (EDI) initiatives put forward by other industry groups and the ANA's own AD-ID system to code digital signals.

-- Bring some order to the upfront process, including pushing the upfront to later in the calendar year and eliminating the all-night negotiating process.

-- Working to reduce clutter on TV.

"Increasing levels of clutter only exacerbates the consumer tune-out issue," Liodice said.