• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, September 26, 2013

If you can’t beat TV networks, you can always join them -- if they are desperate enough.

Plenty of digital media conferences talk about what digital can do for marketers. But the real, bottom line seems to be more about one question: How can I take money from TV budgets and put it into my company’s pocket?

Facebook, YouTube and others believe that growing online video usage will mean a greater share of digital media ad dollars.

Twitter apparently has a better idea with its “Amplify” branded partnership program: partner with networks like CBS or network groups like Viacom who can then convince their marketing clients to spend more money on both traditional TV and the social media service.

Twitter, in effect, becomes a supplier of inventory to a TV network/programmer, which, in turn, sells that inventory to an advertiser. Twitter, one could surmise, realizes that becoming a full-scale original TV show/video producer, perhaps competing with TV networks, probably doesn’t make sense.

From a TV network’s mindset, giving Twitter a tiny piece of the overall media buy it gets from marketers perhaps makes sense.

Brian Wieser, senior research analyst of the Pivotal Research Group, says

these "value-adds" can help a network win budgets over its competition.

For networks, TV related social media content can promote -- or at the very least, stir discussion -- of their shows.

But overall Wieser doesn’t think much will go Twitter’s way because, except for some big spenders, marketers actually keep traditional TV media budgets separate from online video budgets.

Why doesn’t a TV network just sell social media inventory itself? Because Twitter has the scale that few other digital media concerns have. While the networks are still relatively the strongest media around, they don’t want to get left behind in any digital arena -- even if their core audiences are not now actively using much social media.

Small price to pay?