• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 29, 2015

In the old days, broadcast networks might count 300 upfront advertisers and 1,000 overall. Facebook has some two million advertisers; Twitter has some 100,000.

Twitter’s first quarter revenues were under expectations -- down 9% from the fourth quarter 2014, with second quarter company estimates looking weak. Still, one analyst on CNBC says perhaps those 100,000 marketers on Twitter might yield $5 billion to $7 billion in revenue in a couple of years.  Much of Twitter’s big expectations -- and possibly that of every forward-looking digital media platform -- are  in video content and advertising.

Right now? Twitter does around $2.3 billion a year in advertising.  By way of comparison, CBS, pulled in $7.2 billion in advertising revenue in 2014.

All this is reflected in the current NewFronts -- those presentations which started up a couple of years ago looking to hitch a ride on the traditional TV upfront market, which can pull in around $22 billion or so for national TV platforms, broadcast, cable, and syndication.

Media and company marketing executives continue to head to NewFront presentations so as to not miss any opportunity. But they are also in no rush to make June or July upfront orders.

For digital media sellers, showing up is everything. Everyone needs to make an appearance -- in big, open presentations or in smaller agency-by-agency meetings. If not, media buying executives might get nervous.

Good news here: Traditional TV advertisers continue to buy commercial inventory ever closer to air time -- either in making last minute year-long upfront decisions, or -- in light of favorable buyer-side scatter market conditions -- on a quarter by quarter basis.

Now couple this with the fact new digital platforms continue to see growing revenue -- especially digital video revenue -- all year round, and what do you get?

A marketplace meeting at a time and place somewhere in the middle. Where exactly will that be? For many, that will be a pressing question.