• by Gene DeWitt , April 26, 2006

Broadcast is still broadcast. Witness "American Idol," "CSI," "Desperate Housewives," the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards, the Final Four, etc. Try to find those audiences in broadband! Today there are fewer truly "broad" media venues, but the ones that remain, especially the original ones, are very, very special and cannot be overlooked-- even with all of the excitement about broadband.

Some of these broadband audiences are very, very small, and even if they are identifiable as highly qualified prospects for a product or service, it is unlikely that they are large enough to have a significant impact on a major business.

Broadcasting can still deliver high-reach, highly engaging platforms for programming and advertising. Broadband can't, not today and probably not soon enough to make a big difference to any major business this year or next.

Broadcast is using broadband to extend its reach and to become even more ubiquitous. What these new pipes offer are new venues for the same expensive, high quality programming that populates the media globally. Broadband can't afford the level of programming that today's video-saturated audiences demand.

So let's put a few percent of our dollars and a similar proportion of words behind broadband. But don't turn your back on the elephant in the room. It may be old but it's still big enough to squash you if you're an advertiser who looks too far into the future and trips over the opportunities of the present.