• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, September 18, 2008

What will it take to move ad dollars online? “Years and years and years of haranguing,” proposes Dennis Miller, general partner of Spark Capital.

“You don’t get fired for buying NFL football,” he says. But experimenting with an interactive video game or YouTube is another story.

Many marketers say they’re wary of YouTube or other Web sites because they’re afraid the content will be too racy or amateurish for their brands. But Miller, a former executive at Turner Network Television, said Madison Avenue execs had similar complaints about cable years ago.

Satya Patel, principal of Battery Ventures, agreed with the analogy. “At the end of the day,” he said, “I think YouTube is a cable channel.”