• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, May 16, 2013

TV commercial overload: It's not over yet.

While the TV industry works out its online and digital measurement issues, a number of networks, ABC, TNT and TBS, have launched live streaming 24/7 video services. For many, all that suggests is more commercial messaging.

Streaming live video stream from TV networks will, for most, mean a full complement of non-program content: national commercials, local ads, national and local program promos. For some, this means 14 minutes an hour to as much as 17 minutes an hour.

Many TV advertising sales executives during the TV upfront presentations have talk about growing video-on-demand programming usage, where the fast-forwarding function is disabled.

Now we can talk about that process as it relates to online and mobile video platforms -- a place where fast-forwarding functions can be found to be disabled when it comes to existing TV players that essentially allow for time-shifting of TV shows.

To be fair, many network's online and mobile apps -- up to this point -- have offered "limited commercial" interruption of shows, which are time-shifted from their original live airing. Why? Traditional TV networks already have a tough time keeping the audiences they have. So they move gently into the new digital world hoping to sell the ease of access to their content on any new consumer device.

For national TV marketers, live 24/7 digital streaming could be much different -- giving them a better reason to hang with TV program providers as they move to the new live streaming format.

All this is part of TV networks continued sell this season: They offer marketing opportunities for all screens, willing to give TV marketers ad impressions anywhere they want. No, they can't give you Nielsen-like "currency" guarantees for all of these screens. But you could make some reasonable guesses that potential TV customers are moving to other devices.

To the end, TV marketers still need to affix themselves to content in some form, whether a show from J.J. Abrams, Chuck Lorre, or perhaps Steven Spielberg. Maybe more TV marketers believe branding their own content is worth it.

Commercial opportunities seem to abound -- and harder for TV customers to avoid. That's good news for some. No?

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