• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, July 12, 2016

For local Fox-affiliated TV stations, the Fox deal to start live streaming of its prime-time programming is a good one. But will it be enough to stir local viewers and advertisers in the near term?

The new Fox Now Live will give the ultimate real-time option for those local TV stations looking for bigger presence in the digital media world -- especially with local TV marketers looking to make up for traditional TV rating points.

Working with newer advertising technology, the live stream will let Fox affiliates dynamically insert local market advertising as well as display station branding.

The question now is, will TV advertisers show up?

Many new local advertising platforms/services, including local programmatic TV platforms, are surfacing quickly -- especially for linear TV.

Additionally, video-on-demand efforts for national TV platforms and local TV seem to show promise. But pay TV providers -- cable, satellite and telcos -- can have differing inventory/content levels when it comes to VOD. Online digital services from networks may be a better bet.

For TV marketers, the most obvious hurdles are the separate channels into which commercials must be placed for media buys, where each channel can require different file formats, Todd Porch, vice president of Comcast Wholesale, noted in a blog.

Then there’s the problem of getting enough scale for TV marketers, finding enough local inventory from other TV networks apps/platforms for local insertion on digital apps. Fox has yet to disclose how much of local TV advertising will be available for dynamically inserted advertising.

Additionally, streaming video/advertising issues don’t seem to go away: ad-blocking, transparency, bots, and other general ad-fraud issues are still lurking. That said many TV series providers, the TV networks, seem to have a somewhat better handle -- though not perfect -- on these issues.

One more thing: It's still not easy for consumers to find and navigate existing live streams of local TV content like news programs.  A new kind of marketing is necessary for consumers to get onboard.  Hopefully the Fox effort will come with more promotion and/or discovery tools.