• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, July 11, 2005

There's no bluffing here - TV advertisers and networks have alternatives to the big masters of the media in the sudden age of media un-consolidation.

It comes oddly enough with all those full-houses, straights, two pairs, and three pairs references on TV. TV poker shows -- in case you have been under a casino slot machine for the past two years - have been a surging programming area. Professional, amateur, and celebrity poker tournaments have been seen on many a cable network, and some broadcast networks as well.

Now one of the kings of the game - Doyle Brunson, who has written several books on the subject and is a regular on ESPN's World Series of Poker -- has offered up $700 million to buy WPT Enterprises. The company puts on the World Poker Tour TV show on The Travel Channel.

That proposed price is double the market capitalization of WPT when it was trading on Thursday. WPT's close at $26.50 on Friday was up 50 percent from the day before. The company's stock closed on Friday with a market cap of $533.2 million. Here's some more prospective - the company went public last August at just $8 a share.

We here at TV Watch bring this up for a specific reason: Independent TV producers can survive in a world of giant media goliaths, which is seemingly what every TV professional executive has desired for years.

For years, media agencies have complained that there aren't enough independent TV sellers who can offer inexpensive TV advertising opportunities. Especially compared to the big bad media boys who seemingly keep TV advertising prices high.

New TV advertiser opportunities may not all reside with the producer in the future, but instead with the cable network, whose ties with parent companies might not be so independent. The Travel Channel is owned by Discovery Communications, which is just going public, thanks to a sell-off from big Liberty Media.

With branded entertainment opportunities offered at the producer level, media agency executives can now find all the independent avenues necessary to fight TV media inflation. With media un-consolidation now the hip move in the room, advertisers can justify ways to spread media TV dollars around, and at the same time broadcast ratings erosion continues to gnaw away at their media plans.

Know when to show 'em; know when to fold 'em.