• by September 28, 2005

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE MEDIUM FORMERLY KNOWN AS CABLE -- TV is a medium known for its sight, sound and motion, but lately some powerful TV insiders have become obsessed with the nuances of certain words -- words used to describe the medium of television. In fact, there has become something of a war of words, which began a couple of years ago when the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau sought to take ownership, not just of cable TV, but of the medium-at-large. Sure, the CAB is still known as, well, the CAB, but it began positioning itself as being the hub of, in the words of CAB President Sean Cunningham, a "one TV world." But it always seemed to be a play on words to us - not a mission statement truly invoking or embracing the entire world of television. Just read the language on the CAB's Web site:

"Today's advertisers can embrace the power of 'One TV World' to efficiently market their brands on some of the best developed TV brands today," it boasts, before revealing its true mandate: "The CAB's presentation, One TV World shows agencies and advertisers that they can truly look at Cable TV in a new light."

We get it. By a One TV World, the CAB means a one cable TV world. Okay, we don't get it. Frankly, we're still confused by the whole thing, especially given the rivalry that continues between the CAB and its ad trade nemesis, the Television Bureau of Advertising. Today, the TVB, which has never claimed to be about a singular TV world, sought to redefine the language of TV even further with an announcement proclaiming it will "henceforth use 'subscription TV' in describing the video [medium] formerly known as cable programming."

The jibe, the latest in a series of surprisingly feisty and irreverent jousts at its trade competitors, appears to be an attempt to undermine the meaning of cable, which TVB President Chris Rohrs says has grown irrelevant.

"The word 'cable,' when referring to programming, is a relic of an earlier era," says Rohrs. "There was a time when everyone who watched non-broadcast programming watched via a cable MSO provider. Now subscribers to alternative delivery systems such as DBS make up almost one-quarter of American TV households that pay for television programming. In some individual markets, more than half of the television households get their non-broadcast programming through an entity other than a cable MSO. Just last week, Verizon launched its fiber-optic FiOS service in Texas -- you can't call FiOS 'cable programming' if it never passes through a cable system. The industry needs to move toward a new word --'subscription TV' would seem to work the best."

Rohrs stopped short of recommending that the CAB alter its name to STAB for the Subscription TV Advertising Bureau, but he clearly was seeking to take some kind of stab at that, suggesting the term cable is creating "confusion not just among the general public but among advertisers and their agencies as well."

"A local advertiser may think when his local ad is inserted inside a so-called 'cable program' like ESPN 'Sports Center' that it's being seen by all local ESPN viewers -- when in fact in a market like Springfield, Mo., over half of those viewers aren't seeing his ad at all. TVB and its member broadcast stations have been working hard to educate advertisers and agencies on this issue, but many people continue to be tripped up by the double meaning of 'cable.'"

Rohrs said TVB would now refer to all programmers other than the broadcast networks as "subscriber networks."

And he's not kidding. As much as the TVB has made light of competitor's claims and positioning in recent months - offering Little Orphan Annie "decoder rings" to analyze Turner Broadcasting's research, and even sending fruit pies composed of apples and oranges to the local TV buying departments of big ad agencies - Rohrs is dead serious about this one.

"This is not a minor matter," he asserts. "The media world is changing so much that the old words aren't accurate anymore. And it's especially important to local advertisers and their agencies that they understand the distinction between wired cable and satellite subscribers."