• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 8, 2008

Years ago it was all the rage for U.S. media and advertising executives to attend international TV markets. Now, it's happening all over again.

News has it that there is a surge of marketing executives who have descended on the MIP-TV conference in Cannes, France.

In the late '80s and early '90s, executives believed the modern U.S. domestic business of barter syndication would be expanded worldwide -- and there was a similar rush to find one's passport.

Back then the thinking was that growing international TV territories wouldn't need to pay high cash license fees -- just hand over some advertising time, controlled by big TV marketers such as Unilever, like Procter & Gamble.

The win would be two-fold: 1) Advertisers would get secure messages in programming they controlled, and 2) they would establish new profit centers in the form of TV shows.

Turns out the premise for these deals was wrong on both accounts. Struggling TV networks -- even those in Eastern European markets -- weren't all that keen on giving up advertising time. In addition, only a select few advertisers could play the game of owning expensive -- and risky -- TV shows.

It turns out traditional media buying, the messaging system P&G and others mostly used to sell products, is a pretty efficient process - compared to being a big TV producer/owner.

Buying internationally distributed TV shows would seem like a logical extension of a business for the world's biggest TV advertisers. But then someone must have told them: "Why should you hold any risk?"

For the most part, TV marketers don't gamble much. These days buying network TV ratings points is a pretty sure thing -- even with its host of problems. You don't have to be attached to a TV show. That big media plan you bought during the upfront for that bucket load of ratings points is guaranteed. Hard to beat that.

Why now? With a digital entertainment world exploding, advertising and programming executives are scouring every nook and cranny for the next thing.

There's risk for sure. But the search is not necessarily for that really big worldwide TV sensation. They'll be happy to get a little edge, for a modest investment.