Traditional TV Vies Against The Internet For Advertisers

Springtime is when most broadcasters begin negotiations with advertisers to sell ad slots during popular programs.

This year, the negotiations are expected to take on a new tone as TV broadcasters work to compete against digital platforms, which have been slowly stealing the attention and cash of major advertising partners.

Better Metrics

Online advertisements have been growing in popularity among big brands as they offer a way to target specific consumers who are in that company's target market.

Instead of casting a net over a large group of people who may or may not be in the market for a particular product, as has been the case with TV advertisements, online ads use huge databases of user metrics to pinpoint users who would be interested in a specific item and then display the company's ad.

However, in an effort to compete TV broadcasters are coming up with user metrics of their own.

New Offerings

Time Warner Inc TWX's Turner Broadcasting has developed "Turner Audience Now," a way for companies to measure their impact using customer data.

Turner Audience Now has been shown as an effective tool to increase a company's impact on a customer; the system was used to help a yogurt company target specific viewers interested in purchasing yogurt by using shopper loyalty card data together with TV viewing habits.

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NBC Universal is also pushing a new customer metrics tool it calls an "Audience Targeting Platform." The system matches customers' purchasing habits to their stet top boxes in order to determine what programs they are watching.

A Changing Landscape

The new offerings mark the broadcasting industry's step toward collecting better customer data and offering new ways to target specific consumers.

With such programs only in their infancy, compared to years of data collection on the internet, it is unclear whether or not advertisers will be swayed; but most expect that this is only the beginning as the broadcasting industry continues to evolve.