With upfront season ready to hit a fever pitch next week in New York, The Wall Street Journal says cable networks have caught up to broadcast in ad dollars.
While
the broadcast networks are touting their growth over the past year,
most of that is attributed to the continuing recovery since the
recession, the article says. Last year, broadcast revenues rose 5.3% to $21.66 billion,
but was still 2.7% below 2008's total.
What's more is that the only true growth is on the cable networks, where by 2010 cable almost equaled broadcast's ad take.
For
television as a whole however, the real enemy is digital technology.
MagnaGlobal estimates that 37% of U.S. homes will have a DVR (Digital
Video Recorder) by the end of the year; 65% of DVR viewers skip over the
commercials. More and more programming is also becomming available on
demand or online, where there are little to no advertisements.
Even still, Kanter Media reported that total TV ad spending was higher in 2010 than in 2008.
