TVB Forward 2016

While there are some questions on how well the two biggest ad categories will fare next year, analysts and others pointed out a number of positives. Among them, the continuing growth of net retrans, upcoming money from the incentive auction and potential windfalls resulting from new revenue opportunities created by the adoption of ATSC 3.0.

“We’ve been talking about this too long. I can’t go into a market programmatically half way,” says Frank Friedman of Zenith Media, speaking of the need to have all stations in a given DMA participate. “We need to separate the fear of automation lowering rates. If we don’t automate we’re going to fail.”

Both Nielsen and ComScore have identified local TV measurement as a growth area ripe with opportunity. And according to CBS research guru David Poltrack, “You now have two companies … that are expanding and investing a lot of money in measuring the medium more effectively. We’ve never enjoyed that before.”

The awards recognize broadcast television stations and advertising agencies for outstanding collaborative multiplatform marketing campaigns.

Steve Szakaly, chief economist for the National Automobile Dealers Association, predicted a downturn in car sales over the next five years, but said that’s not necessarily bad news for local television because auto dealers and OEMs often increase their advertising expenditures in order to lift sales during a downturn.

That’s a $500 million drop from what the research firm had originally expected and is just a hair better than what stations received from political advertisers four years ago.

The new marketplace provides stations, agencies and brands a simplified way to sell and buy local television station inventory at scale.

Between now and 2020, linear ad business will be flat, according to BIA/Kelsey’s Tom Buono. Other predictions from the TVB Forward conference include Pivotal’s Brian Wieser, who says spot will grow 4.5% this year in comparison with 2015 when both the Olympics and political ad spend is excluded. Jack Myers of MyersBizNet says the strong CPM growth of between 7% and 12% for national networks during the upfront and continued strength of the scatter market is good news for local TV.

The Wells Fargo analyst is bullish on net retrans growth, sees spot advertising moving along with single-digit growth, and sees ATSC 3.0 presenting opportunities for new revenue streams.

The conference, which gets underway in New York on Sept. 29, will examine emerging advertising trends, innovations powering television’s evolution and local broadcast TV’s consumer influence.

TVB has sent a blast to its members, telling them to save the date of Sept. 29 for its peripatetic Forward Conference. The date is later than usual as TVB has tried to avoid conflicts with other industry events like the NAB’s Small Market TV Exchange (Sept. 15-17 in Phoenix). And for the third consecutive year, the conference will have a new venue — Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers. Last year, it was held at the Waldorf Astoria; before that, at the Edison Ballroom in Times Square.