Val Napolitano

Publicis Media is making a $50 million local TV buy for one of its most challenging clients using an automated platform system, involving 90 markets across the country. This is just one of the strategies to improve the automated ad buying process to increase the relevance of local spot discussed at TV2020 on Wednesday.

Publicis’ Frank Friedman, GroupM’s Ed Gaffney, Gray Television’s Becky Meyer and Hubbard Broadcasting’s Val Napolitano will debate the impact of automation, big data and targeting during a session at TVNewsCheck’s TV2020: Monetizing the Future.

Former Petry Television CEO Val Napolitano becomes  executive vice president of programmatic for Hubbard Television Group.

As TVNewsCheck checks back with broadcasters, reps and analysts we surveyed last fall, the spot ad market is looking stronger due to political ad spending. Back then, the consensus was total spot would climb 10.2% this year. Now, however, the spot seers say it’s more likely that number will be a point or two higher, even though core growth my be a little lower than orginally thought.

According to TVNewsCheck‘s exclusive survey of sales execs and media prognosticators, total TV spot revenue will drop 6% compared to last year, but when the biennial political dollars are factored out, so-called core spot will grow 4%, up on one percentage point from our original forecast last September. A stand-out first quarter is responsible for the core improvement. But the Japanese crises’ effect on the auto category is cause for concern.

Their station clients are grumbling and buying agencies are insisting that spot TV can be bought and sold like any other commodity. But the three survivng indie rep firms — Katz, Cox and Petry — are undaunted. In the face of multiple challenges, they are reinventing themselves confident that they can continue to prove their worth in the digital, multiplatform future.

TVNewsCheck picked the brains of some top broadcasters and analysts to see what the year’s important issues will be. For the first time in a long while, the general outlook was optimistic. Getting specific, here are nine things they will be keeping their eyes on: retransmission consent/reverse compensation, the FCC’s spectrum incentive auction, mobile DTV, industry consolidation, Comcast-NBCU deal ripple effects, signs of life in M&A, record off-year for political advertising, evolution of digital subchannels, publicly held station groups to pay dividends and local online and mobile media.