TVB Forward Shows TV Still A Boffo Business

A broadcast industry conference should be more than a place to check in on what’s going on in the business. It should also be a place to meet old friends and colleagues, swap gossip and impress important outsiders, particularly advertisers, agencies and investors, with the vitality of the business.

The TVB Forward Conference on Tuesday was all that. And a change of venue from a drab conference hall in the Time-Life Building near 30 Rock to the art deco Edison Ballroom amid the hubbub of Times Square contributed to a festive atmosphere that strongly suggested local TV was still a fun medium to hang out with.

The Edison welcomed attendees with a Broadway marquee and red carpet. When’s the last time you saw that at a trade show?

The ballroom, more suited to weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, wasn’t perfect. The 450 attendees were split, perhaps two thirds on the ground floor and the rest in a narrow mezzanine that surrounded the ground floor on three sides. So the determined smoozers had to run up and down the stairs.

I heard a few complaints that the hall was too tight and that the round banquet tables at which everyone sat were hard to maneuver around. Perfect would have been a large adjacent reception hall where all could gather comfortably during breaks.

But, like the best theaters in the neighborhood, there really wasn’t a bad seat in the house. You could see and hear everything going on the ground floor stage from everywhere in the house.

I doubt that there was ever 450 people in the hall at any one time. But for the 300 or so who were there at any given time, the hall was just the right size, I would say. Even in the last afternoon, you could still feel the energy.

It wasn’t just that hall that worked. TVB President Steve Lanzano and his crew put together a full day of programming that managed to portray local broadcasting in the best possible light, while addressing some serious issues.

Lanzano and TVB Chairman Bill Fine, who kicked off the day with a couple of brief speeches, were on a mission. Both, in essence, said the Nielsen ratings were fundamentally flawed because of the inadequate sample of viewers upon which they are based. They put Nielsen on notice that TVB would soon come up with sample sizes it believes are needed to deliver reasonably accurate ratings.

“It is inconceivable that we are still using 50-year-old methodologies in the world we live in today,” he said. “Our industry demands it and our clients demand it.”

Seconding Lanzano, Fine said that the industry was serious about fixing the ratings this time. “We have hit a tipping point, a point where it is clear a major change is necessary.”

Poor Nielsen. Its execs had to sit through a public scolding even though they sponsored the excellent buffet lunch for everybody.

Gannett Broadcasting President David Lougee, in accepting his Broadcaster of the Year honor from B&C, raised another issue with long-term implications. He said it was time for the industry to embrace programmatic buying or, as he and other broadcast execs insist on calling it, automated buying. By either name, it means streamlining the spot buying process by putting it online with more sophisticated software.

Today’s antiquated selling processes are costing broadcasters money, Lougee said. Sales managers and account executives spend too much time on paperwork and not enough time “in front of clients helping solve their needs.”

Conference organizers underscored the inevitability of automated buying by including a panel on the topic in the day’s agenda. With the exception of Wide Orbit’s Eric Mathewson, the panelists agreed that automated buying is coming sooner than later.

So does Lanzano, with whom I spoke yesterday to discuss some of the themes that emerged from his conference. It’s coming, he said, but broadcasters have to be vigilant and active in designing the whole system. “It’s our inventory and pricing,” he said. “We have to insure that the way it evolves is in the best interest of broadcasters.”

Lanzano said that automated buying may allow stations to recapture the national advertising that has been drifting away. “It’s an opportunity to tap into the dollars we are not getting right now.”

In his opener, Lanzano also noted that with TVB’s help broadcasters have made “great strides” in persuading media agencies to buy on the basis of live plus same day ratings rather than just plain old live ratings.

But during on an on-stage interview with Irwin Gotlieb, chairman and CEO of Group M, who appeared via the Internet (or satellite or something), it became clear that Lanzano still has some work to do. Gotlieb told Lanzano that he isn’t yet sold on live plus same day and that he is looking for a “quid pro quo”

Lanzano later told me that he had no idea of what kind of quid pro quo Gotlieb might have in mind, but would continue his campaign to make Gotlieb come around.

In the meantime, he said, he took heart that Gotlieb also said he is interested in maintaining a healthy supply of rating points in the ad market as a way of keeping rates down. Going to live plus same day would have the effect of raising ratings points by 18%, he said.

What the day-long program could have used was a clear, concise assessment of the state of local broadcasting sales — spot and digital. Some of this filtered through some of the panels, particularly the opening financial panel and closing political panel. But attendees never got a complete picture of how business was going.

But what the conference lacked in specifics it made up for with stirring generalities.

The most exhilarating presentation of the day came from Jason Stein, publisher and editor of Automotive News, the principal trade pub of the auto industry.  “The auto industry is on fire,” Stein boomed. “TV ad spending is on fire.”

As every broadcasters knows, auto is spot’s No. 1 category with annual spending of more than $4 billion.

With the recession and the GM bankruptcy way back in the rearview mirror, Stein said, automakers may sell as many as 17 million cars and light trucks this year. That means factories, associations and dealers are flush, he said. “Go after that money. It’s there.”

Broadcasters in attendance received similar assurances from a panel of political consultants and ad buyers at the end of the day, although in far more subdued terms than Stein’s. Yeah, the experts says, they will place ads on other TV media and experiment in digital, but spot TV the most effective and efficient medium for their message.

“We clearly use radio, we use cable. It is a multi-screen, multichannel [industry],” said Brad Perseke of GMMB. “But it is, by and large, a TV world.”

By the way, Perseke digressed at one point to register a complaint. “You all have a problem, which is content,” he said. “Broadcast television is the best advertiser out there. You are in everyone’s household. Why don’t you spend some of the money we give you to fix your programming?

Elizabeth Wilner, who tracks political spending for Kantar Media, says the candidates, parties and third-party political groups will spend $2.4 billion on broadcast TV this year and perhaps another $600-$800 million on cable. The total TV take will be up $100 million from 2010, even though most of the contested elections this year will be in small media markets.

So it worked.

With its big finish — auto and political — and it’s location at the crossroads of the world, the TVB Forward Conference left the impression that local TV broadcasting is an exciting medium with much to offer marketers despite its age.

Maybe it will win the Tony for Best Revival.