, who are gone from their senior ad sales roles at Fox and Turner, respectively. Earlier this year, Turner pulled out as its new owner AT&T decided to pursue its own audience-selling play, Xandr.
But Comscore's CEO and president left earlier this year after less than a year after clashing with the board over the company's direction. With people watching less traditional TV, NBCU, Fox, and Turner have made various promises to cut commercial clutter in hopes of improving the viewing experience and staving off cord-cutting. Networks also pushed short, six-second ads that are popular in digital. But in practice, ad time actually"Watching the industry kill itself is amazing," lamented a prominent industry insider.
If networks can't get advertisers to pay more for scarcer ads, addressable TV ads that are pinpointed at narrower audiences hold the potential to get more value out of TV. Advertisers are excited about this because it would let a carmaker show an ad for, say, a minivan, to just minivan buyers, rather than all potential vehicle buyers. But addressable TVMeanwhile, advertisers can already do this targeting in lots of other places.
Networks know that their heavy commercial loads risk driving away viewers. But cutting time means potentially sacrificing revenue because advertisers don't want to pay more unless they see proof that scarcer ads perform better.
Pleasing minorities has lost them the majority!