What's Television's Next Business Model?

Contrary to what some new-media folks believe, television still aggregates an audience and still has a business model (albeit an aging one). Each TV program represents distinct audiences that come together to sample relevant content.

It's hard to find TV content today that does not contain Web site addresses, Twitter mentions, and text-based messages throughout. It's accepted that even with these "light" reference points, as it stands now TV's long-term prospects pale in comparison to those of the Internet, mostly because TV content still has no direct-response mechanism. Blending Internet elements into TV content makes for a seamless experience - and, in my opinion, is tomorrow's preferred business model. When I watch TV it feels, and looks, as if we're already headed in this direction. What we are missing, though -- in addition to some critical technology deployments -- is a unified direction for the industry on planning for, and measuring, TV click responses. It's clear to me that the future of television planning will be response-driven. However, until we can develop cross-platform metrics, additional new business models for television will be nearly impossible to establish. In addition, when we do establish the rules for cross-platform measurement, I think we will see tremendous synergies unlocked for agencies that had the foresight to consolidate their traditional and new-media businesses.