Response from Joe Marcoe, Senior Editor of Spots N Dots

Jennifer:

Thanks for your letter. I enjoyed reading it.....

....I'm not quite as pessimistic as you are (and I've been in the business since the days when people would still ask: "Cable? What's cable?") As a buyer, national rep, station GSM, LSM and NSM before we started Spots 'n' Dots, I've come to believe--and I still do--that television advertising is the greatest ad medium the mind of man has ever come up with....and I still believe in the pitch that when you can get 30 seconds of sight, sound, color, motion, and E-motion--and can get 30 seconds for a penny a home ($10 CPM), that will work time after time for almost any advertiser.

In my personal opinion, the next great wave of TV is yet to come. I personally believe that once the digital transition is completed, the next killer app for cellphones will be live, local TV on cellphones--a no-brainer technologically and being done already in many parts of the world. Simply turn the cellphone into a TV receiver, and viewing will skyrocket. Once the dummies at Nielsen figure out how to measure it (or maybe Arbitron will get back into TV measurement with the PPM), you'll see huge numbers. And as far as people not even owning a TV, no way....ain't going to happen! Once someone makes it easy to move images from a computer to a TV, people will want to watch it on a TV.

As far as networks not really caring about their affiliates, that's nothing new......the days are long gone when affiliates wee really important to networks, and Bob Wright was talking about an affiliate-free network ten years ago. But there's too much inertia built into the system for that to happen, and stations have congresspeople in their pockets who won't let it happen.

I wouldn't worry....TV has evolved, and evolved, and evolved again in the forty years I've been in the business. We're pretty good at that....and stations will be around for a long, long, time!

Thanks again....Joe Marcoe