Hot Takes: What Trends Are The Industry Sleeping On?
Alan Wolk Thought Leaders Circle Happy Autumn, TVREVers. How did it get to be October already. CES is right around the corner and I’m already getting emails about Cannes 2025… speaking of which, I am going to be emceeing and keynoting at MIPCOM’s Connected TV Summit a week from Wednesday. If you will be in la belle Cannes, definitely stop by and say hey. But enough about me… For this Hot Takes article, we asked our TVREV Thought Leaders Circle members to identify the one emerging industry trend you’re seeing right now that more people should be paying attention to, and why? Here’s what they had to say. (Take notes.) First up is LG Ad Solutions CMO Tony Marlow who talks about how AI is making content discovery far more accurate and how that’s actually a boon to advertisers.One emerging trend reshaping the TV industry is the integration of AI to enhance the consumer experience, particularly in content discovery. With the vast amount of content available across streaming platforms, viewers are increasingly overwhelmed by choice. AI-driven recommendation engines are solving this by personalizing content suggestions based on user behavior, preferences, and viewing habits. This improves the consumer experience by making it easier to find relevant content and keeping audiences more engaged. For advertisers, this AI-driven approach presents an opportunity to deliver more tailored, relevant ads that align with the content viewers are already interested in, making ads feel less intrusive and more part of the overall experience. Additionally, companies like LG are leveraging voice recognition to automatically determine user profiles from voice searches, making content discovery even easier and more intuitive. This next step in AI-driven personalization ensures that consumers have a seamless, user-friendly experience while also providing brands with a more accurate way to reach target audiences through personalized advertising. Those embracing this technology now will be well-positioned to meet evolving viewer expectations and maximize the effectiveness of their advertising strategies. Next up is the normally loquacious map man, Evan Shapiro, Founder of ESHAP, who makes an cogent point on how YouTube’s stealth dominance of the TV market has largely resulted in ostrich-like behavior.|YouTube as the biggest TV channel in America. Despite all the data in front of everyone’s faces, it doesn’t seem to have sunken in or changed the strategies of any of traditional media. Dumbfounding. — Evan Shapīro Tim Hanlon, Founder & CEO, The Vertere Group/TVREV “Proximity” Columnist points out that local broadcasters are due for a rough landing once all this year’s political ad dollars go away—a trend not helped by the rapid shrinking of retrans fees. The local broadcast TV business model is headed for a rough landing in early 2025. Sure, the political ad dollars are flowing now, fueling stations through the 2024 election cycle. But once the ballots are counted and the campaigns are over, the industry will face a hard reality: political ad spending has been a crutch. With traditional advertisers shifting budgets online and the continued hemorrhaging of viewers to streaming platforms, local broadcasters are staring down a major revenue shortfall. The post-election slowdown will hit particularly hard as economic uncertainty looms, likely squeezing ad rates even further. Add in the fact that retransmission fees – another key revenue stream – are being squeezed by cord-cutting, and you’ve got a perfect storm. The local broadcast TV business has thrived on temporary boosts from political ads, but that safety net is about to disappear, leaving the underlying structural weaknesses fully exposed come first quarter of next year. DBC’s Founder Bill Daddi is looking at the potentially transformative role synthetic data may have on audience measurement, and what that means for the industry as it moves to streaming. Synthetic data is often used in market insights research to help fill in demographic or geographical gaps in panels, but it could have a transformative effect on audience measurement. The opportunity – or threat, depending one’s view – it represents for the industry ranges from its use for creation of synthetic panelists to serving as the basis for reach, exposure and even engagement metrics. While some discussion on synthetic data for audience measurement is taking place, it warrants greater consideration and development. Mike Fogarty, Director, Platform Sales at Tatari explains why we should be paying attention to the role automation is playing in synthesizing years of advertising data into better campaign planning at a time when measurable outcomes are gaining headway over pure reach. As brand and agency professionals increasingly prioritize measurable outcomes over sheer reach, machine learning and automation are transforming the landscape at an accelerated pace. The introduction of tools like ChatDSP is just the beginning. Forward-thinking advertisers and agencies are already tapping into vast datasets from years of campaign management and billions in media spend, using AI-powered planning to move faster and deliver more accurate results. Whether you’re new to TV or a seasoned buyer, embracing this shift is crucial to staying competitive in a world where speed and measurable outcomes are now non-negotiable. Gavin Douglas, CEO of Drawbridge Labs draw attention to the role interactivity—interactive 3D experiences in particular—are going to have on TV, in terms of both content and advertising. So here’s the thing – TV isn’t just something we “watch” anymore. Nope, we’re way past that. The real action now? It’s all about giving a TV show’s reach some serious muscle, engagement and measurement by bridging to interactive 3D experiences on mobile. Whether watching linear, streaming or live, if we can keep viewers inside our brand’s ecosystem before, during and after the closing credits, then we’re looking at some significant brand loyalty and revenue. We need to be paying attention to those TV shows and their brand activations with real people, real places and real moments. Thanks to interactive 3D tech, these TV shows, TV commercials and brands are taking the audience on a wild ride far beyond the TV screen, keeping them engaged in 3D mobile experiences. As our attention-challenged viewers are watching a show or commercial
