EVERYONE is talking about television.

Now that the upfront season has wrapped (where broadcasters trot out new programming and look to strike deals with advertisers), we're seeing stories that encompass everything from “There Has Never been a Better Time to Be In TV” to “Traditional TV is Dead.”

So which one is right? Traditional television consumption IS changing. In our last post, we talked about how ALL media consumption is changing. But television is a different beast. There is a huge amount of money being spent on television (according to Deloitte Global, television ads in the U.S. are expected to generate $72 billion in 2017) at the same time the very definition of the medium is changing. Does “television” now include OTT channels like Hulu, Netflix and Amazon? Hulu just launched Hulu Live TV – does that count as “television”? What about streaming YouTube shows to your mobile device or tablet? No longer are we just looking at television consumption as being at home, in front of a television screen that brings you content from cable or satellite. Now, the screen in our living rooms, bedrooms and pockets are capable of generating content from all corners of the world. Is all of that considered television?

CNBC notes that “Digital video may be great for targeting niche markets, but TV remains superior for brand-building advertising, the report says. A fifth of all TV users account for 83 percent of video streaming on smartphones, and 87 percent on PCs. By contrast, consumption of traditional TV is much more evenly balanced and less skewed, with the 20 percent of users who watch most TV accounting for 52 percent of all usage."

As television works to redefine itself, brands will continue to experiment to find new eyeballs and engagement. WE would love to hear from you. Where do you think television is going? What will it look like in 5 years? In 10 years? If you had one message to television executives – what would it be?

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