NCTA’s rebranded INTX: Internet & Television Expo (aka The Cable Show) finishes up today in Chicago. This show, like its sponsoring organization is having a bit of an identity crisis. Indeed, the name change may go beyond the show to its sponsoring organization.

Fourteen years ago, “NCTA” used to be an acronym for the “National Cable Television Association.” But on May 1, 2001 the Association changed its name to “National Cable & Telecommunications Association” in order to better reflect, “cable’s transformation from a one-way video supplier to a competitive supplier of advanced, two-way services including digital video, high-speed Internet, cable telephony and interactive TV.” To further reflect its evolutionary journey in self-identity, the NCTA’s iconic annual “The Cable Show” was rebranded as “INTX – Internet and Television Expo” to again reflect the industry’s transformation as it learns how to better focus on the digital media and entertainment economy. Now, there is some chatter that NCTA will once again change the name of the association, perhaps to NCTA: The Internet & Television Association: and just drop “cable” altogether.

What brave new world has cable entered? As FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler put it in his keynote address, “You deserve straight talk about what it means now that you are cable companies, video providers and network builders.” He then continued on to discuss his controversial stands on his “Open Internet Order” (i.e., net neutrality) and the Comcast/Time Warner acquisition he helped doom. Wheeler’s “straight talk” didn’t go over so well with the crowd. Liberty Global’s CEO Michael Fries drew robust applause in the panel following Wheeler’s keynote by saying, “I am baffled by the chairman’s remarks. There is a presumption of guilt for success I’ve never seen before.”

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts also had his moment during his otherwise business-like presentation about Comcast’s recent successes, including transitioning to a company serving more Internet than cable customers.

Roberts was showing off Comcast’s new Xfinity X1 remote control and user interface that responds to voice commands to bring up various viewing and other choices. “Show me the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger,” Roberts commanded. In response, we see on the big screen Van Diesel sprinting from a house that violently explodes just behind him in a scene from Furious 7. “That pretty much sums it up,” Roberts dead panned.

Beyond the rebranding, politics, and merger break-ups, it was clear from the various panels that industry leadership clearly is focusing on developing and executing on a new business order defined by ever more capable and integrated technology platforms, innovations in content and how users want to interact with this content, and interesting new ways to monetize an emerging set of services.

For example, Time Warner Cable’s EVP/COO Media Services Joan Gillman, who oversees TWC’s advanced advertising, data and interactive solutions for advertisers and network partners, was pressed into duty across several panels exploring monetization strategies. She led a a discussion with MediaLink’s president/COO Wenda Harris exploring the implications to cable providers, oops, I mean Internet and Television Providers, offering OTT services and the future of television advertising in a SVOD (subscription video on demand) world. Operators need to figure out the economics of linear television versus SVOD in ways that keep subscribers engaged and satisfied.

When it comes to the future of television and digital advertising, these worlds are meshing quickly, especially for the “not cable” industry as it leverages it data advantages in the fast breaking era of programmatic advertising. In a panel led by the Cable Advertising Bureau’s Sean Cunningham, Zachary Cunningham (ESPN), Billy Farina (Cox Media), Mark Lieberman (Viamedia) and Brett Wilson (TubeMogul) shared their views on programmatic.

Essentially, the takeaway is that programmatic is about all types of inventory including premium avails, audience targeting data, efficient and automated workflows in the buy/sell process, dynamically serving relevant content, better modeling attribution, and optimizing campaigns. Panelists estimated that by 2020 somewhere between 20% and 100% of television ad trading will be on programmatic platforms. The 20% comes from Lieberman’s assumption that it’s a totally automated process from the buyer’s perspective. The 100% comes from Wilson’s belief that the whole underlying system will be automated and programmatic, though actual trading likely will continue involve human creativity and negotiation in the mix.

Ultimately, the panel concluded that programmatic is just another sales channel. And everyone loses if the industry can’t figure out how to avoid channel conflicts between programmatic and good, old-fashioned human AEs who as direct sellers who will continue to drive high value returns on commercial inventory.

Across the program, content people consistently agreed it’s all about the content. The non-cable executives consistently agreed it’s all about creating compelling user experiences and satisfaction subscribers. Those in charge of generating revenue have to balance the cost of content with the ability to monetize it. What’s the better business? Well top-line revenue and margins tell different stories. Cablevision’s James Dolan put some numbers to it, “For every $1 in profit I make from television subscriptions, I make $7 in profit from selling broadband Internet connections.”

Well, good-bye cable and hello Internet.

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Yesterday’s announcement of Comcast/NBCU buying Time Warner Cable was a monumental announcement as it consolidates more of the cable portion of the Multiple Video Programming Delivery services (MVPDs) that includes mostly cable and satellite delivery services. Instead of Charter moving up the list of cable MSOs, Comcast will now be clearly number one if the deal is approved by government officials.

The implications of this acquisition are significant. First. it will allow the merged company to compete more effectively with its increasing number of competitors. In addition to the satellite delivered services (DISH and Direct TV), nontraditional services such as Hulu and Netflix are becoming more competitive “Over the Top” video programming options to subscribing to local cable systems as sources for video programming. Poignantly on the same day as this deal is announced, Netflix announced that they have obtained the rights to a Star Wars animated series.

Second, dealing with the video programming providers (both cable-satellite delivered networks and local television broadcasters) will also be affected as Comcast/NBCU owns several in both categories. Negotiations between the newly merged company and those providers not vertically integrated will be more involved and possibly leading to lower prices (or smaller increases in those prices over time).

Finally, while the cable systems of the newly merged company do not overlap, the combination of these two companies should make them more formidable in the local advertising marketplace. Already, local cable systems are becoming stronger competitors in the local advertising marketplace.

Nationally, BIA/Kelsey estimates that local cable systems have 5.3 percent of the local advertising revenues growing to 5.8 percent by 2017, growing by nearly $1.8 billion. Comcast already is very aggressive in developing local cable advertising, see Comcast Spotlight. Certainly, when dealing with national advertisers, the newly formed company can offer a wider reach than before. National advertisers focusing more on local media markets is an important trend for all local media to consider and will be explored in detail at the upcoming BIA/Kelsey conference, Leading in Local: the National Impact.

While all of these improvements to the newly merged company could occur, the proposed acquisition will face significant scrutiny in Washington. Concerns about too much concentration in program delivery and its impact on negotiations with program suppliers will be front and center when the FCC and Department of Justice looks at this deal.

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Of the different media used for advertising and promotion that BIA/Kelsey tracks in the LCM survey, only two of the traditional media crack SMB’s top 10 most used media for advertising and promotion: newspapers and direct mail. The rest of the top 10 are filled with digital media.

In the chart below, I looked at eight of the traditional media from LCM. Newspapers and direct mail, the only two of the traditional media to crack the Top 10 most used media list, fall first and second among traditional media. Radio comes in third, with TV and outdoor bringing up the rear for usage.

But how do SMBs perceive the return on their investment for time spent in advertising or promoting themselves on traditional media? The traditional media with the highest usage, newspapers, had the lowest perceived ROI, while the ones with lower usage: TV, cable and outdoor, had the highest ROI among the traditional media.

TV had the highest perceived ROI among the traditional media, with 50% of SMBs rating it as either excellent (10-19 times return on that investment) or extraordinary (over 20 times the return), while only 13.7% of SMBs surveyed reporting using TV to advertise or promote their business.

Newspapers, which had the highest usage among the traditional media, had the lowest perceived ROI, with 26% of SMBs reporting returns as excellent or extraordinary.

Radio had the third highest usage among SMBs for advertising/promotion. But advertisers who used radio as part of their advertising mix reported being pleased with the results, as 36% rated the perceived ROI of radio advertising as either excellent or extraordinary.

For the first time in several survey waves, SMBs indicated that they are actually decreasing the number of media used to advertise or promote their business. The implication: media must deliver concrete ROI or risk losing business traction. Digital media penetration with SMBs has increased, as many of these solutions generate concrete leads and offer trackable ROI metrics.

Traditional media are far from obsolete, however, as the data suggests, and many are still well-regarded. However, for newspapers in particular, and all traditional media, as SMBs enjoy more digital options and demand clear value from their advertising spend, the need to produce clear ROI is stronger than ever.

More information about LCM and custom renderings of the data can be found here.

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BIA/Kelsey’s advertising revenue estimates illustrate that national advertisers play a significant role in the purchasing of advertising opportunities across many different local media outlets. In 2012, our estimates are that national brands spent $45.2 billion dollars in local media advertising such as direct mail, television, print yellow pages, radio, out-of-home and more. This amount accounts for more than a third (33.6 percent) of all spending in local media.

Ultimately, to be successful, national advertisers need to reach audiences in specific areas with possibly different messages depending upon geography and/or the age/demographics of the audience consuming these media.

Where does this all go? Will national advertisers continue to utilize local media outlets to entice new and retain old customers? With the new opportunities sprouting up in the digital arena, will national advertisers take the lead in taking advantage of these opportunities?

Balihoo’s new study just released from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council reveals that 59 percent of national marketers report that local demand generation is essential to their business growth, yet only 7 percent feel they have effective campaigns in place. The report, titled, “Brand Automation for Local Activation,” (download exec summary) and conducted in partnership with Balihoo, concludes that that the typical marketing mix lacks in strategy, automation and accountability leading to a localization scale gap that results in delayed and less effective local roll-outs of national brand campaigns.

We’ll be continuing the discussion at our LEADING IN LOCAL: The National Impact event, March 18-20 in Boston. Starting day one will be our SuperForum Highlight: National Brands, Local Channels. More info on the agenda is here. Registration is here.

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Nielsen reported yesterday that ad spending on national cable networks has caught up to where their broadcast network brethren now stand.

That’s a big acknowledgement that the investments in programming and promotion that have been made by the content providers have shown an excellent return. Cable has always suffered the “little brother” syndrome in the TV business, but it’s clear that those days are history. Given that the upfront market is about to break for the coming TV season, this news can’t help but give cable sellers a little surge of pride as they request a bigger slice of the ad budget from the media buying community both nationally and locally.

Moving into local markets, there’s still work to be done to allow that catch-up with the local broadcasters. As anyone that has bought or sold local cable knows, the vast majority of ad dollars being placed on local systems tend to go to relatively few of the available networks. The usual suspects that take the great majority of the ad revenues include ESPN, USA, TBS, TNT, Fox News, CNN, etc.

About a month ago, RPA reported that the ratings for the Top 25 networks from September 2011 to mid-January 2012 had actually seen a downturn of about 2 percent in aggregate with C3 (Live plus three) numbers. The biggest hit in the C3’s landed on Viacom’s new nightmare, Nickelodeon, where the numbers dropped by nearly 30 percent. The remainder of the top 25 networks didn’t suffer erosion anywhere nearly as large and therefore will likely remain safely ensconced on media buyers’ lists for future ad buys.

Where cable networks gained ratings was at the mid-tier level. The local avails on these nets usually get filled by the wholesalers like Cross Media or by Direct Response advertisers as the audience numbers in these venues aren’t usually compelling enough to get local ad buyers to include them in schedules. The biggest gainers, according to RPA, were Food Network, Adult Swim and Discovery. I’m sure given all the interesting press surrounding the ongoing ratings and revenue shortcomings of OWN, this news about the upswing of the heritage network that put Discovery Communications on the map was likely more than a little welcome in an office building complex in Silver Spring, Maryland.

At a time when cable is organically getting a more sympathetic look from agency ad buyers and local businesses, it’s not a bad thing to suddenly find yourself with more salable inventory at your disposal. Removing wholesale advertisers and replacing them with retail-priced ads on several networks could provide yet another boost to what should be a decent ad sales uptick for MSOs in 2012.

There’s also a movement in place that will eventually unite the disparate ADS platforms into one local sales organization. The telcos moved here first after their efforts at establishing local sales forces didn’t bring the desired results. The major telco video providers, U-verse and FIOS, are now working in combination with MSO sales forces. As the satellite providers perfect their local insertion technology further, it will make as much sense for them to throw in with their bitter rivals in a show of co-opetition as it did for Verizon and AT&T. A combined local sales force selling these three platforms as one will be a greater force in local markets and provide more competition for local broadcast television stations.

Local sellers will have to make sure the process of combining and delivering accurate spot rotations across three different venues is as seamless as possible for this to work. Once that’s done, I believe it will be possible that local “cable” finally tops local broadcast television in the ad sales arena.

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