As he has for the past few years, Dave Poltrack, president of CBS Vision, attempted to make the case to a morning audience at the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference as to why the broadcast networks are still viable and why the emerging, non-linear market is actually a boon for traditional parts of the media industry, not something hastening its demise. However, though armed with a raft of stats showing silver linings for the four major TV broadcasters—ABC, NBC, FOX, in addition to his own CBS (NYSE: CBS)—he did have to revise some earlier projections downward slightly. Originally, Poltrack said he expected a 3 percent rise for the four broadcast nets this year, but now sees just a 2 percent gain. Nevertheless, he cited a strong upfront and scatter market, as well as other factors that point toward a favorable ad market for 2008, such as positive corporate profits and the presidential elections.

-- The internet affect: “If you’ve been reading the press lately, you might believe that as the internet has grown people – particularly young people – have abandoned television for this new medium. Nothing could be further from the truth. TV is here to stay and TV advertising is here to stay.” Nielsen figures of total day viewing show gains in every demo for TV watching, with viewing levels similar to last year. Viewing by young adults and children are up; only those 55-plus are viewing less. This summer, CBS did a time-spent study, finding that TV viewing is done by 92 percent of the population, while internet use has reached 52 percent. Despite recording more use of cell phones, iPods/portable devices, and DVDs, CBS’ respondents were also likely to report more TV viewing than less. “In all of our studies over the years, this is the first time we’ve seen more TV viewing instead of less. And yes, we see more internet usage, but not at the expense of TV viewing. Furthermore, our respondents tell us that a quarter of the time, they are on the internet, they are watching TV as well.”

-- DVR effect: The introduction of new households with digital video recorders has been relatively favorable to the top 20 network shows. “The primary use of the DVR by viewers has been to time-shift these programs so that they can watch more of them. Most of these shows are posting C3 ratings at or above last year’s live ratings.” So far, the penetration hasn’t had much of an affect on fears of ad skipping, as scatter market this quarter has been strong on through to next year that advertisers are already placing orders for Q2. But, despite the demand from advertisers, continued “audience deficiencies” associated with the change in ratings that account for time-shifting could sap that demand. “At the lower 8- to 9 percent level, audience deficiencies would not substantially affect the networks’ ability to play the scatter market, though if it reaches the higher 14 percent level, it could have an impact.”