SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico\u2014Some of the most frank discussions at the annual Beet Retreat<\/a> often happen in one-on-one sessions. Such was the case this year in various fireside chats titled Setting the Aperture for a Consumer-Centric TV, including a frank discussion about advanced television between Adam Gerber and Dave Clark.<\/p>\n The short summary of their back and forth would be that from a cross-platform perspective, TV is still \u201ca mess\u201d and that despite much talk about industry collaboration among competitors, reality is bound to intrude when companies like Comcast and Disney wage their inevitable marketplace battles.<\/p>\n Gerber<\/a> has been on the sell- and buy-side and is currently President of Global Media Investment for GroupM\u2019s Essence agency. Clark<\/a> is EVP of Advanced Advertising at Comcast & GM of FreeWheel.<\/p>\n In trying \u201cto make supply make sense,\u201d Comcast has scooped up no fewer than five companies\u2014from FreeWheel to STRATA, under the FreeWheel brand\u2014with the overarching goal of unifying linear and digital by removing a lot of the fragmentation and friction among the tv infrastructure, working on addressable technology, decisioning, and making life easier for marketers at the end of the day. The competitive backdrop is the ease of use of such platforms as Amazon, Facebook and Google.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether you\u2019re a programmer or you\u2019re a marketer, you cannot run one campaign across TV. You cannot have it optimized in real time, you cannot get a report. You have to go hire an army of people to do that,\u201d Clark observed.<\/p>\n This is why \u201ctelevision is not a platform…it is hundreds of sales teams, different ways of selling depending whether you\u2019re local or national, measurement\u2019s all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Amazon, Facebook and Google, \u201cYes they\u2019re walled gardens but they are unified tech and data platforms and they can bring sort of a seamless solution to marketers there\u2019s no question about that. TV is not that,\u201d said Clark. “Programmers are unified in wanting one campaign across linear and digital environments, which FreeWheel serves against all\u2013including STB VOD\u2013so that programmers can have everything unified.\u201d<\/p>\n Never one to beat around the bush, Gerber put aside digital\/linear unity for the more timeless question of competitive media selling, particularly as it pertains to national TV avails. \u201cThe fact of the matter is, most inventory still trades in television in a traditional unit linear model and it\u2019s controlled by independent sellers,\u201d said Gerber. \u201cI care about the national avails that the national networks control because that\u2019s where the bulk of viewing occurs. I need that brought together with the local avails, with the digital avails, everything together on one platform like you said with Google and Facebook. I don\u2019t see that happening.\u201d<\/p>\n Clark recalled when TiVo launched in 1995 and some people predicted \u201cthis is the end of television, it\u2019s all going to change.” From his vantage point close to technology, he likened the state of affairs as \u201cdriving towards a mountain on the horizon, it doesn\u2019t look like you\u2019re ever getting close to it and then one day it\u2019s right in front of you. There are massive investments right now going into the technology needed to clean this up.\u201d<\/p>\n Gerber: \u201cWho\u2019s your competitor? Are you guys all going to work together to help us figure this out? Are you all going to compete with each other?\u201d<\/p>\n This is where reality intruded. Just one day before, it was announced that Disney had chosen Google over FreeWheel to handle its digital advertising, as Advertising Age reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey make the decisions that are in their best interests of course,\u201d said Clark. \u201cIt\u2019s undeniable that Google now has a massive beachhead in the industry. There\u2019s no question about it.\u201d<\/p>\n