Pitchmen Convene to Pitch More Pitches

By JULIE BOSMAN
March 6, 2006 - New York Times

Here is a sampling of some of the highlights, lowlights and sidelights of the 2006 media conference of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, which was held here last Wednesday through Friday.

TIVO IS SO 2004
One conspicuous no-show at the conference was the digital video recorder. There was surprisingly little mention of TiVo or other DVR's, a shift from conferences past.

"Two years ago this conference was completely fixated on the DVR," said Christopher J. Rohrs, the president of the Television Bureau of Advertising. "It was going to swamp the advertising model."

If DVR's were mentioned at all, it was to dismiss their potential. One often-cited figure was that fewer than 10 percent of American households had one. This year, the hand-wringing seemed to center on increasingly popular video-on-demand, which lets people buy movies and TV shows from an à la carte menu — without traditional advertising.