Media Agency Report

Diced and sliced like shrimp under a Ginsu knife, television, the most important medium of all, is arguably the most profoundly affected by fragmentation. The explosion of small-screen options has transformed the ways in which creators, buyers, sellers and consumers think about—and interact with television—and thoroughly frustrated everybody.

Like beauty, the impact of fragmentation on television is in the eyes of its beholders. It can be a blessing or a curse, and sometimes both simultaneously. But there’s one thing everyone agrees on—much more needs to be done by agencies and media companies to plan, buy and evaluate TV advertising effectively in a fragmented world.

What fragmentation has wrought and what ought to be done about it was the subject of a lively and often contentious panel of media- industry players at the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ annual Media Conference, held last week at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside in New Orleans....