The local television marketplace still has some trepidation when it comes to programmatic, but industry executives speaking Thursday at the Programmatic TV Summit say that automated ad buying is ultimately the future of the business.

Karine McMaster, Amplifi US associate media director of advanced TV Local Investment, said during the "Local TV’s Programmatic Opportunity" opening panel that its imperative that both executive sellers and buyers have the skill set to deal with the changes in technology.

“We have silos -- local TV buyers and we have digital buyers – that are two separate teams that eventually need to come into one,” she said. “Before we can do that, everyone needs to at least have the knowledge of their business so that we can come together and try to figure out how can we do this in a way where we’re merging all the knowledge that we have.”

NBCU chief revenue officer and president of commercial operations Frank Comerford added that the industry – and in particular stations – need to “take their heads out of the sand” and be risk takers if the industry is going to move forward.

“It doesn’t matter if you have someone handing you a piece of paper or contracting the spot electronically, you’re not losing the individuality of your product,” he said. “We need to stop fearing the fears that have been rampant on our side of the business.”

Eric Mathewson, founder and CEO of WideOrbit, said as the industry is changing, both buyers and sellers have to adjust to the evolving landscape if everyone is to be successful.

“We have to make it easier to buy and sell media, and in particular local media,” he said. “The job is getting harder – there is more media to manage, and the needs of the clients are more sophisticated … the systems have to support that tougher workload, and we’re working very hard to make that a reality.” 

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Scott Ferber, founder and CEO of Videology, and Tim Hanlon, founder and CEO of The Vertere Group, kicked off the Programmatic Summit with a talk about the state of programmatic advertising and how traditional media is getting more advanced in its advertising.

Ferber described how all TV viewing was linear back in 2000, but just 78% of it is now, on course for 74% in 2019.

Among millennials, he added, 62% of viewing is on linear TV.

He also detailed digital’s growing share of the ad pie. In 2011, television commanded 40% of the ad spend and digital 22%. Last year, the numbers were even at 38%. By 2020, digital is headed for 51% and TV 33%.

As the television industry moves into the advanced ads age — 64% of advertisers believe half of TV buys will be programmatic in the next five years, Ferber said — he urged everyone to operate by a common set of principles.

Hanlon was then called up onstage to interview Ferber.

Ferber said 2016, with the presidential election and the Olympics, was a great year for TV advertising, which does not encourage many parties to change the way they do business. He said he’s seeing “an unprecedented amount/rate of change in the upfronts.”

Ferber spoke of an “inflection point” in terms of advanced advertising occurring in the next 12 months and urged the industry to “create our own rules,” and not let the likes of Google and Facebook set the terms of digital advertising. Letting those online players handle traditional media’s digital business, Ferber said, means the older media companies “are not going to have a very good place at the table.”

Hanlon and Ferber described the silo’d nature of digital and linear within traditional media organizations, and Ferber noted how the major SVOD platforms, such as Hulu, are so often watched on the TV in the living room. “It reinforces the need to break down the silos and bring us all together,” he said.