The word for 2015 is "viewability". TV Stations be afraid.

There's a new word in TV Media buying land for 2015. It's "viewability".

And, it's being bandied about by TV Broadcasters to "compete" (destroy) with online digital in an attempt to re-enforce that digital ads may not be seen. Therefore, they've no "viewability" or so the story goes.

Irony or what?

In fact at a recent conference, by Ad Age, Media buyers called for '100% viewability'. A strange request after 50 years buying TV spots you'd have thought.

But traditional TV Viewability is the issue here, not digital and TV Broadcasters are building a case to beat themselves with. 

We need to start to use our commonsense.

Firstly, we've never measured the viewability of TV Ad Breaks. Never. And we all know that we make the coffee, go to the loo or whatever during them. Some of us do anyway and yet those viewers who aren't watching, are paid for in full.

Secondly, multi-viewing. We also all know that something like 16% of us, watch TV with our laptop/tablet open - second screen viewing during TV. So once the Ad break comes on, we look away and back to our devices.

Thirdly, we all know that the peak for Social Media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) is during TV evening prime time so whilst the TV might be "on", how many are actually watching the breaks? Are we/they not doing Social Media?

Fourthly, how many of us watch programmes on record and flick through the ad breaks at speed?

So what we do know is the viewability of traditional TV Ad Breaks is the question, not digital.

Digital is one-to-one, up close and personal by seeing your video on your device. Not in a room full of people or at a distance from the TV.

And whereas the spurious arguments exist about bots (robots) delivering viewers on digital that are automated and not "real", that's a poor reflection on the skill of the media buyer themselves. You should buy inventory you trust.

So "viewability" is the buzz word for 2015.
But TV Broadcasters need to look at their Adbreaks first. 

Because the issue, is theirs. 

By the way, here's a test.

If you watched traditional TV last night you probably had about 30,000 dollars of Ads pushed at you. 

Now, Name one you remember......