The World: Insider's view - US.

TV networks need to deal with fragmented and time-shifted audiences and putting a price on digital options. Tom Sassos looks at the future of the upfront season.

For many years, the TV networks have been able to increase their rates while effectively delivering a smaller audience, resulting in higher cost per millions for advertisers.

Despite these rising CPMs, ad-vertisers have participated in this marketplace to lock in prices, gain access to prime inventory, achieve guaranteed audience delivery and negotiate flexibility over cancellation rights.

If an advertiser chooses not to participate in this upfront, they must hope they can achieve their desired national TV needs in the scatter marketplace. Most years, prices in this marketplace have been higher, and much of the prime inventory is no longer available. Given these risks, most major advertisers stick with the devil they know.

But audience fragmentation has caused average network ratings to decrease to a point where the three networks may not be perceived as a 'must buy'. While cable audiences have grown substantially, the networks have always been the only way to achieve the kind of reach impact that many advertisers need. This fragmentation of the network audience is getting to a point where it is impossible to achieve massive reach using network TV alone. This year, at least one major advertiser declined to participate in the upfront. It's only a matter of time until others follow suit.

They are all looking elsewhere for viewers. Some have challenged their agencies to find better ways to invest their ...