Oprah Winfrey's recent announcement that she is leaving broadcast television for cable is the latest plot point in a rapidly unfolding drama, where the survival of TV as we know it seems to hang in the balance.   While it may be too soon for Titanic metaphors, a recent New York Times article paints a gloomy and confusing picture for the Big Four networks. For some time now, cable has been siphoning viewers and ad dollars from broadcast television.  But now, they are taking something far less replaceable: major talent like Winfrey. The Oprah Winfrey Network -- not coincidentally called OWN -- will own the broadcast pipe AND the content. The NYT piece went so far as to invoke the overused Gladwellian term "tipping point."  Given that, at the same time, the iconic broadcasting brand NBC may be acquired by Comcast cable, Winfrey's departure may in fact be a seminal event in this saga.  As the article mentions, "The viewership continues to migrate from broadcast to cable. Over time, advertisers have continued to pay premium prices for prime time, but over time the audiences continue to go down. Eventually you are going to hit an inflection point."

In a recent post, I said that the lines between television, video and gaming are beginning to blur.  As a result, advertisers have more ways to reach and measure their audience than ever before.  Consider this: last week we took the first steps to connect the Xbox LIVE service to the Nielsen rating system, making Xbox yet another "cable network" that is stealing share from broadcast TV.  All of this puts a lot of pressure on the cost of a 30-second spot in prime time.  We're seeing the results of that pressure now. True, traditional broadcast is far from sunk.  But recent events seem to indicate everyone's looking for a life raft-and they're filling up fast. When the entertainment history books are written, and the long, inexorable decline of The Big Four is a well-documented Harvard Business School case, I think we're going to look at the creation of OWN as the tipping point.  And, I predict 2010 will be the year that most major brand advertisers shift substantial portions of their budgets toward more targeted, measurable, engaging, and accountable mediums.