Roberts Says Comcast Working on Future of Advertising

CEO Brian Roberts says Comcast is working to create advertising products that will deliver more value to marketers.

Asked about what appears to be a slowdown in the TV advertising market at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media Conference Tuesday, Roerts said Comcast's TV and cable operator divisions were working together on the products that capitalize on the technologies that are affecting viewer behavior.

With digital advertising growing, the goal was to figure out "how do we deliver a more computer-like experience for [advertisers'] investment , the way they're getting it on the internet," but on the TV, which offers a more robust experience for consumers.

Roberts pointed to the way Comcast is able to insert current commercials into video on demand viewing of earlier episodes of a show. "All of a sudden, advertising's more valuable in that on demand episode," he said, adding that that process would repeat itself in mobile viewing, Internet protocol streaming and shared viewing experiences over multiple locations.

"A lot of my energy has been thinking about, OK, what's the product we want to deliver over the next two years, five years, 10 years to an advertise," he said.

In the more short-term, Roberts noted that NBC was the only network to increase volume during the upfront and said it was too soon to gauge scatter. That said, "I think it's still a very healthy market," he concluded.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.