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February 12th, 2008

Omnicom’s Wren still sorting through the strike

Posted by: Paul Thomasch
Tags: Mediafile

oscars-strike.jpgNow that the writers’ strike appears to be coming to an end, it’s time to look at the future of the TV.

More than anything, the strike brought to light a number of big issues facing the industry, from development costs and audience erosion to the upfront market and content choices.

Advertising and TV experts see it as an opportunity to shake up the economics of television.

But Omnicom Chief Executive John Wren, one of the most powerful men in advertising, did not seem so sure, when asked about the strike during a conference call to discuss Omnicom’s results:

In terms of our business, we haven’t been able to pinpoint any specific reaction to the strike. We’ll see what happens and how fast they crank up and put new product on the air. But… we’re not married to any particular media, so we’ll find the consumers for the clients and TV is only one avenue for us to accomplish that.

Obviously, everybody’s relieved the strike is over. The long-term impacts, I don’t know, you hear a lot of rhetoric about increasing reality TV and all the rest of it and then, if you follow closely you see the death of reality TV, too. There’s not too much you can do to shock the American public. So I don’t have any real long-term view as to what the implications of this were.

Stay tuned. Maybe he’ll have more to say later.

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