THE TV industry, as in every other recession, has been putting a brave face on things with the oft-spouted, “people stay in to save money and watch more TV in a downturn.”

Pay TV, similarly, loves to point out that having subscription revenues, instead of being solely reliant on advertising, makes those networks, if not recession-proof, then at least recession resistant.

So if viewers are watching more TV, and pay-TV networks have their subs to fall back onto, why are broadcasters and networks demeaning themselves when it comes to low-end ad clients and ad-funded content?

Ad-spots for products like Uncle’s dodgy fishballs have an almost spoof-like quality (reminiscent of cinema ads, Pearl & Dean, circa 1975), while product placement attempts to break records for how many times the sponsor’s name can be mentioned in one segment.

And filling ad-breaks with persistent plugs for your own programming or your sibling channels doesn’t fool anyone, it almost makes one thankful for Star World’s mini-sodes. Almost.

But on the upside, media and advertising agency representatives speaking at the CASBAA Convention seemed to have finally discovered the importance of engaging with the consumer at every touchpoint. Something that I’m pretty sure most savvy media owners, the pay-TV platforms in particular, have been putting into place – for better or for worse – for the past few years.

So now that media companies and agencies finally agree on that anywhere, anytime, anyplace connection with the consumer, how about some intelligent advertising to actually engage us?