When the social media boom first emerged around three years ago, I attended several conferences where the phrase “word of mouth is the new television” was bandied about with hardly a murmur (apart from my good self). It is patently nonsense and completely fails to recognise that, far from being in competition, television plus social media is a match made in heaven.

Is media – especially media research – ahead of or behind the curve? Is it driven by art or science?

I attended the always lively and entertaining ‘The Year Ahead’ event hosted by MediaTel Group last week, where we were once again entertained, informed, inspired and challenged by the predictive powers of Ray Snoddy and Torin Douglas, the Mitchell and Webb of media punditry.

Should we be surprised that TV viewing is reaching saturation levels given that the digital switchover is almost complete, pay TV is almost at saturation point and most of the new technologies that have affected TV viewing are already well-established now…

David Brennan explains how he went undercover as a 42 year old housewife called Gladys to prove why online research can still be ugly…

I always enjoy reading Greg Grimmer’s blogs and last week’s was no exception. His memories of trading (intellectual) blows with Phil Georgiadis at Media 360 a few years ago – about the future of online advertising – felt both nostalgic and curiously contemporary at the same time. There was one paragraph, though, that got me thinking about the whole topic of reach and frequency and its relevance in today’s communications landscape.

I have it on good authority that Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired, recently prepared to present a ‘TV is Dead’ presentation at a major international conference, only to be given a last minute jolt when he was told that many of the assumptions he had made in his speech were completely at odds with the accepted data.

The morning session at this year’s MediaTel Group Connected TV Experience conference was in danger of breaking out into violent agreement at times, but was all the more informative for it, as a new consensus is emerging regarding what ‘connected TV’ actually means and where the opportunities lie.

What was always seen as TV’s greatest weakness – its passive audience – is actually its greatest strength. It’s a fact of life that the predominant mindset when we are watching TV is “entertain me… but don’t make it too hard!”

Continuing a theme from my last but one piece (Has TV been Googled?), where I criticised government and regulators for constantly snipping at and limiting the creative industries in the UK, we now have a two-pronged assault on children’s television…