Will Advertising Dollars Return to TV?

The television-advertising market suffered a brutal spring and summer, as national marketers reduced their spending. Now, as the new fall season nears, media executives are betting that ad dollars will return. Ad executives aren't so sure.

On Madison Avenue, the talk is that marketing tactics have changed. Decades-old practices of committing ad budgets months in advance are increasingly being discarded. Instead advertisers are taking advantage of new automated ad-buying technologies and the flexibility of social media and online video outlets to decide on ad buys shortly before they want them to run.