The phrase "________ is the new black" originated in the fashion world. Los Angeles Times? The New York Times? Maybe late '70's? Early '80s? A phraseological construction that suggests something is other than itself but coupled with the latter, provides clarity and credence, and ultimately, pervasive acceptability.

Since the dawn of TV, ad buyers and sellers have, for the most part, been transacting on the opportunity for an audience to see an advertiser's ad. Of course, there were leaps made in measuring the relationship of TV advertising to sales, but perfect did not seem to get in the way of better. The media marketplace understood that over time, things would naturally progress -- if the drum beat of "what if?" and satisfaction with "better than, though not perfect" set the tone for decisions.

Programmatic buying is getting a good deal of attention -- and recent articles have speculated on leveraging infrastructure created for digital programmatic to accelerate the rise of programmatic in television. While this may be easier said than done, several programmatic vendors are investing heavily in building the infrastructure that will be required to deliver a programmatic TV capability. Things are progressing quickly and the results are encouraging.

Programmatic brings value to the TV ecosystem by using data to find audiences in TV inventory that were previously unknown. Programmatic TV technology allows TV to be planned, optimized and measured in near real-time using the audience data for advanced targeting. The tech brings the same agility and measurability to TV that already exists in digital. In doing so, programmatic TV also fundamentally marries traditional TV planning and buying. This marriage ultimately yields better business outcomes from TV advertising and increases its value.