Spain. July 2, 1494. A stone-cold morning. Spanish King Ferdinand II complains to his queen, Isabella: "The Portuguese. Always the Portuguese." Isabella munches on a quail egg and light toast. "Boundaries," he murmurs.

TV audience buying is only half the story of programmatic TV. The other half is technology automation. And the good news is that the tech is much further along than many realize. In fact, in some areas, it has leapfrogged over digital tech.

As the TV upfront season begins in earnest this year, many agencies and their clients are asking central questions about programmatic TV. "How does programmatic TV fit into the upfront?" Or, "Should a programmatic TV upfront exist? " At first blush, the answers are "it doesn't" and "no." Programmatic TV is the marriage of TV audience data with tech automation to optimize a campaign in-flight. The attraction of programmatic TV stems from its agility and immediacy in TV planning and buying. Programmatic TV is at its best when optimizing campaigns on TV inventory this week, next week, or even next …

At lunch the other day, a shaman I know brought up the topic of the implosion in recent years of upfront-like events hosted by the media community. How do you digest them all, he queried. A full plate, I responded: TV Networks, Cable Networks, Syndicators, NewFronts, Digital Place-Based and most recently, Programmatic TV'ers ... hundreds of presentations and industry gatherings. Age and gender? What else, I replied. Data infusion? Minimal, at best. While passing the fried pickles he asked whether I was familiar with the Native American tale of the TV Upfront and the gathering of sticks. I wasn't. He …