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TV’s AI Blind Spot: Tracy Swedlow on What Broadcasters Are Missing · Leading Local Insights

• 0:34
  Rick Ducey: Welcome to BIA's Leading and Local Podcast.
• 0:36
  Rick Ducey: I'm Rick Ducey, Managing Director of BIA.
• 0:39
  Rick Ducey: And today I'm really happy to have a very special guest, Tracy Svedlock, who is the, let's see, how many words should I use here?
• 0:45
  Rick Ducey: Founder, visionary, owner, producer of many things.
• 0:50
  Rick Ducey: One of which we're going to feature today is an event called TV of Tomorrow that Tracy run on the East Coast, uh in New York, and the West Coast, San Francisco, other than the evil COVID years, pretty much on an annual basis.
• 1:04
  Rick Ducey: And I've had the great pleasure to be involved with you and that TVOT event specifically and other things you put on over the years.
• 1:12
  Rick Ducey: And it's just such a special community and series of events you have.
• 1:16
  Rick Ducey: And it's been great that BIA has been able to participate in a lot of those.
• 1:21
  Rick Ducey: So I thought it'd be fun to just chat about these things and learn a little bit more about it and introduce you more broadly to our community.
• 1:29
  Rick Ducey: So tell us just a bit when I talk to people, they uh in our in our community, uh local media particularly, um I'll say, Do you know about TVOT?
• 1:40
  Rick Ducey: And um distressingly a lot of people don't.
• 1:43
  Rick Ducey: So it's like, well, we gotta fix that.
• 1:44
  Rick Ducey: So that's part of the goal today.
• 1:46
  Rick Ducey: Um, and then uh, you know, I get these people as speakers or they'll come and attend and I'll say, What do you think?
• 1:52
  Rick Ducey: And to a person, they say something along these lines.
• 1:56
  Rick Ducey: I can't believe I never heard of this.
• 1:58
  Rick Ducey: This is like the best thing.
• 1:59
  Rick Ducey: So um let's let's let's open it up to more people.
• 2:03
  Rick Ducey: So why don't we start?
• 2:04
  Rick Ducey: Tell us a little bit about the event and and yourself and Richard and and how you got this whole thing going, and then we'll dig deeper into what this um specific event coming up in December is, learn more about you have what you have in plan in the plans for that.
• 2:19
  Tracy Swedlow: Well, um, thanks so much for having me here on your podcast because I'm always doing these things myself.
• 2:25
  Tracy Swedlow: Uh and I appreciate the work that you do, and we always ask you at every event to lead a session because we know it's going to be top quality, and that you're, you know, an expert in your field, and we can rely on you.
• 2:40
  Tracy Swedlow: So I want to just say thank you to you and to um, you know, and celebrate the work that you do.
• 2:45
  Tracy Swedlow: Uh so what is TVOT?
• 2:49
  Tracy Swedlow: Well, you know, it came out of doing our the email newsletter that I started in 1998 called ITVT or Interactive TV Today.
• 2:59
  Tracy Swedlow: And I've been covering all kinds of new media and VR and television and all kinds of stuff through the 90s.
• 3:05
  Tracy Swedlow: But TVOT came out of that when I realized there wasn't really an event that allowed what was becoming the multi-platform TV experience to exist in one place.
• 3:16
  Tracy Swedlow: It was the cable show or the mobile phone show or you know, satellite show.
• 3:21
  Tracy Swedlow: So I wanted to show that um to have a show that where the advertising, the tracking, measurement, the content, the technology, the broadcasters, the you know, all the emerging, you know, streaming marketplace could talk and intermix and uh make those alliances and get to really meet each other.
• 3:42
  Tracy Swedlow: And that's one thing, by the way, is the hallmark of our events is that um not only is it the integration, the blend of those things, and it's as high quality as possible because we've been covering it for a long time, but people really get to meet each other.
• 3:58
  Tracy Swedlow: We don't hide the community away behind velvet ropes, behind closed doors and curtains.
• 4:04
  Tracy Swedlow: This is where you really get to meet people who are just on the stage.
• 4:09
  Tracy Swedlow: Um, and so we we generate an email newsletter, still ITVT, which goes out to about 37,000 people several times a week, which is a mixture now of the TV industry, high-level TV executives, and the AI industry, and advertising, of course.
• 4:28
  Tracy Swedlow: And so with that and the other things we do, like TVOT Connect twice a month, we do little mini TVOTs, like for an hour and uh an interview.
• 4:39
  Tracy Swedlow: So that's what we're up to.
• 4:41
  Tracy Swedlow: And then this next conference in the tagline is TV plus AI plus advertising, because that's what is going on.
• 4:51
  Rick Ducey: Yeah, totally.
• 4:52
  Rick Ducey: And it's one of the things I've always admired in uh the TVOT event and these other um events and newsletters you've mentioned is the I guess integration across uh themes and trends with an I, obviously, TV of tomorrow, to us next.
• 5:09
  Rick Ducey: So a lot of the conferences that I've been involved in, it's like, well, here's what's what, you know, here's some data points, here's some activities, here's some mergers and acquisitions.
• 5:16
  Rick Ducey: And it's it's very bland almost.
• 5:20
  Rick Ducey: Um but the topics you have and the speakers you bring together and the way you uh set the editorial agenda, it's like, so yeah, I mean, we we can read the news, the trade news, and even the general news as it breaks out there, uh, but but where is this headed?
• 5:37
  Rick Ducey: I mean, who's doing what and why, and how should I position myself in this environment?
• 5:41
  Rick Ducey: So I'm talking about the editorial agenda, and you you just highlighted it a little bit, but there's a lot of floppingness in the editorial agenda, and that 100% of the time takes you from kind of confusing today to more confusing tomorrow, but in a way that's like, oh, I think I see some of the things going on here now.
• 6:00
  Rick Ducey: And I I do want to mention about um the community of the events I've gone to, you know, typically you have speakers um and really good speakers, prominent speakers.
• 6:10
  Rick Ducey: Um, they'll go and do their panel, they'll do their keynote, and then I'd like to ask where they go.
• 6:15
  Rick Ducey: But you know, with your events, people hang out.
• 6:17
  Rick Ducey: Uh exactly.
• 6:18
  Rick Ducey: It makes it very special.
• 6:20
  Rick Ducey: So for the editorial agenda, you've got this thing coming up in December, 2nd and 3rd in San Francisco at a new location.
• 6:26
  Rick Ducey: Um, so that's what I want to talk about.
• 6:28
  Tracy Swedlow: This is our 40th show, by the way.
• 6:30
  Rick Ducey: Wow, oh my gosh.
• 6:32
  Tracy Swedlow: I don't know why other people don't know about this.
• 6:34
  Tracy Swedlow: I guess it's it's a very word-of-mouth kind of thing, other than the email newsletter.
• 6:39
  Tracy Swedlow: Uh, we don't have like a huge marketing firm that puts you know our ads on buses.
• 6:43
  Tracy Swedlow: And yeah, we have really kept it uh, you know, uh well vetted.
• 6:49
  Rick Ducey: Right.
• 6:50
  Rick Ducey: Well, tell us about this vet December 2nd, 3rd, San Francisco.
• 6:53
  Rick Ducey: Um, we'll ask a couple of different um dimensions to this, but the editorial agenda, what's what's on the program in terms of topics?
• 7:01
  Rick Ducey: You mentioned it a little bit and the kinds of speakers and who's going to be there and so on.
• 7:06
  Tracy Swedlow: Well, uh, for example, our keynote speaker or one of is uh Ryan McConville, who is the chief product officer at EVP of Ad Products and Solutions and from NBC Universal.
• 7:18
  Tracy Swedlow: And so he is going to talk about all of their AI work as far as what they're doing with advertising.
• 7:23
  Tracy Swedlow: And because I've been digging really deeply into the AI community, whether it's Agentic or Gen AI, especially here in the belly of the beast in San Francisco, um, I know from doing my research that um advertising is one of the places where AI is really exploding.
• 7:42
  Tracy Swedlow: And uh so he's gonna talk about their work creatively and what they're doing in terms of um developing uh agentic opportunities for integrating new products and services and where they're going, how that's being distributed, um, who their partners are, who who we can reveal anyway.
• 8:00
  Tracy Swedlow: So we're really excited about that.
• 8:02
  Tracy Swedlow: And we have so many other incredible speakers.
• 8:05
  Tracy Swedlow: We have the uh we have the great Rick Ducey speaking on local advertising, and uh we have uh people from Fox and CBS, and uh let's see, we have the what I call the measurement royalty.
• 8:22
  Tracy Swedlow: We always have the measurement royalty showing up.
• 8:24
  Tracy Swedlow: So that's Howard Schimmel and Helen Katz and all of those people, but uh Josh Chasen, but we also have a lot of new AI companies that are really doing exciting work with advertising and um AI, uh like for ritual ads.
• 8:43
  Tracy Swedlow: And we have the hopefully the LLMs and the uh Gen AI uh content creation platforms that will be talking about their relationship to Hollywood and to the ad agencies.
• 8:55
  Tracy Swedlow: So we're really trying to introduce a lot of companies to the traditional TV industry that we've had for years, like the streaming and the fast universe and the broadcasters and the uh the OEMs like uh Samsung, Visio, LG, and they'll all be there to this other universe.
• 9:12
  Tracy Swedlow: Uh, they may, I think the traditional TV universe is working on agentic AI, but I don't think they're aware of the powerhouse of activity that's going on creatively and how uh all of that's going to change.
• 9:26
  Tracy Swedlow: And I want the creative community to start understanding about the opportunities inside the TV industry for personalization, distribution, commerce, uh, you know, and and uh and and we're gonna be doing a lot of stuff with conversational AI, bringing the agent to the screen, to the deck, to the first screen.
• 9:49
  Tracy Swedlow: So that's going to intersect with discovery, with commerce, with finding, you know, exploring your content, uh maybe delivering you ads, but also being like a helper or a guide.
• 10:02
  Tracy Swedlow: So it's my goal is always, like I said, to uh find those edges and bring those edges together so that they start, you know, uh intermixing, making alliances.
• 10:15
  Tracy Swedlow: That's that's my main goal, is so people can figure out who are the smart people, who really understands what's going on and to help them make those alliances.
• 10:24
  Rick Ducey: Well, I love the metaphor of bringing the edges together.
• 10:27
  Rick Ducey: My wife is a quilter, so uh that's that's uniform.
• 10:30
  Rick Ducey: That I mean, so you bring these kind of patches together to create a whole work, and it's um really interesting and compelling.
• 10:37
  Tracy Swedlow: Well, tell tell your wife I love quilts.
• 10:39
  Tracy Swedlow: I've always loved quilts.
• 10:41
  Rick Ducey: Oh, right, I will.
• 10:42
  Rick Ducey: Now she'll make you one.
• 10:44
  Rick Ducey: Yeah, we should do it.
• 10:45
  Rick Ducey: Um so just editorial agendas.
• 10:48
  Rick Ducey: You've got you know a lineup of speakers, um, but then with the community, you've got so you've got media people, you've got AI people, the tech people, um, you've got uh creative people.
• 10:59
  Rick Ducey: You've also you know we'll draw people from the brands.
• 11:01
  Rick Ducey: You get marketers here, you get agency people, and so part of the experience obviously is the editorial program, but uh a key part of the value is these people hang out and they talk together, you know, they talk about the session that just happened or one that's coming up, or just their own things.
• 11:16
  Rick Ducey: I mean, deals get made um at this event.
• 11:20
  Tracy Swedlow: We also have um some incredible, like Emmy Award-winning creators like Bernie Sue.
• 11:25
  Tracy Swedlow: We'll have important AI companies like Nvidia, um, but we also have the streamers like Canela and Paramount, Skydance, Warner Brothers, will all be there.
• 11:36
  Tracy Swedlow: Uh, we're going to have important uh advertising companies like uh Keens, um The Trade Desk, uh RPA, which is an ad, which is an agency, but they're doing a lot of AI work for NBC.
• 11:51
  Tracy Swedlow: We also have like the the uh content owners, like Versant, which owns a huge amount of um television channels and things like that.
• 11:59
  Tracy Swedlow: I mean, it goes on and on.
• 12:00
  Tracy Swedlow: Streaming, uh, I mean, it's it's uh spectrum reach will be there.
• 12:04
  Tracy Swedlow: I mean, you know, um brands like let's see, uh well, iHeart and Omnicom, well they're you know, an agency, but we'll also have, oh, it's too long of the list.
• 12:16
  Tracy Swedlow: We have about 130 speakers by the time we get to the uh yeah, Mintas.
• 12:21
  Rick Ducey: So another thing that's sort of special about this event is it's it's big enough to have um dimension and diversity, but small enough that it is really a community.
• 12:31
  Rick Ducey: And people, you know, I do, and I hear other people speak of it as a community.
• 12:34
  Rick Ducey: You know, we'll see you next time, kind of thing.
• 12:37
  Rick Ducey: Um, and so how so you know that's a large number of speakers, and then overall, how many people are at the event typically?
• 12:44
  Tracy Swedlow: Well, over the two days we'll have several hundred people.
• 12:47
  Tracy Swedlow: This is not a massive event, it's not exactly super cheap.
• 12:51
  Tracy Swedlow: And we really try to curate the people who are there.
• 12:55
  Tracy Swedlow: So um you will be able to meet, you'll be able to hug your friends, you'll be able to meet new people you didn't realize you needed to meet.
• 13:05
  unknown: Right.
• 13:05
  Tracy Swedlow: You will be able to do some business.
• 13:08
  Tracy Swedlow: Uh I don't, I mean, sure, I would love to make a lot more money, but I a thousand-person event, you know, is overwhelming.
• 13:17
  Tracy Swedlow: And especially I've heard recently at other events, they often have huge spaces and people get lost, they can't see everything.
• 13:26
  Tracy Swedlow: So this is something where you can really meet people and not feel frantic.
• 13:30
  Tracy Swedlow: You can feel relaxed.
• 13:32
  Tracy Swedlow: It's going to be in the most beautiful location, by the way.
• 13:35
  Tracy Swedlow: Uh, it's in the presidio and it's right there on the main parade lawn in this building called the House.
• 13:41
  Tracy Swedlow: So it's right next to the Walt Disney Family Museum, which is a an also a beautiful red brick building, or I guess fake red bricks, I'm not quite sure, and you know, San Francisco, but it looks real.
• 13:51
  Tracy Swedlow: And you're right there in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.
• 13:55
  Tracy Swedlow: You're right there in front of uh natural uh table uh they're called the tunnel tops, walkways, and there's you know, hiking and there's pickleball courts and golf, and there's the ILM campus, Star Wars, the store.
• 14:11
  Tracy Swedlow: I mean, it there's there's nothing but incredibly fun things to do right nearby.
• 14:17
  Rick Ducey: And it's very one of the benefits of registering for the conference is you have a chance to get a bit roll on one of these LLM productions.
• 14:24
  Rick Ducey: No, just kidding.
• 14:25
  Tracy Swedlow: Yeah.
• 14:25
  Tracy Swedlow: Well, I'll show you where the store is, then you'll have to figure it out from there.
• 14:32
  Rick Ducey: One thing, so you know, um BIA, you know, advisory services, our company, we've focused on the local side of all the things we're talking about.
• 14:40
  Rick Ducey: Um, and a lot happens on the national side and international side.
• 14:43
  Rick Ducey: Uh, mostly you focused on um kind of US centric community market, but there are some good um coverage of uh some international developments as well.
• 14:51
  Rick Ducey: But but local is a different creature than than national, and you've been doing more on the local side.
• 14:57
  Rick Ducey: So I just um give you a chance to give a shout-out for like you talked about measurement royalty.
• 15:02
  Rick Ducey: Um AI obviously is different uh in its application for local versus national.
• 15:07
  Rick Ducey: You can really localize data-driven things with AI, Agentic AI to assemble buys and you know, um activate that.
• 15:16
  Tracy Swedlow: Your session, your session, um I well, you know your session better than I do, but uh your session will have iHeartMedia, Madhive, and Graham Media Group, which of course they own hundreds of TV stations around the country, and Jam Loop, which is a comedy uh channel, right?
• 15:33
  Tracy Swedlow: And we're and these are all like CEOs, managing directors, SVPs, and then we also have another local session from Bill Haig, you know, from MAGID, and he's doing a local show on I mean a local session on news, and so he actually is going to have the president of uh and general manager of CBS News here in Northern California, and Jeremy Allen from also from Gray Media Group and the KQED, uh the editor-in-chief of KQED, which is the PBS station, which basically runs this town.
• 16:09
  Tracy Swedlow: So, and others, so uh we're definitely doing a lot of that, and then of course, AI advertising uh is definitely and local and how how you work with vendors here in the community, you know, we're we're always interested.
• 16:23
  Rick Ducey: Yep, they're gonna be there.
• 16:25
  Rick Ducey: Um, all right.
• 16:26
  Rick Ducey: Well, let me um one one last question, unless you have other things to add.
• 16:29
  Rick Ducey: Um, how can people learn more about TVOT?
• 16:32
  Rick Ducey: How do they register, how they get involved?
• 16:34
  Tracy Swedlow: Well, you can always write to me at uh tracyswedlow at gmail.com or tracy at tvotshow.com.
• 16:43
  Tracy Swedlow: I'm always interested in new people, people who want to speak.
• 16:47
  Tracy Swedlow: If you want to sponsor, I'd love to hear from you.
• 16:50
  Tracy Swedlow: Uh please reach out to me extremely soon because we're putting out the agenda uh also very soon.
• 16:56
  Tracy Swedlow: The website is tvotshow.com or itvt.com slash TVOT.
• 17:04
  Tracy Swedlow: If you want to get on our email newsletter, that's the best way to stay in touch with everything we're doing because it goes way beyond this event.
• 17:12
  Tracy Swedlow: Like I'm doing an AI salon tomorrow evening as a sort of under-the-radar thing where we're discussing the utopia versus dystopia, advertising versus uh long-form content and advertising.
• 17:26
  Tracy Swedlow: So uh we do a lot of different things.
• 17:29
  Tracy Swedlow: So then the newsletter you have to subscribe by going to the about us link, and uh you'll you'll be able to sign up.
• 17:41
  Rick Ducey: Anything else you want to say before we um break for this session?
• 17:45
  Tracy Swedlow: Nothing, just that again that I'm grateful to have you in my life, Rick.
• 17:50
  Rick Ducey: Well, that's a two-way street.
• 17:51
  Rick Ducey: It's been wonderful um having a relationship with you and your events and all the people you bring together in your community over the years.
• 17:57
  Rick Ducey: And I'm really looking forward to this session coming up in December at this beautiful location in San Francisco.
• 18:03
  Rick Ducey: Well, Tracy, thank you so much for being with us today, sharing some of yourself and the TVOT event and the whole context of things.
• 18:10
  Rick Ducey: Um, great community, and I really um urge people to check it out.
• 18:14
  Rick Ducey: They're gonna be pleasantly surprised.
• 18:16
  Rick Ducey: Thank you so much.
• 18:17
  Tracy Swedlow: Bring your business cards, bring your business cards, or exactly LinkedIn.
• 18:21
  Tracy Swedlow: Okay, thanks so much.
• 18:22
  Rick Ducey: And thanks everybody for being with us today.
• 18:23
  Rick Ducey: Uh, hope you follow up and uh obviously you can get in touch with me too if that's helpful.
• 18:28
  Rick Ducey: Um take care.
• 18:30
  Rick Ducey: Have a good day.