THERE WAS AN interesting piece in Tuesday's Seattle Times that delved into the many and increasingly creative tactics being pursued by a growing number of TV companies to retain viewers at the break. Funny, I thought it was the media provider's job to build an audience and the advertiser's job to deliver a relevant message to the consumer.

Make an inane commercial that repeats "Head On" over and over and it is guaranteed to be skipped. Show me a trailer to an upcoming movie, and I probably will watch it. Likewise, give me a new entertaining Mac guy vs. PC commercial (even though I hate Apple), and I'll watch it.

You get the point. It was the TV industry that was supposed to build an audience inside a 30- or 60-minute block with interesting content. Multiple advertisers then got their 30-second shot at telling me something.

One thing that I respect about Google's advertising platform in search marketing is the idea of rewarding an ad that people respond to. The common person might believe that an AdSense ad goes to the highest bidder, but that would be wrong. Rather, Google takes into account how relevant people think the ad is, so better written text on a lower bid can often be the first displayed in the search results.

But how did Madison Avenue turn the tables on the TV people and make it their responsibility to guarantee that viewers stayed tuned in during the commercials?