Published in The Myers Report, November 1996, the article “A Dollar A Holler, Or A Buck A Byte” forecasted a future many considered speculative at best. Nearly three decades later, it reads not just as prescient — but prophetic.
In an era when fax machines were still essential and “digital” was a novelty rather than an industry pillar, The Myers Report declared a bold truth: electronic media trading systems are inevitable. The 1996 piece didn’t merely point to the coming tide of change — it mapped out the very terrain we navigate today.
From the tens of millions of spot broadcast units being bartered across a fragmented market, to the anticipated rise of a national electronic backbone connecting agencies, reps, and stations, The Myers Report outlined a technological and cultural transformation of the media economy. It envisioned a world in which buying and selling ad time would resemble the fluidity of financial markets. Today, we call it programmatic.
At the heart of that early vision was an understanding of commoditization. We warned that in the absence of differentiation, media would risk becoming a pricing game — one that erodes brand value and disempowers creative innovation. That insight reverberates loudly in 2025, as advertisers grapple with transparency, fragmentation, and an overabundance of inventory treated as interchangeable.
But the most forward-thinking insight of all may have been this: technology will not replace talent — it will redefine it. We wrote then that a new generation of professionals would need to be trained to bridge the gap between the tools and the storytellers. In a media ecosystem increasingly driven by algorithms and artificial intelligence, that imperative has only grown more urgent.
While the names have changed — DARE, IndeNet, Petry Media — today’s equivalents (clean rooms, SSPs, CDPs, and AI-powered media platforms) fulfill the very function The Myers Report imagined: automated, intelligent systems that connect marketers with audiences at scale, and with speed.
And yet, we also recognized something enduring: that beyond the systems and platforms lies a more human question. What is the brand promise? What separates value from volume? What elevates a message from a commodity to a connection?
In re-reading “A Dollar A Holler, Or A Buck A Byte,” we find not just a forecast, but a legacy of clarity, vision, and leadership. As we continue to guide the media, advertising, and marketing communities through the AI era, we return to the spirit of that 1996 edition: ask the hard questions, anticipate what’s next, and never lose sight of the human intelligence behind the machine.
