If you think digital will kill TV or print, you're wrong. Jeffrey Cole explains that opportunities abound for traditional media, and with those opportunities comes a chance for advertisers to strike a new bargain with users.

Television is only getting bigger, and print is facing the biggest opportunity it has ever had, reports Jeffrey Cole, director of the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future.

While many digital evangelists have been quick to champion the demise of traditional media by pointing to users who are turning away from print and TV in increasing numbers, Cole said he has come to a different conclusion based on his seven years of field research.

"No medium will disappear," Cole told attendees at the iMedia Breakthrough Summit in Rancho Mirage, Calif. "If any medium was going to disappear, it would have been radio after the arrival of TV. But radio did not disappear; it evolved, although it did become a less significant business."

Where many point to industries like music, print, TV and film as casualties of the digital age, Cole said some of those businesses could actually stand to gain from the emergence of digital.

"If you think about The New York Times, the internet has actually put them back in the breaking news business, which is something they haven't been able to do for nearly 80 years," Cole said. "It's like that old New Yorker cartoon that says 'on the internet nobody knows you're a dog.' Well, the truth is that on the internet, nobody knows The New York Times is a newspaper."

But if the distinctions between media brands are evaporating online in terms of capabilities, the brand name has only become more important, according to Cole.

"A brand name like The New York Times can be shorthand for quality online, and that's a very important thing," Cole said. "But newspapers like The New York Times need to understand that, in terms of functionality, they are no different from all the other news outlets."

Turning to TV, another so-called victim of the digital revolution, Cole argued that it would actually expand to fill downtime.

"Pretty quickly, consumers figured out how to fill downtime with voice by using their mobile phones to call each other, even when they didn't have anything to say," Cole observed. "Those who have smart phones have filled that downtime with email as well, and I think more and more we'll see consumers filling downtime with TV and video because for the first time TV is escaping outside of the home."

What does this mean for advertisers?
While the salvation -- and even growth -- of TV and print in the digital age may be good news for those industries, the real winner could be advertisers, according to Cole. Pointing out that the average American household spends about $260 per month on media goods and services that did not exist 30 years ago, Cole said there is a tremendous opportunity for advertisers because consumers may no longer be able to tolerate new fees for media.

"Consumers are saying to us that they don't want to pay for a new service like internet or mobile," Cole said. "That's a big opportunity for advertisers because it's a chance to offer consumers a deal similar to what they had with print and TV, a deal where advertisers foot the bill for the content users want to see in exchange for users remaining open to ads."

According to Cole, one need look no further than changes at The New York Times, which recently abandoned much of its subscription model.

"If you look at what happened with The New York Times website, the users of that site were saying to the company, 'we want to make the same deal we did with TV,'" Cole argued.

But while users may want the same deal of ad-supported content, Cole pointed out that the terms of the bargain may have to change.

"The print version of The New York Times is about 70 percent advertising," Cole said. "I don't think we'll ever see the day where The New York Times' website is 70 percent advertising and 30 percent content."

According to Cole, the terms of that new deal will likely be defined by the teenagers of today. But while many marketers have come to think of today's youth as impossibly different from previous generations, Cole pointed out that as teenagers move into adulthood they tend to become more honest about how branding and advertising defines their world. What may change, according to Cole, is where those ads reach the adults of tomorrow, many of whom will continue to play videos and connect with the world through their mobile devices.

Michael Estrin is associate editor at iMediaConnection. Read full bio.