TV moves to digital age

"Broadcast television is still very powerful, it's still the only way to do certain things," he said. "I think there is always going to be a place for consuming a TV show or movie in a certain environment," like a movie theater or a living room.

For all the interest in new ways of broadcasting, he noted, most content is still viewed through the television set.

"We're very focused on mobile," he said. "But when you look at it, less than 5 percent of people have viewed video on the phone."

Another difficulty has been selling advertising across new digital platforms, he said. "When you talk about mulitplatform sell, it's not really happening," Lamprecht said. "People talk about it, but, practically, it's not going on."

Perhaps the main reason is that it is still difficult to measure audiences across all the different types of media, panelists said.

"The whole measurement space is under transition. For the foreseeable future, there won't be one currency," said George Shababb, chief operating officer of TNS Media Research.

"We need to address some of the measurement issues that exist today," he added, saying that the sample size is too small for television audience, few agree to standards for online audience measurement and mobile measurement still hasn't been defined.

"Eventually, we'll get to a point when we can bring these different measurement systems together into one," Shababb said.

Michael Steib, director of TV advertising at Google, said one benefit of new broadcast methods is that the technology will allow advertisers to better understand who is watching their commercial, when, and where.

"The more granular your information gets, the better you know how the audience reacts to those ads," he said.