I still remember it like it was yesterday. My dad (always one of the early adopters) brought home our brand new, round-screen RCA Victor Color television set. He plugged it in, adjusted the rabbit ears and turned it on. With a low pitched hum, starting slowly from a single dot in the middle of the screen, the screen grew to reveal an ABC news broadcast already underway. Eagerly, we three kids leaned in to be able to see “color TV” for the first time. The problem was, the local TV station wasn’t broadcasting in color yet. So we had a wonderful color TV set that we didn’t get to actually see a color program on for about another three months.

Fast forward to the year 2010. We’re all supposed to just think about TV and it magically pops up, filling an entire glass room in our home, right?

Wrong.

Oh sure, we have 1080p high definition on 120 channels or so, but we’re still very much in the dark ages when it comes to the local affiliate commercial break. It seems as though someone forgot to notify the local broadcast channels in just about every US market that the local breaks are still sponsored by local advertisers.

Even though stations happily broadcast the network feeds in hi-def and tout their HD coverage, the local slot is filled with wonderful lo-def mediocrity. Which means for clients and agencies: that $1.5 million dollar TV ad campaign you just authored in hi-def? Well, it is going to be shown in standard definition. In most cases, in the old 4:3 format of older tube-type televisions.

Welcome to 1965 all over again.

So picture me on a soapbox now, screaming at the top of my lungs at every local affiliate that will invest in the equipment to broadcast a network feed, but won’t take the small added step of upgrading their carting equipment, so they can show local spots in hi-def as well. Fine. That’s okay, we’re just the ones paying to keep the lights on.

Following this logic, may I tell my clients that we can’t do their website or handle their social influence because we’d rather not spend the money to pay for an internet connection? I’m thinking, no. They would fire us and move on to someone who would. We spend months poring over our creative product to make it the very best it can be, and then unless we are prepared to do a national network buy, we are saddled with playing that television spot through the digital equivalent of gauze.

This is not a difficult request. But it does take influence. I suppose there are just too many advertisers out there who are willing to settle for mediocrity. Until the silent majority of local advertisers who are willing to settle for less than top quality will take a stand and demand better, we might as well break out the hip boots and Peter Maxx posters.