It seems like anyone with a digital presence is creating original video programs these days. I admit it, I was skeptical when AOL entered the fray en masse with 16 new programs this Spring.  Fast forward to the autumn, and you can see that advertising on Internet TV programs now accounts for 38% of AOL’s non-search revenue.

In an unrelated story, Forrester declared that online ad spending would surpass TV in the next two years. But one has to ask, is that really true?

See, I think Forrester is thinking in pipes.  With one pipe you have cable and broadcast television, and on another pipe — the Internet — you have TCP/IP-based or online ads.

But if video is becoming the dominant content form on the Internet, is it accurate to say that TV advertising is diminishing? Instead, what we are seeing is a movement from video on a few channels, via cable and broadcast, to widespread video content on diffused channels.

It’s not that the Internet is killing video or TV revenue. Video is killing video revenue.

All the social media, search and blog network advertising is nifty, too, but let’s not kid ourselves.  People love video content first and foremost.  It’s just that younger people are finding new ways to watch it.  Call it cord cutting or cord shaving or just online video, Internet programs are the immediate future for TV, something that both CBS and HBO have recognized.

Geoff Livingston is Capitol Communicator’s Media Strategist.  He also is an author, photographer and founder of Tenacity5.