Readers of Monday’s New York Times could not avoid the theme about the transition of advertising from broadcast to more targeted options, from TV to the Web. No less than four stories on the front page and the front of the Business section had to do with this theme.

I know that the breaking Spitzer story soon overwhelmed them all, and that we at NDN and NPI are gearing up for this Wednesday’s Moment of Transformation event, but it’s worth pointing out the four as an example of the extraordinary transition the advertising world is in right now. This is hugely important because so much of politics is conducted through the morphing medium of TV, and very little of it via the web.

The front page story was “To Aim Ads, Web is Keeping Closer Eye Than You Think.” This unimposing article laid out some newly reported numbers that shows the gap opening up between old and new media companies in how much detailed data is getting collected on viewers. An accompanying chart  sums it up, showing the average number of times data is collected on each visitor in a month. Yahoo is 2520, and Google is 578; but the old media’s New York Times digital is a mere 45, and Disney online is 64. The reason this is important is that the more data you have on individual viewers, the better you can target. And targeting advertising is the Holy Grail.

Then above the fold on the business section you have the next three stories that are dealing with pieces of the repercussions:

“Cable Firms Join Forces to Attract Focused Ads.” This details the unprecedented collaboration of all the major cable companies in the last six months to rapidly come up with a way to allow large national advertising buys that can filter down to the individualized home via the settop box. People have been talking about this for a decade, but now the heat is on and the cable cos seem to really be motivated to move this time.

“Serving Up Television Without the TV Set.” This lays out he numbers of how many people are now watching “television” over their computers. The numbers are getting very serious, and by all accounts the shift has happened faster than most observers anticipated. Some nice quotes in there about people stunned by the speed in which this has happened.

“TV Puts an Odd Lens on Politics.” Good old David Carr wistfully looks at how traditional TV has been covering politics. Broadcast is basically out of the game. While the nation was riveted to the primaries in Texas and Ohio, the networks were showing yet another reality TV show. The “TV” game has now shifted to the Cable outfits, but they are getting more magaziny in their presentations, with stronger and stronger points of view. This was a less important story, but one that sounded a sad note on the demise of the networks and broadcast in shaping the national political debate.

And all this was just another day in the paper of record. Stories like this are popping up every day. In fact, this is one of the reasons why the New Politics Institute has put in motion an event in DC on April 24th on “Reimagining Video.” Stay tuned for more information.