Guess what? Marketers are being more careful with their ad budgets! Guess what else? Big companies like Disney’s ABC can’t afford to let cash-conscious advertisers spend less on TV buys, because it affects the bottom line, and that scares shareholders!

So that’s why ABC is today, during its upfront presentation, rolling out the new “Advertising Value Index,” which will supposedly help prove the value of TV advertising by letting clients choose specific criteria, rather than just Nielsen ratings numbers, in choosing where they put their 30-second spots. [WSJ] Things like “income level, education, employment status, how long viewers tune in to commercials or how engaged they are with the program” will all be just a checkbox away.

Except, well, media buyers already have this information.

Audience measurement firms like Nielsen and TNS psychograph the hell out of audiences in addition to bean counting them. ABC’s strategy, then, is to simplify things, and allow advertisers to see how ABC differs from the other networks.

Too bad for ABC, then, that advertisers have always cared only about audience numbers, and it looks like they’ll keep doing it for some time to come.

Funny, because reinventing the wheel is exactly what the magazine industry has tried to do, trying to oust readership metrics and ratebases as things advertisers care about. As far back as 2006, the Magazine Publishers of America chief Jack Kliger tried weening advertisers off their drive for low eCPMS and instead have them focus on audience profiles. [Folio] It’s 2008, and the needle hasn’t moved.