Advertising executives getting sneak peeks of the autumn and spring 2011 television shows in New York this week could be forgiven for feeling they had entered a time warp.

One of next year’s biggest US television dramas will be a “collision between the future and the past”, Steven Spielberg, acclaimed Hollywood director, explained.

A strong rebound in global ad spending is expected to lift this year’s so-called upfront pre-booking of advertising sales by 15 to 20 per cent.

This has inspired TV networks including CBS, Fox and NBC to spend heavily to reimagine shows that aired during the periods when they set the national cultural agenda.

On and off screen, the media industry is returning to comfort zones disturbed in recent years by thousands of alternative sources of entertainment on the internet, and competition from video games.

“There is no denying our industry is in a period of change,” said John Nesvig, president of sales at Fox Broadcast on Monday. “But not as quickly [as predicted].”

Behind Mr Nesvig flashed PowerPoint slides depicting TV’s enduring grip on American media consumption. He reminded executives that 90 per cent of viewing still happens on TVs.

On stage, a sense of nostalgia – with a twist – prevailed.

An offering from TBS’s upcoming lineup, Glory Daze, takes a direct approach to the retro trend, following four college friends navigating life in the 1980s.

Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment, said one inspiration was The Hangover, a box office hit from sister company Warner Bros, about a bachelor party gone awry.

A remake of The Defenders, a 1960s courtroom drama focused on a father and son defence team, explores “male relationships in the context of a legal franchise”, explained Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment. “It’s a bro-mance.”

Other nostalgic flourishes in CBS’s lineup include a modern makeover of Hawaii Five-O, the detective drama from the late 1960s, about an elite task force aimed at “wiping out crime that washes up on the islands’ sun-drenched beaches”, CBS said.

Across the media sector, executives were eager to convince advertisers that television is as resilient as it was in the eras they are harking back to.

“The numbers say it all: people have a 40-hour work week, but watch television for 37 hours,” Mr Koonin said. “It’s a full-time second job.”