Waiting For Programmatic TV; Reuters Offers Free Streaming TV App

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Waiting for Godot

“There is a lot of smoke and mirrors out there,” says Long Ellis, former ad sales director at the now-defunct Google TV, regarding the viability of programmatic TV campaigns. Mike Shields of The Wall Street Journal asks why programmatic TV is stuck in first gear, and finds TV insiders like Long pouring cold water: “None of the TV networks want to put their inventory into anything that will be commoditized.” Vendors though, like TubeMogul CEO Brett Wilson, argue that “a year ago, this wasn’t a conversation many people in TV business wanted to have, but now they are recognizing this is happening.” The glass is half … something!

If You Stream It

Reuters has reversed its streaming TV model from a paid app to a free version with the option to pay $2 for an ad-free experience. Instead of aiming for a viable business right now, Reuters’ current plan is to gain wide adoption and then apparently figure out revenue once the audience exists, Reuters TV’s Isaac Showman tells Nieman Journalism Lab. To that end, the company has allowed other publishers to play its stream on their sites for free, place ads against the videos and keep 100% of the revenue. Showman claims viewers tripled in the final quarter of 2015 compared to Q3, but a business can’t eat its audience … yet.

Earning Budgets

“Public relations has always played its part in the marketing mix, even if it was added to plans late and rarely recognized like other disciplines,” but that may be changing fast, according to an Ad Age report. Online ad blocking, skipping, aversion and privacy opt-outs all combine to accelerate a shift from paid to earned media. Edelman, the world’s largest independent PR agency, is looking at a new model that is “focused on figuring out new ways to measure the return on investment from its campaigns,” to compete for performance dollars usually relegated to ad tech. Related in AdExchanger: Media agencies are increasing their stake in influencer marketing.

Up Periscope

Twitter has owned and operated Periscope, the video livestreaming service, for almost a year, but it’s failed to stimulate much money or user adoption. (Marketers have complained about Twitter’s apparent lack of interest in pitching the service to brands.) The social media platform finally announced a useful integration, with Periscope videos now autoplaying in Twitter feeds, as reported by Lauren Johnson at Adweek. Considering Facebook’s success improving its ad real estate by flooding the news feed with autoplay videos, it’s a surprise Twitter hasn’t executed this move until now.

But Wait, There’s More!