CTV Roundup

GSTV is trying to win a larger share of spend earmarked for TV. In GSTV’s case, it wants to reach a broad and captive audience – while they’re at the fuel pump.

Moonbug Entertainment, a content studio whose portfolio includes kid favorites such as CoComelon and Blippi, is trying to bring some form of ad measurement to children’s content through a new partnership with iSpot.

In recent years, Vizio has undergone a metamorphosis, transitioning from a hardware company to primarily a connected TV ad platform. Now, its biggest growth opportunities lie in programmatic ad sales and home screen monetization to sell more supply.

Now that alternative TV currencies have passed the initial sniff tests, how should buyers and sellers compare their viewership numbers? The leaders of Nielsen, Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp gathered onstage during the Coalition of Innovative Media Measurement summit in New York City to answer that question.

US TV ad inventory – including streaming – is eroding. Which means streaming platforms are tasked with pulling off the very difficult feat of appeasing viewers while also growing ad revenue enough to placate Wall Street.

Say hello to Blkfam (pronounced “Black fam”), a free ad-supported streaming platform that launched in February with on-demand content curated for Black families. The platform was founded by media vet Larry Adams with equity investment and creative direction from Whoopi Goldberg.

AdExchanger will lift the hood on the hottest topics in CTV live onstage at the inaugural CTV Connect event in New York City on March 13 and March 14.

Streaming services must juggle subscriber growth and ad revenue – an ongoing struggle that produced a mixed bag of Q4 earnings results. But there’s a reason why it seems like Netflix is coming out on top.

NASCAR’s Cup Series kicked off on Monday with the Daytona 500 race, an annual opportunity for paid brand sponsorships and prime time ad spots airing on FOX (or, for cord-cutters, Fubo and Sling TV).

This past weekend’s Super Bowl was different for a few reasons, particularly the presence of Taylor Swift and Chinese ecommerce challenger brand Temu.

To relate with Gen Z, advertisers have to do more than just spend millions on a 30- or 60-second Super Bowl spot. They need to keep up online and social marketing before, during and after the game – and using influencers will help, too.

Prime Video is playing with ads now, making it the latest entrant to the AVOD streaming wars. Consumers and advertisers have mixed feelings about the new ad offering.

JamLoop is a specialized DSP that launched in 2018 with a focus on local CTV advertising. It pitches its in-house ad tech that specializes in pacing smaller campaign budgets as a way to win over independent agencies and smaller, local advertisers.

The ad industry’s lofty ambitions for alternative currencies has come back down to planet Earth. Alt currencies struggle to gain market share because most buyers and sellers still transact on Nielsen numbers, while audience panels are back on the measurement menu.

CES this year was a petri dish of news and gossip (and hopefully not COVID) among the CTV ad industry.

CTV advertising is evolving from prepubescent into a profitable industry, so expect the nascent trends of last year – namely, a focus on measurement and data, transparency, targeting and programmatic – to shape CTV’s next phase of life.

This was such a busy year in CTV land that we had to launch a dedicated newsletter just to keep up with all the trends, from measurement, currency, targeting and attribution to streaming data, identity, supply-path optimization and new ad formats – just to name a few.

2023 was the year live sports entered the streaming arena in full force, creating a new form of fragmentation in the process.

Nexxen announced an integration with out-of-home ad tech platform Taiv to extend its CTV ad campaigns to TV screens in restaurants and sports bars. Guess what’s old is new again when it comes to marketers using TV as a way to reach as many people as possible.

Recent conversations in the connected TV industry make much ado about performance. But what does it really mean for CTV to be a “performance channel”?

Streamers take Black Friday as an opportunity to slash prices and get more customers to sign up for ad-supported viewing.

Estate Media hopes to hook viewers with content featuring influencers in the real estate industry who have a strong online following but lack the scale or resources to produce profitable content on their own.

ClashTV, an online and mobile livestreaming platform, wants to be a home for high-action, clippable sports such as streetball (a type of basketball played outdoors) and mixed martial arts.

TV programmers have been fighting against macroeconomic constraints and the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes, both of which reduced ad revenue growth over the course of this year. Now, programmers are starting to recover some of their losses.

HP is using The Trade Desk’s UID2 product to improve targeting for CTV buys in a way that passes the privacy sniff test.

TV industry vets convened at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in New York City last week to discuss the streaming industry’s maturation.

Subscriber retention is trending on Netflix right now. Ads have become a key aspect of Netflix’s strategy to retain users by offering a lower-cost option – and, so far, the approach seems to be working.

The TV industry still can’t agree on the point of panels. They’re a necessary resource for measurement, but there’s no consensus about how to actually build or use them.

Connected TV advertising is maturing. More subscribers are streaming with ads, inventory is growing and prices are normalizing.

The livestreaming platform Caffeine, which launched as a Twitch competitor, pivoted to zero in on live sports and competitions by partnering up with sports leagues.