This week “The Big Story” is all about coming together.
First up, our editor Alison Weissbrot outlines how the Comcast-Cox-Charter sales consortium NCC Media and AT&T-owned Xandr are each in their own way trying to aggregate more addressable TV inventory.
You’ll recall that multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) are granted two minutes of inventory to sell per hour of programming. Both NCC and Xandr want access to more of that inventory so they can offer addressability at scale.
But what happens after that?
Well, beyond those two minutes, there’s an additional 14 minutes of inventory they’d also love to have.
Tune in to learn who’s selling what, and how NCC and Xandr are making their plays to get more.
Also, as first-party auctions dominate the digital ad ecosystem, Google has introduced a series of product changes under the heading of “Unified Pricing” – but they’re sowing more discord that unity.
Publishers, who were collectively taken aback by Google’s sudden policy modifications, are voicing some serious concern. Sarah Sluis describes the uncomfortable scene at a meeting last week between Google and top-tier publishers to discuss – argue about? – the changes.
Are publishers simply throwing a fit because they don’t like change – or do Google’s new rules have the potential to fundamentally disrupt their business? Is this, in the words of Alison Weissbrot, the Facebook algorithm change all over again?
