DirecTV expanded its stake in addressable TV ad platform Invidi on Wednesday. It’s now the majority owner.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
This acquisition didn’t come out of the blue. DirecTV has had partial ownership of Invidi alongside Dish and WPP since 2020.
Invidi will remain jointly owned by DirectV, Dish and WPP and operate as an independent company.
But now DirecTV will have more control over Invidi’s data and technology, which it can use to monetize its own inventory and compete for ad dollars against other TV providers.
DirecTV’s data play
Invidi’s tech stack includes tools designed to help programmers and distributors deliver and optimize ads across traditional, addressable and streaming TV.
From a media-buying perspective, TV media is far from converged, although there has certainly been progress. Many ad tech companies and media owners are bringing streaming and linear TV data closer together so as to deduplicate audiences, better manage reach and frequency and limit media waste.
As a satellite TV service, DirecTV has heaps of first-party subscriber data, including demographic information, home address and TV viewing patterns. Paired with Invidi’s tech stack, DirecTV can improve the value of ad inventory monetization across programmers that distribute content on DirecTV.
The allure of monetizing data is why broadband companies spent years – and a heck of a lot of money – acquiring ad tech assets. The trend has since largely fizzled out. Most telcos, with the exception T-Mobile, which acquired out-of-home SSP Vistar Media earlier this week, have since offloaded their ad tech.
But the same doesn’t seem to be true for TV distribution services.
“DirecTV is a strong advocate for addressable advertising,” Invidi Co-CEO Bruce Anderson said in a statement. “With their increased involvement, we expect to be able to further grow our business in the US.”
DirecTV’s majority stake in Invidi marks the third ad tech acquisition in as many days.
Also on Wednesday, The Trade Desk acquired (acqui-hired?) ad metadata startup Sincera, and T-Mobile announced its acquisition of Vistar on Monday.
