NEW YORK—Magnite, the largest independent sell-side advertising company, today launched the next generation of its SpringServe video platform, a CTV/OTT solution combining its SpringServe ad server with the advanced programmatic capabilities of the Magnite Streaming SSP. Initial clients include Disney Advertising, LG Ad Solutions, Paramount, Roku, Samsung, and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Developed for the needs of the world’s most advanced streaming clients, the unified platform streamlines buyers’ connection to 99% of US streaming supply, a dollar-weighted figure verified by Jounce Media in their March 2025 Supply Path Benchmarking Report. For media owners, the platform will unlock powerful tools for streamlined workflows and smarter yield optimization.

“As the CTV space matures, there's a significant opportunity to enhance the advertising process for media owners and buyers,” said Sean Buckley, President, Revenue at Magnite. “We’re building this next generation of SpringServe specifically to help our clients and partners stay ahead of these emerging opportunities. By unifying the programmatic layer as a complementary step in the buying process, not only does it give buyers greater transparency, predictability, and control over their ad placements, but it lays the foundation for more effective monetization and yield management for media owners.”

“Disney continues to expand our global streaming footprint in collaboration with Magnite—unlocking more premium inventory and making it even easier for advertisers to access our portfolio at scale,” said Jamie Power, SVP, Addressable Sales at Disney. “Together, we’re advancing a shared vision for innovation—one that prioritizes automation, flexibility, and smarter tools to help our partners drive meaningful impact in the live streaming space.”

“Controlling demand sources and optimizing ad placements in real time is essential to our strategy,” said Kelly McMahon, SVP of Operations at LG Ad Solutions. “SpringServe gives us the power to orchestrate everything in one platform—balancing programmatic demand and direct deals more effectively, without compromising the viewer experience.”

“Working with valuable partners like Magnite has enabled Paramount to further optimize our programmatic demand sources, driving greater efficiency and performance while preserving a seamless viewing experience for our audiences,” said Christopher Owen, SVP, Partnerships at Paramount. “Continued advancements in programmatic play a meaningful role in our ongoing success both as a company and as part of the broader industry.”

“Together with Magnite, we can create more opportunities for advertisers that offer platform transparency and flexibility across monetization, demand access, and user experience optimization,” said Jay Askinasi, SVP of Global Media Revenue and Growth at Roku. “SpringServe connects us more directly with DSPs, streamlining operations and augmenting revenue potential. This is an approach we believe will help attract greater advertising investment into the CTV ecosystem.”

“Our long-standing partnership with Magnite has been instrumental in shaping our video monetization strategy, and we're excited to partner with Magnite as they advance the SpringServe video platform,” said Jill Steinhauser, SVP Revenue Strategy and Operations, Warner Bros. Discovery. “We're particularly looking forward to benefiting from the performance enhancements that enable faster ad loads and real-time pacing.”

“Magnite helps fuel the premium, open internet,” said Will Doherty, SVP of Inventory Development, The Trade Desk. “Combined with tools like OpenPath, the next generation of SpringServe is accretive to advertisers and publishers and most importantly – so consumers can continue to enjoy the content we all love like CTV, journalism and more.”

“Magnite’s unified SpringServe platform offers significant clarity and cohesion in the streaming TV marketplace,” said Susan Schiekofer, Chief Media Officer, GroupM US. “By providing deeper insight into the supply path and stronger alignment with premium inventory at scale, it empowers us to make smarter, faster buying decisions and ultimately deliver better outcomes for our clients.”

“At OMG, we believe it's a core right for advertisers to control and know where their ads deliver," said Ryan Eusanio, SVP of Video and Programmatic at Omnicom Media Group. "Magnite's SpringServe video platform helps us give our clients more control of their premium video strategy and enables better curation and targeting for campaigns."

The SpringServe video platform provides CTV and OTT publishers with improved functionality including:

• Intelligent ad decisioning and dynamic mediation;
• Automated ad routing that dynamically directs ad traffic to the highest-performing channels to ensure efficient ad delivery;
• Centralized deal management to facilitate better visibility across direct and programmatic demand, including ClearLine deals;
• Integration of Magnite Access for easy access to first- and third-party data, and
• A streamlined user interface and reporting for ad operations.

For more information about the new SpringServe video platform, visit magnite.com.

BELLEVUE, Wash.—As part of an agreement with Google to better measure the incremental reach of ad campaigns on YouTube and YouTube TV, iSpot has announced that it has completed a critical phase of its integration with Google’s Ads Data Hub for Measurement Partners. 

During the integration, iSpot worked with 11 advertisers across dozens of campaigns in a pilot program that allowed iSpot and YouTube’s customers to quantify the unique reach and value YouTube properties deliver in the context of their overall media investments.

Starting July 5th, iSpot customers will have the ability to enable the new cross-platform features directly within the iSpot Unified Measurement platform. The enhancements will give customers the ability to evaluate the total ad impressions and deduplicated audience for YouTube and YouTube TV across connected TV and linear TV, including co-viewing, as well as ad exposures on computer and mobile devices, iSpot reported. 

The integration builds on Google’s October 2022 announcement naming iSpot as a partner for its Ads Data Hub for Measurement Partners. That announcement also unveiled plans for future integration into iSpot’s Unified Measurement platform, which brings together second-by-second advertising measurement, ad-level reach, frequency and the ability to show incrementality for ad campaigns across 900 streaming publishers and TV. 

“YouTube and YouTube TV are a significant part of the ad-supported landscape and provide advertisers substantial audience reach, ranging from people who are unreachable on linear TV to those with much overlap with other platforms and publishers,” said iSpot CEO Sean Muller. “Unified Measurement integration will give brands the power to know the difference and invest with confidence across the TV and streaming landscape.”

iSpot also reported that it will continue to develop more granular audience demographic breakdowns for YouTube and YouTube TV viewership for linear TV, connected TV, computer and mobile ahead the next cycle of upfront discussions.

LONDON—Free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels are set to produce revenues of $6.3 billion in 2023, with about 80% of that figure coming from the U.S., according to new research from Omdia. 

While the U.S. currently dominates the market, Omdia found that the U.K., Canada, and Australia are major growth contenders with rapid expansion expected over the next four years.

The study also found that the U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, France, Spain, and Sweden are the top ten non-US markets poised for growth. While the US will continue to dominate the market, a $1.6 billion revenue opportunity will emerge for FAST channels outside of the US by 2027.

"Although three of the five-largest FAST markets are English-speaking nations, Canada, Germany, and Brazil, in third, fourth and fifth place, respectively, will offer mainstream FAST opportunities for non-English content,” according to Maria Rua Aguete senior director at Omdia.

Earlier this year, Omdia reported that FAST revenue grew almost 20 times between 2019 and 2022, and is set to triple between 2022 and 2027 to reach $12 billion. Much of this growth will be driven by the U.S., which currently accounts for almost 90% of the global FAST channel market value. By 2027, the U.S. FAST channel market will exceed $10 billion in revenue.

The U.K. and Canada, which enjoy a significant overspill of content from the U.S., will have FAST markets worth over $500 million and $300 million, respectively, by 2027. 

Meanwhile, Omdia forecasts that FAST channels in Germany will generate just over $200 million in 2027, when those in Brazil will hit revenues of $100 million – representing around half of the total Latin American FAST market, which will be worth $207 million in 2027. FAST revenue in Mexico will be $93 million in 2027, making it the seventh-largest individual FAST market.

"$12 billion in revenues for FAST channels is impressive, but when viewed in the wider context of online video, social video remains the growth story for the next five years. FAST channels are another window to monetize content but not the only one," concludes Rua Aguete.

NEW YORK—In a notable sign that the media business and the overall economy is quickly recovering from last-year’s pandemic-induced recession, the Business Intelligence unit of GroupM has revised its estimates for 2021 advertising upwards.

“We now expect a 22% growth in media ad revenue during 2021, a marked improvement from our prior forecast,” the company noted in its mid-year advertising report.   

Much of the growth will be captured by digital, which is expected to see a 33% bounce in 2021. But television advertising, excluding political advertising, will see healthy growth. 

“For 2021, we expect National TV—including connected TV advertising and linear forms of the medium—to grow by 8.7%, a full recovery from 2020’s 6.9% decline,” the company noted. “Looking beyond 2021, we expect flat trends, with incremental shifts out of television by large traditional brands offset by incremental spending by newer ones.”

Excluding political spending, the revised forecast predicts that total TV advertising will hit $63.1 billion in 2021, up 10.5% and that local TV ad spend will hit $19.8 billion, up 14.8%, while the national TV ad spend will hit $43.4 billion, a 8.7% bounce in 2021.

If political advertising is included, the total TV ad spend will be relatively flat in 2021 and local TV will be down 14.3% from 2020 levels. 

Much of the growth in core TV advertising excluding political reflects a recovery from a slump in TV advertising during the pandemic in 2020, when the TV ad spend without political advertising revenue dropped 10.4%. 

Nor is the rebound likely to reverse long-term declines in the sector. In 2022, GroupM expects total TV ad revenues, excluding political ad dollars, will drop by 2.3% and local TV to fall by 7.5%. 

In contrast, digital advertising will jump 33.9% in 2021 to $156.6 billion, excluding political. GroupM expects pure play internet ad revenues excluding political will increase another 18.6% in 2022. 

“In general, the large brands that dominate spending on the medium continue to rely heavily on television to support their brand-building efforts,” the report noted. “However, as viewing of ad-supported TV continues to decline, with growth in advertising inventory on streaming services not sufficient to offset this trend, pricing inevitably goes higher. With costs rising and reach diminishing, television inevitably loses some of its appeal.” 

One bright spot is connected TV advertising, which GroupM expects to hit about $18 billion in 2026 when it will account for over one third of all TV advertising. 

SAN JOSE, Calif. & NEW YORK—Roku and Nielsen are partnering up to boost addressable advertising and cross-media measurement as a result of Roku’s purchase of Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising (AVA) business.

The AVA business consists of Nielsen’s video automatic content recognition (ACR) and dynamic ad insertion (DAI) technologies. Roku says that the acquisition will accelerate its planned launch of an end-to-end DAI solution with linear TV programmers, a process that it already has on its streaming platform.

“Combining Nielsen’s AVA technology with Roku’s innovative ad tech and scale will enable us to deliver the benefits of TV streaming advertising to traditional TV,” said Louqman Parampth, vice president of Product Management at Roku. “Roku will bring the promise of DAI to the market for the first time ever at scale—providing better targeting and measurement for advertisers, creating easy integration and additional revenue opportunities for programmers’ ad sales teams, and improving the TV experience for viewers.”

Nielsen has already tested its own DAI system with the likes of AMC Networks, CBS, Discovery, NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia, according to TV Tech’s sister publication Next|TV.

As part of the deal, Roku and Nielsen will enter into a long-term commercial agreement to leverage Total Ad Ratings (TAR) on the Roku platform. This includes Roku’s OneView ad-buying platform, which will natively integrate with Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings for advertisers. Roku will also enable publishers to implement Nielsen Digital Content Ratings. In addition, Roku will help further advance Nielsen One, Nielsen’s cross-media measurement scheme.

“The measurement of ads and content on Roku devices will accelerate the path to a single, deduplicated cross-media currency,” Scott N. Brown, general manager, Audience Measurement, Nielsen. “As Roku brings the power of dynamic ad insertion to all forms of TV, we’re excited to help monetize the addressable market by measuring smart TV as a currency, which Nielsen can do at scale.”

No financial details of the deal were disclosed. Roku said in its announcement that it expects the deal to close in the second quarter of 2021.

At the closing of the deal, Roku will take on Nielsen AVA employees and ownership of ACR and DAI patents.

Gray Television’s total non-political (core) ad revenue last month was about $82 million; during the same month, political ads generated $175 in advertising, said Pat LaPlatney, president & co-CEO of Gray Television Inc. Overall, at Gray TV stations in 95 markets—even through a longer-than-ever political process which began in early 2019—53% of total political revenue came between Oct. 1 and Nov. 3 (Election Day), LaPlatney explained during the monthly webcast of the Media Institute, a Washington think tank, on Monday (Nov. 23).

His summary confirmed earlier reports on the extraordinary reliance on broadcast political advertising this year, even with the impact of early voting in many states.

“Gray Television has never seen spending start earlier than we did for the 2020 cycle,” he added, citing ad buys in Maine for Senator Susan Collins’ reelection effort “a full year before the general election.” He also pointed to the first order (“albeit a small one”) from Democratic primary hopeful Tom Steyer in February 2019.

In remarks that large shared research data from Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), which monitors political advertising, LaPlatney summarized the trends of the political arena.

He also confirmed that “sports events were a heavy focus, with many [political] advertisers triple spotting during college and NFL football games.”  He noted that many campaign advertisers ran two spots within a half-hour local newscast and many waived the separation requirements to keep their commercials from being run adjacent to rivals’ political messages.

He pointed out that “the Bloomberg Effect” shattered records and created “unprecedented spending levels” during a six- or seven-week period, reaching levels that most political advertisers barely hit during the entire cycle.

From this year’s experience, LaPlatney said he believes broadcast TV will continue to play a major role in campaign advertising—even with the growing presence of digital platforms.  He also cited the continuing TV commercials in the pending Georgia races for U.S. Senate seats. 

“Campaigns turned much more to broadcast television,” he said.  ““You’ll see the pie continue to grow. Digital will grow; the broadcast share will be similar to where it ended up this cycle—at about 50%” in the next presidential election year.

“These records will be broken in 2024,” he predicted, but he admitted, “It's hard for me to put that into context.”   

In response to questions about the role of NextGen TV (also known as ATSC 3.0), LaPlatney said he expects it to have “a significant effect,” citing the IP-based format for its ability to provide better targeting and click-to-donate options.

“There will be markets where ATSC 3.0 will matter,” he said—and it will increase during the next four year.

LaPlatney said that Gray TV is “fully committed” to the 3.0 rollout, but because many of its stations are in smaller markets, it may be a while before the service debuts throughout its footprint. He said that its stations in Charlotte, N.C., and Cleveland will launch NextGen TV transmissions in 2021 and he’s looking forward to “the competitive advantages we never had before.”

FRISCO, Texas—MediaKind has reworked its PRISMA advertising and content distribution rights portfolio, announcing a new modular set of products that include PRISMA Core and PRISMA Edge. The Core and Edge platforms provide specialized content distribution rights definition and enforcement, as well as targeted advertising capabilities.

The advertising portfolio is designed to enable new monetization opportunities and protect content. PRISMA can be deployed in the cloud, as an appliance or as components integrated into the Aquila portfolio.

PRISMA Core is tapped to connect content providers and service providers by delivering advanced scheduling control and enabling rules enforcement for traditional broadcast and OTT-based delivery. It works with SCTE-224, SCTE-35 and CableLabs ESAM. It can be used for blackout and alternate content enforcement across broadcast and IP networks; placement management via SCTE-35  insertion/rewrite and manifest conditioning; linear ad replacement; and EAS compatible SCTE-18.

PRISMA Edge enables the activation of premium TV inventory and is meant to enrich it with qualified audiences across live and nonlinear workflows and in major streaming protocols. It protects from audience data leakage and ensures compliance with privacy protection regulations. It also provides a way to manage audience-based targeting use cases; supports SCTE-224 policy ingest through PRISMA Core; and implements placement routing capabilities.

For more information, visit www.mediakind.com.  

NEW YORK—TVSquared has reached an agreement with NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations—which includes 42 NBC and Telemundo owned stations and nine NBC Sports Regional Sports Networks—to provide TVSquared’s TV attribution system for use by local advertisers.

The TVSquared offering is an analytics platform that provides advertisers with same-day views into how linear and digital TV campaigns are directly impacting business outcomes, things like website traffic, app engagement, search, SMS/phone activity and actual sales.

Specifically, the NBC-owned stations and RSN local advertisers will be able to evaluate the performance of both linear and OTT advertising; measure how ad campaigns directly impact multiple business-specific KPIs; optimize buys to reach audience segments that both respond and convert to improve ROI; maximize local TV’s reach by scaling across 30 markets; and understand TV performance at granular levels.

The TVSquared service is now available in every market covered by the NBC-owned stations and RSNs.

SAN JOSE, Calif.—TiVo is introducing some new capabilities to its TV Viewership Data product, announcing the optional integration of data from Kantar and Drawbridge. These new offerings are meant to provide additional insights to demographics, consumer preferences and behaviors.

The addition of Kantar ad data provides both programming viewership data as well as advertising viewership for millions of U.S. households. With the Drawbridge Identity Graph, customers can link viewership data with associated mobile ad identifiers so to extend the reach and measurement of advertisements and marketing across pay-TV, OTT and digital platforms.

“There’s no reason why TV can’t be as targetable and measurable as other platforms, and give marketers the ability to reach and report on viewership, engagement and conversion across the entire cross-channel consumer journey,” said John DeGennaro, vice president of enterprise partnerships with Drawbridge.

These new attributes are available immediately with the TV Viewership Data product.

Netflix recently released "Black Mirror: Bandersnatch," a hit drama praised for its innovative experience that allows users to shape the narrative and select how the story unfolds. The viewer watches as the main character encounters new scenarios and the viewer gets to decide what actions the character takes, which leads to different possible video sequences playing.

Based on its success, Netflix has already green-lighted more interactive videos.

This newfound level of consumer engagement can inspire the next generation of video ad formats and experiences, now made possible by combining identity with advanced television.

Imagine choosing your own adventure with a brand for a far more engaging video ad experience. Evolving from the “Which ad experience do you prefer?” ad format Hulu popularized, where users can select which video to play from a brand, this possible video ad format could prompt the viewer to decide what the characters in the video ad are to do and lead to new video options in future video ad pods.

How It Would Work
In the Netflix experience, a user is logged into their Netflix account and sits from the start of the adventure until the end without interruption. If the user doesn’t choose an action when prompted, a timer running ends and randomly selects for the user.

However, ads running in between parts of content and between distinct plays of content have a different, more challenging environment to operate. They have to consider questions like “is this the same user?” and “what action did the user take before?”

Today’s marketer and video platforms benefit from having cross-device identity graphs. By utilizing a persistent ID, the ad can keep track of if it’s the same user or household between ad plays and across devices. Without identity, this idea would never work, as you’ll often be stuck playing only the first part of the adventure as the interactive ad forgets choices and where the user is in the journey.

Now knowing who the viewer is, the video ad can play a few seconds of video at each pod and then prompt the viewer to make a decision or auto-decide after too much time elapses. Having options does, of course, mean the advertiser will now need to shoot many more video clips to cover all the possibilities, but if this sounds far-fetched and too futuristic, remember, Burger King pioneered this video production approach already for its Subservient Chicken video ad campaign in 2012.

An Example
Imagine a bank running an interactive video ad campaign. During a commercial break, the ad shows a character going up to pay for a retail purchase and the viewer is asked to choose between paying in cash or using the bank’s credit card. If the viewer chooses credit card, it plays a video of the character paying via credit card, which may highlight how many rewards points the character would get using the card and how easy it is to pay with the new contactless credit card.

If the viewer chooses cash, it plays a video that shows the character not having enough money and needing to now go to an ATM. In the next ad episode, it could then have the viewer choose between a sketchy ATM inside the store and the bank’s branch location, which is around the corner. If they choose the sketchy ATM, the character can withdraw cash while the commercial highlights the bank’s fraud protection or no ATM fees. If they choose the branch, it can highlight new services at the branch or other benefits for the character.

This example is just the start of what is sure to be a creative revolution for video advertising now that we have advanced TV and identity. Netflix has started a revolution for digital media and may have just kicked off one for digital advertising, too.

Victor Wong is CEO ofThunder Experience Cloud, a San Francisco-based ad technology firm.