NEW YORK—Operative, a provider of software that helps media companies manage and sell ads across TV, streaming and digital platforms, has named Dang Ly as chief product officer.

Ly, the former senior vice president and chief technology officer at Universal Destinations & Experiences, is tasked with leading Operative’s product strategy and road map across a portfolio that includes AOS, Operative.One, Adeline AI and STAQ; deepening its data-unification capabilities; expanding its omnichannel intelligence layer; and accelerating AI integration across its product suite, the company said.

“Media and advertising is evolving rapidly, and the companies that can unify trusted data and turn it into personalized audience experiences will define the next era,” Ly said. “Omnichannel engagement and AI only deliver value when the data underneath is connected, reliable and activated intelligently. Operative sits at exactly that intersection and I’m energized to help our customers turn connected data into measurable, outcome-based growth.”

Ly has spent more than 20 years scaling customer-facing products in media, entertainment, hospitality and retail, and building the data platforms that support them, Operative said. At Universal Destinations & Experiences, the theme-park unit of Comcast NBCUniversal, he oversaw a global enterprise strategy that leveraged data and AI to unify customer, operational and transactional data into workflows, automation and personalized guest experiences, the company said.

Previously, Ly spent nearly a decade leading NBCUniversal’s core ad sales technology and engineering teams.

“Dang brings something rare,” Operative CEO Mike Napodano said. “He has built audience data platforms at scale, and he has used them to deliver products that transform the way customers manage their business. He understands that 360-degree audience understanding isn’t a dashboard or a report, it’s an end-to-end discipline that starts with how you capture data and ends with how you act on it. That perspective is exactly what will shape Operative’s product roadmap as we help our customers grow in an AI-driven world.”

Ly’s appointment sets up Operative’s strategic focus on omnichannel data strategies and advanced analytics, the company said.

NEW YORK—Operative, a provider of advertising management solutions for media has announced a new AOS Services Platform, advancing its intelligent media management solution into foundational services for enterprise media companies. This new platform enables media companies to operate and grow their advertising businesses and power the development and deployment of AI-driven capabilities.

The AOS Services Platform underpins modern media monetization by delivering a foundation of necessary services that supports all channels, integrates effortlessly into broader technology ecosystems, and empowers teams to scale smarter and grow without infrastructure constraints, the company said.

Launched in 2021 as a cloud based sales management system, Operative's AOS is used by notable media organizations such as Fox, NBCUniversal, WBD, Disney/ABC and Sinclair.

Designed for organizations managing multiplatform monetization at scale, the new AOS Services Platform gives media companies the flexibility to standardize their foundational operations in a modular way while building unique capabilities on top and maintaining enterprise control. The new AOS services modules available include:

• Core OMS Services – Shared enterprise services for inventory, product definitions, rate cards, planning, deals, orders, and billing across linear and digital environments
• API-First, Integration-Ready Architecture – All services are exposed via APIs, enabling custom applications, partner integrations, and proprietary decisioning without duplicating core logic
• Intelligence Connected to Execution – A shared AI-enablement layer that includes observation, natural language interaction, agentic orchestration, evaluation frameworks, and workflow automation embedded across monetization workflows
• Built-In Trust Layer – Enterprise-grade security, governance, privacy, and compliance across native workflows, APIs, and intelligent automation

“Media businesses have reached an era where they need to be everywhere for audiences and advertisers. As they navigate an environment defined by multi-channel, audience-first monetization, adaptability and scale are essential,” said Michael Napodano, CEO of Operative. “The new AOS Services Platform provides a standardized foundation of services for linear and streaming revenue, with intelligence and flexibility built in so media companies can move faster, innovate with confidence, and differentiate where it matters most.”

Since the beginning of commercial television, advertising has been a key part of broadcasting. Over the years, the technology for inserting ads into programs has developed to the point where there is now a whole technological subsection dedicated to it. Ad tech encompasses not only scheduling and playing commercials but also directing them to their correct destinations on the wide variety of platforms and devices now in use, increasingly with a high degree of personalization.

The growth of the streaming sector and the corresponding increase in the adoption of connected televisions (CTVs) have added to the reach and complexity of ad tech. Among trends identified by Allan Nicholson, senior director of advertising solutions and strategy at Harmonic, is the move by some broadcasters to enable programmatic buy-in—also known as programmatic advertising, using automated, data-driven techniques for buying and selling ad slots—on linear broadcast platforms.

“Some of them are also the broadcasters that are making the transition to become more streaming-focused and they’re adopting streaming ad tech for personalization,“ he said. “The other trend we're seeing is broadcasters enabling service providers to start monetizing services using DAI [dynamic ad insertion]. The way to think of this is as a linear to programmatic [application] for monetization, as opposed to the programmatic to linear trend, which enables linear broadcast.”

More Engagement, Less ‘Ad Fatigue’
In the streaming market, and particularly for live sports, Nicholson said operators are personalizing new ad formats, such as L-shaped double boxes (a form of nonlinear addressable TV advertising), squeeze backs (where the program is minimized to give prominence to the ad) and overlays (nonlinear ad banners, tickers and scrolling text alongside the main program).

“And they're all opting to do this server-side,“ he said. “These new ad formats are really all about increasing ad loads while maintaining new engagement and avoiding ad fatigue.”

The coming together of linear and streamed (digital) platforms—at least in the minds of viewers—is also highlighted by Dan Walsh, senior vice president of product management at Imagine Communications.

“Broadcasters and streaming providers are under growing pressure to bridge the gap between linear and digital operations,“ he said. “Audiences don't distinguish between platforms; they simply expect access to content wherever and however they choose to watch. But many broadcasters are still managing these environments separately, which creates inefficiencies and limits their ability to fully monetize inventory.

“To address these issues, the industry is shifting toward a unified advertising approach, often referred to as ‘Total TV,’ which focuses less on delivery mechanisms and more on audience value,” Walsh added.

This, he explained, is being driven by automation across ad sales, trafficking and optimization: “That reduces costs, improves yield and frees teams from the manual processes that have long defined traditional ad sales.”

With streamers now delivering linear programming as well as their core services, David Dembowski, chief revenue officer at Operative, said everything is now about a viewing experience, including the ads.

“The reason why streamers chose to use a digital platform is primarily because of impression-based sales or, put another way, addressable offerings,” Dembrowski said. “We have a client that was adamant about break-based ad sales, but recently has gone to impression-based sales. There are a lot of reasons for this, but it is mostly because of targeting and measurement.”

‘Unprecedented Opportunities’
Through the introduction of impression-based sales on what Dembowski describes as “the big screen” approach, TV has become a “full funnel advertising platform.” This, he says, goes from a broad approach—high-profile, big automobile or movie launches—to something based more on buying behavior.

“And it shows what's so exciting about CTV,” he added. “Take the example of Amazon [Prime Video], which was an SVOD streamer, always on-demand, up until about three years ago. Then they signed the relationship with [NFL] “Thursday Night Football.” What they've been able to do is expand the TAM [total addressable marketplace] of advertisers that had never even considered buying the NFL on prior platforms. It's created an unprecedented opportunity for new advertisers to get exposure to an audience that was out of reach for years.“

Paul Davies, head of marketing at DAI technology specialist Yospace, said the company prefers the term “addressability” to personalization.

“The reason is that personalization makes you think of an ad targeted at an individual,” he explained. “What we see is that the true value of CTV/OTT advertising is in measurement. We are able to deliver real-time viewing metrics on a one-to-one addressable level, which means that advertisers going to broadcasters to use their CTV inventory are able to get similar types of metrics to those they’re able to get in other digital channels, such as social media.”

Impact of AI
As with other areas of broadcasting, artificial intelligence is top of mind. Davies said he is hearing “lots of discussion” about it, including the potential for Generative AI to create “truly personalized ad creatives” for each viewer.

“I would say there are legal and technical hurdles to that, which would mean perhaps broadcasters aren't jumping on them as opportunities straightaway,” he observed. “One of the reasons why TV advertising is so popular is because of the premium quality and delivery and the fact that it's considered brand-safe.’

Dan Walsh at Imagine said the use of AI in ad tech is “in its early stages” but is being used to identify and enhance factors that produce good results. “By combining optimization tools with AI capabilities, broadcasters can further refine audience targeting and campaign performance,” he said.

Operative's David Dembowski said AI gives “the chance to accelerate the knowledge, workflows and outcomes” being used. “The application of AI to on-board data has cut times by more than half,” he observed. “It's created efficiencies that are so critical in today's world.”

For instance, Harmonic’s Nicholson said his company uses its "homegrown AI technologies" to help advertisers target audiences based on contextual information contained in frames of video prior to ad breaks. “This means you don't have to use personal identity information and can avoid regulatory issues,” he said.

The relationship between TV and streaming advertising may still not be a totally warm one, but ad tech is at least making it possible for broadcasters to show audiences commercials they might actually want to see or are interested in. Or at least are not driven mad by.

NEW YORK—Advertising technology company Operative Media has named Mike Napadano as its new CEO.

The company described Nadpadano’s promotion as an important milestone in its next growth phase. Former chief technology officer at Disney ABC Television Group, Napadano has been with Operative since 2019, most recently as its chief customer officer.

“This is an exciting moment for Operative,” Napadano said. “We’ve built a remarkable foundation of world-class products, deep customer partnerships, and a trusted position with the biggest brands in media. As the industry continues to evolve, our focus is on scaling that foundation with the technology and intelligence that help our clients operate smarter, grow faster and unlock new value across every screen.”

An industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience, Napadano was Disney ABC Television Group CTO from 2017 to 2019, leading enterprise initiatives spanning advertising technology and distribution, Operative said. Prior to that, he was senior vice president and chief information officer for sales, research and analytics at NBCUniversal, where he helped modernize data and technology operations, according to Operative.

Since joining Operative in 2019, the company said, Napodano has played a key role in scaling its cloud solutions, driving delivery excellence and strengthening its partnerships with global media companies.

“The pace of change in media has never been faster, and Operative is uniquely positioned at the center of that transformation,” said Napodano. “Our vision is to be the connective platform that unites technology, data and operations across the ecosystem. We’re enabling media companies to innovate with agility, optimize performance and realize the full value of their audiences and content. I’m energized by what’s ahead as we continue to grow and innovate alongside our customers.”

Operative said it is the preferred advertising management solutions provider for more than 300 top media brands across 18 countries, including Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Disney/ABC, Australia’s Seven Networks and Sky. Since 2000, it has grown to process more than $60 billion in ad revenue, the company said.

NEW YORK—Imagine Communications and Operative announced today they have entered into a solutions partnership agreement that will offer media companies a solution that unifies and automates TV media sales and execution.

The agreement combines key pieces of Imagine’s portfolio, OSI, XG Linear, GamePlan and the newly announced SureFire with Operative’s AOS and OnAir platforms.

Combining the strengths of both companies will enable media companies to optimally plan, sell, and execute advertising in an audience-centric manner across all digital and linear properties from a unified, cloud-native platform, the two companies reported. 

The companies also stressed that the partnership will help pave the way for alternative measurement and buying currencies similar to digital, with such companies as Sinclair becoming customers of the combined offering.

“We are excited to see solution vendors in the advertising technology arena partner together in a collaborative fashion,” said Del Parks, president of technology of Sinclair Broadcast Group.  “The industry needs more open, standards-based platforms to allow broadcasters to innovate and evolve as audiences fragment and new technologies offer more opportunities for advertisers. Imagine and Operative are trusted partners and we fully support their collaboration.”

This partnership between ad tech companies is designed to help media companies consolidate assets across their portfolios, reduce manual work and deliver on cost-savings initiatives while improving responsiveness to media buyers’ needs.  

Specific capabilities include bidirectional order data flows, ongoing synchronization of orders and campaign performance, and real-time inventory management, the companies said. 

"Customers require flexibility and extensibility when it comes to technology and data in media today,” said Lorne Brown, CEO of Operative. “The companies who are willing to partner and collaborate will provide the most value to their customers. Operative has always had an ‘open’ philosophy and our flagship product AOS was designed to accelerate data sharing across the entire ad workflow. Imagine shares our strategic vision of platform interoperability.”

“We are getting loud and clear messages from customers, ‘don’t lock me into an inflexible architecture’,” said Tom Cotney, CEO of Imagine Communications. ”Our partnership with Operative enables our clients to streamline their operations across multiple media forms and to address the increasing desire to be able to sell on an audience basis.”

AOS is Operative's next generation ad operating system; through AOS Operative can integrate a wide variety of first and third party applications, systems and data sets while unifying and automating the associated workflows and execution. Major media companies such as Sinclair use Operative to power their linear, digital and converged ad tech stacks.  

Through this partnership, AOS will enable a buyer to target audiences across a multitude of impression-based currencies and process the order across all platforms while leveraging Imagine’s next-generation order execution and inventory management solutions, GamePlan and SureFire.

Imagine’s GamePlan is an audience-aware ad-decision and optimization engine for linear television.  Imagine’s recently launched SureFire is a video ad server providing linear-like control and brand protection for direct selling of OTT inventory. Imagine’s unified monetization solutions increase yield,  improve the quality of advertising,  and decrease costs, Imagine said. 

Imagine will ingest orders from AOS and optimize the respective ad decisions at the edge, with GamePlan and SureFire, to guarantee reach and frequency to a particular audience across both digital and linear viewers while maximizing the yield across all inventory. Ad execution data is sent back into AOS, where powerful dashboards provide advertisers with real-time campaign fulfilment and forecasting reports, the companies said. 

NEW YORK—Sinclair Broadcast Group has entered into a multi-year enterprise partnership with Operative Media to change how local and national media are transacted across digital and linear platforms, transitioning its inventory to a common impression-based currency, Sinclair announced.

The partnership enables Sinclair to consolidate all its sellable assets across platforms and markets into a single ad sales system, thereby creating a unified brand experience for customers and sellers, it said.

Sinclair will use Operative Media AOS, the company’s next generation ad sales management technology platform.

The impression-based model directly addresses the viewership fragmentation that’s made it difficult and time consuming for marketers to identify audiences at scale as well as buy and execute against them, Sinclair said.

“We already provide a unique opportunity for marketers to engage consumers of all kinds, and Operative’s technology will further consolidate and simplify our sales process,” said Rob Weisbord, president of Broadcast and chief advertising revenue officer of Sinclair.

“It will bring this concept to our markets in a way that is easily managed by our various sellers and the portfolios of inventory they represent. It will provide them flexibility to dynamically manage audience and spend allocations across Sinclair’s broad asset catalog,” he said.

The AOS platform automates workflows involving planning, order management, inventory management and stewardship and billing, which Sinclair expects to drive efficiency internally across its portfolio and externally with customers. The platform supports Sinclair’s Compulse 360 and ZypTV products and will provide the foundation for the broadcaster to integrate with other partners and technology companies, it said.

The partnership provides automated integrations with key buying systems that will shorten the time it takes to develop plans and deliver reports and invoices to customers. It will reduce discrepancies between buyers and sellers by passing all data electronically between the buy and sell systems. Yield tools will help deliver improved outcomes for both Sinclair and its customers by optimizing inventory use, delivery and make goods, it said.

“This is an opportunity to align our proven track record in the broadcast industry with Operative’s technological expertise to create a simple solution that we believe will change the way advertisers connect with consumers across all devices,” said Brian Bark, CIO of Sinclair. 

“This new platform will empower advertisers with the ability to optimize campaigns across Sinclair’s distinguished portfolio of content, while altering the way the industry does business—paving the way for other media companies in the process.”

More information is available on the Operative Media and Sinclair websites. 

NEW YORK—Francisco Partners portfolio company SintecMedia has announced that it has acquired digital advertising business management provider Operative Media, Inc. The two companies will now combine to offer TV and digital ad management for media companies and publishers globally.

Operative founder Lorne Brown will serve as the president of the newly combined companies and remain part of the strategic leadership team within SintecMedia. Other Operative management team members will be investors in the combined business.

SintecMedia is a television advertising management technology company.