MIAMI—Univision has announced that it is joining Project OAR, which is made up of U.S. media companies and focused on establishing a common technology for dynamic, addressable TV advertising.

Project OAR tests measurement and technical specifications of the OAR (Open Addressable Ready) standard for management and delivery of addressable ads. In the second half of 2020, it launched market trials for linear and on-demand formats on smart TVs.

Univision has been tapped to serve on Project OAR’s Steering Committee, which works to create a standard by which all parties in the TV ecosystem can collaborate and unite on addressable advertising. Other Steering Committee members include AMC Networks, Comcast NBCUniversal, Disney, Discovery, Comcast’s FreeWheel, Fox, Hearst Television, E.W. Scripps, WarnerMedia, ViacomCBS, Xandar and Vizio.

“As we continue to evolve the company under new leadership, Univision is proud to join Project OAR and to work with such preeminent media companies to meet the needs of brand partners in a changing media landscape,” says Donna Speciale, president of Advertising Sales and Marketing for Univision. “Together as an industry, we are helping to advance addressable TV advertising, deliver relevant experiences for all consumer audiences and present new advertising opportunities for marketers.”

As part of Project OAR, Univision can provide new ad products across its Spanish-language TV portfolio, which includes its traditional broadcast networks, cable networks and like soon its planned streaming service, PrendeTV.

SAN DIEGO—Standards-based watermarking specialist Verance Corp. will add support for Project Open Addressable Ready (Project OAR) to its Aspect watermarking platform, the company said today.

A multi-industry consortium has undertaken Project OAR to establish standards that enable better advertising experiences for viewers via dynamic advertising on internet connected TVs and devices, the company said.

At the moment, Project OAR specifications have not been made public. However, it is expected that watermarking technologies will play a role in the accurate delivery and decisioning of addressable TV ads.

“Project OAR has made remarkable strides in bringing the industry groups together and readying a solution for today’s environment,” said Verance CEO Nil Shah. “Addressable advertising is poised to transform the television industry, and watermarking will accelerate its benefits.”

Supporting the project extends Verance Aspect’s existing support for ATSC watermarking, the company said. That watermarking makes it possible to deliver hybrid broadcast-broadband features via ATSC 1.0 and 3.0.

The Verance technology makes it possible to activate dynamic ad insertion at scale. It offers seamless precision to enable announcement, discovery, insertion and synchronization of ads for live and time-shifted viewing as well as frame-accurate ad synchronization and the ability to reach 100% of connected TVs and devices via all distribution paths.

Verance is working with broadcast equipment vendors to include Project OAR watermark embedding capabilities in their products by the end of the year.

More information is available on the Verance website.

For a comprehensive source of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see ourATSC3 silo.

NEW YORK—Project OAR has announced that it is adding a new member to its consortium for addressable TV advertising in the form of the Fox Corporation. As a new member, Fox will serve on the primary Steering Committee that is tasked with creating a standard by which all parties in the TV ecosystem can collaborate and unite on addressable advertising.

“We believe that this consortium, which benefits from both sell-side and buy-side support, will help drive adoption across the industry and enable us to execute at scale,” said Dan Callahan, vice president, audience and automated sales at Fox.

In the Steering Committee, Fox joins Disney Media Networks, Warner Media, Xandr, Comcast’s FreeWheel and NBCUniversal, Hearts Television, AMC Networks, Vizio and Inscape.

Project OAR also made the announcement of the new Agency Advisory Committee that aims to provide guidance and buy-side insight into the issues of an addressable marketplace. Participation pledges for this committee came from Publicis Media, Omnicom Media Group, GroupM, IPG/Magna, Dentsu Aegis Network, Havas and Horizon Media. The group met for the first time in May to discuss issues that range from measurement to inventory management, privacy policies and cross-networking targeting.

Project OAR’s goal of an open standard for addressable advertising on Smart TVs and connected devices projects to develop its offering in the first half of 2020.

NEW YORK—The development of a new, open standard for addressable advertising on connected TVs will be a group effort, as a number of America’s top media and technology companies and smart TV company Vizio are forming a consortium called Project OAR, which stands for Open Addressable Ready.

Joining Vizio as part of Project OAR are Disney’s Media Networks, Turner, Xandr, Comcast’s FreeWheel and NBC Universal, CBS, Discovery, Hearst Television, AMC Networks and Inscape. The goal will be to define technical standards for TV programmers and platforms to deliver more relevant advertising experiences within linear and on-demand formats on smart TVs.

“We all recognize the most important goal of this initiative is to drastically enhance the TV experience for people at home,” said William Wang, Vizio founder and CEO.

Inscape will be the ones developing the technology, with input from the other companies. The standard is expected to implement a technologically sound, dynamic ad-delivery system that utilized industry best practices. “The standard will define the baseline for ad delivery, impression verification and privacy compliance, but networks will have plenty of room to create unique and enriched advertising experiences,” said Jodie McAfee, senior vice president at Inscape. “We are making this flexible enough to enable interactivity and other bells and whistles that have yet to be imagined.”

Vizion has made the pledge that once the consortium has developed the standard it can be deployed on its opt-in footprint of connected TVs. The goal though, is for the protocol to be open and designed to enable any internet-connected TV maker and connected-device company to use.

Project OAR is hoping to have a working product by spring 2019, with full deployment targeted for early 2020.