PALO ALTO, Calif.—The streaming technology solutions provider Wurl has named Dave Bernath as its new chief executive officer.

He succeeds Ron Gutman, who is retiring after leading the company through a period of significant growth and transformation, the company reported. Bernath will report to Adam Foroughi, CEO of AppLovin, which acquired Wurl in 2022.

Bernath brings more than two decades of experience growing audiences and building revenue strategies for top media and entertainment brands across both traditional and emerging platforms. He previously served as general manager, Americas at Wurl, where he has been instrumental in expanding partnerships and driving revenue growth as part of the company’s leadership team.

“It’s a privilege to step into the CEO role at Wurl – especially during such a great period of growth and momentum in streaming TV,” said Bernath. “Thanks to Ron’s leadership, we have a strong foundation of talent, tech, and innovation. Our customers remain at the center of everything we do – we’re listening, we’re learning, and we’re building with them in mind.”

Prior to Wurl, Bernath held senior leadership roles at Comedy Central, where he served as General Manager and led the network’s evolution from a linear cable channel into a truly multiplatform content brand. He is also a seasoned digital media entrepreneur, known for helping companies navigate complex shifts in audience behavior, content delivery, and monetization.

During his tenure, Gutman helped scale Wurl’s core offerings, developing market-leading solutions that continue to drive value and profitability for content partners and advertisers alike. He also built a strong leadership team and a generative culture focused on innovation, performance, and long-term growth.

“I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished at Wurl and grateful to have worked with such an exceptional team,” said Gutman. “Dave has already demonstrated his strengths in leading and scaling the business, while putting our customers’ and partners’ needs at the forefront. I have full confidence in his ability to guide Wurl through its next stage of growth.”

IRVINE, Calif.— CTV and programmatic ad provider Viant Technology Inc. has announced a new integration of its DSP with Wurl that provides advertisers with scene-level CTV targeting and measurement

The two companies are billing the integration as the first time a DSP has delivered scene-level contextual intelligence across Connected Television (CTV). This is being made possible by IRIS.TV’s IRIS_ID and Wurl BrandDiscovery’s unique streaming signals and proprietary scene identification technologies. Those solutions allow advertisers to align messaging with on-screen context in real time, driving stronger engagement and outcomes, the companies reported.

The solution also features the integration of Viant’s new Open Real Time Bidding (oRTB) with Wurl, which provides premium Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) inventory from top publishers.

The companies said that this partnership marks the first time Wurl’s BrandDiscovery-enabled supply is available via direct oRTB in a DSP.

By combining this supply with Viant’s Household ID and identity graph, which provides 95% of coverage of U.S. adults 18+, advertisers achieve greater reach, relevance, and efficiency in the fastest-growing digital advertising channel: CTV, the companies reported.

“As the first DSP to offer scene-level targeting and measurement capabilities, we are powering a new generation of privacy-safe, contextually relevant advertising that benefits the entire ecosystem,” said Tom Wolfe, senior vice president of business development at Viant. “The partnership with Wurl helps fulfill our mission to drive meaningful outcomes for our advertisers, and across the CTV landscape by addressing persistent challenges like fragmented targeting, limited measurement and lack of content transparency.”

Through its integration with IRIS.TV, Wurl’s proprietary BrandDiscovery segments, which classify each scene’s emotional tone and thematic context, are now assigned IRIS_IDs at the scene level.

With every Wurl impression IRIS-enabled, advertisers gain a new level of precision, aligning creative with narrative moments that drive stronger engagement and results. These signals are fully actionable in the Viant DSP via the company’s newly launched IRIS-enabled Content Report and Pre-bid Targeting solution.

“Wurl’s mission includes unlocking greater value for both publishers and advertisers in the streaming ecosystem,” said Ria Madrid, VP of Advertising Partnerships at Wurl. “With BrandDiscovery and IRIS IDs enabled across the Wurl footprint and fully integrated into Viant’s DSP, a biddable contextual solution is now activated at unbelievable scale. Advertisers can reach streaming audiences while also aligning their creative with relevant content. Contextual relevance has been proven to drive results – better campaign performance and ROAS for advertisers, and incremental revenue for publishers.”

Learn more at viantinc.com and at www.wurl.com.

NEW YORK—Advanced-advertising solutions provider Transmit and connected-TV tech company Wurl have struck a partnership that will bring Transmit’s in-stream ad formats to the thousands of Wurl-powered FAST channels.

The in-stream ad formats will allow free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels to create incremental inventory and revenue without disrupting the viewer experience, boosting monetization while minimizing audience churn, the companies said.

Transmit’s ad formats, including in-stream and picture-in-picture (PIP), are designed for viewer retention, allowing publishers to generate revenue without compromising the audience experience. For example, an audience watching sports or live entertainment content might see an ad in the program itself during a down moment instead of a cutaway to a full-screen ad break. This lack of disruption provides entirely new inventory for publishers while minimizing the viewer churn that tends to come with traditional 30-second ad spots, the companies said.

“As younger generations increasingly migrate toward FAST channels in search of cost-effective entertainment due to rising subscription costs, this partnership is uniquely positioned to meet this growing demand,” Transmit CEO Seth Hittman said. “The rise of subscription fatigue has created an opportunity for ad-supported models to thrive. By maximizing untapped advertising potential and providing a robust platform for advertisers to reach engaged, cost-conscious audiences without compromising their viewing experience, FAST publishers will be able to make the most of the ad-supported programming opportunity.”

Transmit offers advanced monetization products for streaming platforms, while Wurl powers thousands of FAST channels. By integrating their technologies, Wurl and Transmit said they can now provide a comprehensive, end-to-end solution that enhances monetization and the viewer experience, making it easier for publishers to maximize the value of their content while providing advertisers with premium inventory.

“CTV viewership continues to grow, thanks in large part to greater viewer consumption and engagement on FAST,” Wurl general manager, Americas Dave Bernath said. “It’s an exciting time and, together, we see Wurl and Transmit as leading the charge when it comes to driving innovation in this space. Ultimately, our goal is to create an effective ecosystem for everyone—boost monetization for publishers, drive better outcomes for advertisers, and deliver an engaging experience for viewers.”

A new study of viewing on connected TVs finds a number of encouraging trends, including the fact that viewing levels are approaching the record levels seen during the pandemic and that the average viewing sessions are growing. 

But the study also highlighted a number of ongoing examples of viewing dissatisfaction, including relatively stable levels of churn, which have remained persistently high. It also noted that ad loads remain near record levels even though they have dropped slightly from their peak in 2023. 

In addition, the study provided a ranking of the most common programming genres on TV, with reality TV on top of the list as the most widely distributed content even though reality TV shows rarely rank in the top 10 streaming shows in terms of viewing. 

Wurl’s study did not provide actual figures for time spent viewing, churn and the average streaming session. Instead it provides an index that shows trends up or down. 

The study did report that on average, an ad break in CTV is approximately two minutes long and typically includes four 30-second commercials. Across an entire hour, viewers are exposed to around nine minutes of advertising content on FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) channels, which is generally much lower than the ad loads on cable TV networks. 

This metric is crucial for understanding the balance between content and advertising and its impact on viewer experience, the researchers said. They reported that July 2023 reached the highest average ad load, averaging 9.4 minutes of advertising per hour of viewing, 2.6% higher the previous month, the month with the second highest ad load. Today’s ad load is down 3.4% from peak, suggesting platforms are showing fewer ads, though numbers are increasing again. 

The researchers wrote that “The amount of advertising content per hour directly impacts the viewer experience. Excessive ad load can lead to viewer dissatisfaction and ad fatigue, while a balanced ad load can enhance viewer engagement and content enjoyment. Managing ad load is crucial for maintaining ad effectiveness. An optimal ad load ensures that ads are delivered at a frequency that maximizes their impact without overwhelming viewers. Changes in ad load can influence revenue generation. Increased ad load may boost ad revenue in the short term, but overloading can lead to viewer churn, ultimately affecting long-term revenue and platform profitability.”

The report also found that “approximately 4% of viewers are lost per minute of an ad break, meaning an 8% loss during a typical two-minute break. However, research by Wurl found that emotional resonance between ad and content can reduce user loss by as much as 60%.”

The full report along with detailed recommendations for capitalizing on its findings can be found here. 

Missed any of our recent product news? Here is TV Tech's weekly wrap-up of new products, services and deployments we published in our newsletter between August 12 to August 16. The stories are listed from the newest on Friday August 16, day by day back to our stories from Monday August 12.

Prime Focus Technologies to Debut CLEAR AI Agents at IBC 2024

The CLEAR AI Agents are designed to assist & co-work with professionals to execute specific tasks across content management, post-production, and marketing.

Leader and Phabrix to Show T&M Solutions at IBC 2024

They will be showcasing test and measurement solutions for the complete manufacturing & broadcast production chain.

RTL Deutschland Expands FAST Channel Offering

The new FAST channels are powered by Harmonic; netorium integrated the news FAST channels into RTL’s operations.

MRMC To Unveil Studiobot LT, Cinebot At IBC 2024

Studiobot LT is well-suited for box cameras with a studio lens and supports a wide envelope of motion.

Florida Panthers Launch New DTC Streaming Service

For the new season, every locally-produced game will stream live on new apps and air on broadcast over-the-air.

Cineverse Partners with Wurl on FAST Channels

The agreement will bring new channels to viewers, while also enhancing Cineverse’s monetization and discovery capabilities.

EvertzAV Brings Cutting-Edge AVoIP Solutions to IBC 2024

These IP routable products and solutions deliver high quality and high reliability to AV professionals working across numerous disciplines.

Marshall Brings Auto Tracking To IBC 2024 with New CV612 PTZ Camera

The system automatically tracks, follows and frames presenters using AI facial learning for accurate and smooth self-adjusting maneuvers.

ESPN Inks Deal with Genius Sports to Expand Data Capabilities for Basketball Coverage

The deal will expand ESPN's data-driven storytelling in its coverage of NCAA basketball, NBA and WNBA.

Harmonic Launches New SaaS Version of Its Distribution Management System

Running on the public cloud, Harmonic's DMS X SaaS brings playout control capabilities to its XOS advanced media processor.

Horizon Media Taps Comscore as Preferred Contextual Intelligence Provider

Clients of the largest U.S. media agency will be able to use Proximic by Comscore's AI-powered contextual technology.

ATSC To Exhibit 3.0 Developments At Brazil’s SET Expo 2024

ATSC will exhibit at the SET Expo 2024 at the Distrito Anhembi Convention Center in San Paulo, Brazil, Aug. 19-22, on the heels of the SBTVD Forum recommending adoption of the ATSC 3.0 physical layer to the Brazilian government for its TV 3.0 next-generation terrestrial broadcast standard.

Veritone Makes AI M&E Solutions Available in AWS Marketplace

Among the AI software in the marketplace are Veritone Digital Media Hub, Discovery and Attribute.

CommScope Announces First Major Sale of Newly Acquired Casa vCCAP Solution

vCCAP will be used to support significant distributed access architecture deployment in Hungary.

BNS Partners with NPAW to Enhance Video Analytics Reporting in North America

The partnership will help NPAW expand its footprint in North America.

Elation Delivers Dynamic PULSE For First-Ever Live Broadcast from Sphere

Lighting designer Tom Kenny debuted PULSE PANEL FX for the NHL Draft in Las Vegas.

Signiant to Highlight Latest Innovations, Partnership at IBC 2024

Among the partnerships is the company’s new collaboration with TMT Insights.

DVEO to Introduce Brutus Cloud Video Distribution Platform at IBC 2024

Brutus Cloud provides high-performance, flexible transcoding and streaming for IPTV, OTT and FAST TV.

Globo Shows Off TV 2.5 Enhancements on Hisense TVs During Paris Olympics

The broadcaster demoed Advanced HDR by Technicolor and Fraunhofer’s MPEG-H Audio.

Historic Billy Joel Concert Captured On ARRI Cameras For Multi-Cam Production

To capture Billy Joel’s 100th consecutive performance of his residency at Madison Square Garden, show producers turned to ARRI’s ALEXA 35 and Mini LF cameras.

LOS ANGELES—Cineverse Corp. has announced a broad partnership with Wurl, LLC to distribute Wurl’s growing portfolio of free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels and launch new channels. 

As part of the partnership, the companies will also work together on streaming and monetization solutions. 

This will enable Cineverse to streamline channel launches through seamless integration with Matchpoint, the company’s proprietary distribution platform, along with enhanced monetization which will provide Cineverse with future opportunities to expand the company’s strategic initiatives around content discovery and personalization.

In announcing the deal, Cineverse also reported that it will migrate the majority of their existing FAST channels to Wurl’s Global FAST Pass. As part of this move, The Bob Ross Channel, Barney, 9 Story Presents: Garfield and Friends, SCREAMBOX TV, the Real Madrid Channel and others will be fully powered by Wurl. 

Moving forward, the company will also launch additional new channels via Wurl including several music channels as part of an expanded offering in the genre. 

“We’re very excited to be working with Wurl’s highly-trained and experienced team to expand our FAST channel portfolio,” said Cineverse chief operating officer & chief technology officer Tony Huidor. “With this new partnership, we’re already benefiting from greater ease of use, significantly reduced costs with faster and more simplified channel launches. In addition, we look forward to being able to benefit from stronger ad monetization, future personalization and discoverability tools that will provide Cineverse with new avenues for growth.”

Wurl’s Global FAST Pass (GFP) is one of the world’s largest FAST channel networks, encompassing 173M+ connected TVs monthly and more than 50 streamers worldwide. GFP simplifies monetization and provides powerful data insights to help guide content and scheduling optimizations for content companies to drive increased revenue.

“It’s exciting to work with companies like Cineverse who are always looking to innovate and create better experiences for their viewers,” said Wurl Vice President, Sales & Partnerships, Americas Dave Bernath. “We look forward to growing our partnership and supporting Cineverse with onboarding new channels and delivering greater personalization.”

For more information, visit cineverse.com. 

PALO ALTO, Calif.—A new report examining the evolving connected TV (CTV) landscape and its growing influence on brand and performance marketing strategies walks readers through the awareness, consideration and decision stages of the marketing cycle with the goal of developing and executing effective campaigns.

The report, “A Full-Funnel Approach to CTV Marketing 2024,” is from Wurl, its parent company AppLovin and measurement and analytics company Adjust.

“CTV is a unique channel with the ability to drive real outcomes at every stage of the marketing cycle,” said Wurl CEO Ron Gutman. “Wurl’s position in the CTV ecosystem – combined with Adjust’s insights into down-funnel metrics and AppLovin’s cross-device performance capabilities – gives us a great opportunity to support brand and performance marketers in taking advantage of CTV’s effectiveness throughout the entire buying process.”

The report coincides with the growth of CTV as ad spending continues to climb. Not only are advertisers allocating more of their budgets to CTV, but the medium is giving new marketers a way to test and find success, it said.

Data from Adjust found that mobile marketers, for example, have increased the number of ads being served on CTV devices to promote mobile apps, resulting in impressions growing by more than 300% in the first half of 2024, it said.

Understanding how to develop and execute effective CTV campaigns across upper- and lower-funnel metrics will be essential as more dollars are assigned to CTV campaigns, the company said.

The new report examines considerations at each stage of the marketing cycle, including:

• Awareness Stage: Techniques for growing positive attention and making an impact with CTV advertising.
• Consideration Stage: Strategies for brands to stay top of mind with innovative ad formats and enhanced targeting.
• Decision Stage: Tactics to drive conversions, leveraging CTV’s unique capabilities for performance marketing.

The report also presents quantitative insights to help guide brand and performance marketers establish their full-funnel CTV strategies. Data from Wurl revealed that 8% of viewers are lost during a typical ad break, but that showing emotionally and contextually relevant ads can reduce that loss by up to 60%, making the case for why delivering positive ad experiences is so important, it said.

More information and the full report are available on the company’s website.

Wurl’s top executives argue that the transition from cable TV to streaming will be completed within the next five years, which will make for interesting trends in 2024. Here are the top predictions from three executives for 2024 and beyond: 

“I predict that within the next five years, the transition from cable television to streaming will be complete,” explained Ron Gutman, CEO. “Despite enormous shifts in the Connected TV space, we’re still currently only halfway through this migration. In the beginning, the focus was on moving content to streaming. The next phase as we head into 2024 will be about moving viewership, where the growth is still ahead of us.”

“Advertisers will finally leverage Connected TV as a true performance channel,” he added. “Advancements in AI-driven technologies and performance marketing solutions will give rise to more targeted and personalized CTV experiences. This, in turn, will give streamers and publishers the ability to accurately measure and attribute a viewer’s actions to a specific campaign, enabling advertisers to turn marketing efforts from a cost center to a revenue driver.”

Dave Bernath, vice president and partnerships for North America at Wurl argues that “In the US, we’re in a plateauing – or reset – moment in the streaming market, most obviously with studios and their SVOD services. I also see this happening in the free space, specifically with FAST channels. More premium content is coming to FAST, which is a good thing. But, the growth in overall viewership is still relatively modest and the programmatic ad market continues to disappoint. As a result, platforms, publishers, and OEMs face the difficult reality of needing to spend more on marketing during an uncertain market. I think the choice is obvious: Organic growth is not going to cut it. In 2024, we’ll see who steps up to spend the marketing dollars required to grow their audiences, and who stands pat and starts getting left behind.

“2024 will see the rise of streaming services joining the legacy bundle, as evidenced by the recent Charter Disney deal,” Bernath added. “I predict we’ll see more SVODs partner with MVPDs to bundle offerings. While this represents a retreat to the wholesale model, it is likely to add some stability to subscriber counts. Bundles work and consumers are less likely to drop any particular service when it’s part of a broader package that includes broadband, cable, or satellite and phone. I don’t know that it will slow the rate of cord cutting, but there does still appear to be tens of millions of households where this model could work and help both parties.”

Looking at other markets, Keith Bedford, general manager of EMEA said, “The integration of EPGs (electronic programme guides) directly into smart TVs will grow the streaming market, giving manufacturers more control and consumers easier access to discover content. This will, in turn, create a more personalized viewing experience, and, ultimately, significant potential for ad revenue generation.”

“While the US is witnessing the transition from traditional TV to FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV), cord cutting is less prevalent in EMEA due to the abundance of free TV content, which may lead to a different approach to ad-supported streaming in this market in 2024,” he said. “Still, with top-tier broadcasters like ITV, the BBC, and Germany’s DWR/ARD making their mark in Europe’s CTV market, we’re likely to see the adoption of FAST and CTV more broadly speed up this year.”

LOS ANGELES—Frequency, a developer of software for virtual linear and FAST (free ad-supported streaming television) channel creation and Wurl, a provider of data-driven solutions for CTV have announced a strategic partnership. Wurl will be Frequency’s preferred advertising monetization partner while Frequency will be Wurl’s preferred partner for advanced FAST and virtual linear channel creation. 

Customers will now be able to utilize Frequency's platform for scheduling and playout services while also taking advantage of Wurl's monetization services, including the recently-announced ContentDiscovery platform.

The companies note that the partnership will help customers design the right programming through a robust playout solution as well as achieve the optimum monetization and content discovery strategy. Through this partnership, content providers can seamlessly utilize two best-in-class technology platforms for their channels business, empowering new and existing customers to create highly optimized workflows that best suit their needs across scheduling, playout, monetization and performance marketing ad campaigns, the companies said.

"We're thrilled to work with the team at Frequency,” said Craig Heiting, Head of Corporate Strategy at Wurl. "By combining forces, we can offer more playout options and simplify workflows to address content distributors’ most pressing needs across playout, monetization, and advertising and ultimately optimize their returns.”

“Wurl has played an integral role in the development of the FAST ecosystem,” said Jon Cohen, Chief Revenue Officer at Frequency. “With the rapid growth of FAST and the convergence with traditional TV, media companies need the freedom to choose the optimal partners for each part of their supply chain. Frequency’s industry-leading scheduling and playout platform, combined with Wurl’s advertising monetization solution is exactly what this market needs.”

Connected TV is surging. A record 92% of U.S. households are now reachable via CTV, and brands are paying attention. Advertising spend on CTV grew 57% in 2021 to $15.2 billion, and is expected to rise an additional 39% at the close of this year to $21.2 billion, making it one of the fastest-growing ad sectors. The television has always been the “gathering place” of our homes, and being connected to the internet, rather than through broadcast waves or cable, isn’t changing that any time soon. 

What makes all of this particularly exciting is realizing that CTV advertising hasn’t even reached its full potential. CTV users watch streaming content across any number of platforms from Netflix to Roku and any number of FAST channels. Performance across all those platforms are siloed, meaning advertisers can’t track or evaluate campaigns as a whole, but are left to piece together insights from each platform they advertise on. 

Our industry is also still working through how to properly attribute action by a viewer to an action taken in the market. Did the 30-second ad pushing Oreo’s double-stuffed cookies cause a viewer to make a late night order while binge watching Love Island? Directly correlating a purchase or action to viewing an ad on CTV is still an area for growth.

As a result of these factors and more, CTV campaigns tend to be oriented around increasing “brand awareness,” a well-known, but admittedly vague metric. Measurement after the fact typically consists of a brand lift study, which can tell you generally how an ad performed and whether it measured above or below expectations. But, such studies are largely ambiguous and after-the-fact.

While many different attribution platforms are starting to come to the foreground and deliver interesting capabilities around CTV, there is still a lot of connective tissue that’s missing for the whole piece to work well. By shifting strategy to focus on yield and performance-based outcomes, advertisers and sellers can get the most out of CTV and utilize it as a true performance marketing channel.

Reconsider What CTV Really Is
When brands think of connected TV, they think “Like Hulu, right?” In reality there are multiple platforms available and connecting across all of them is essential—CTV is everywhere. People watch CTV on any internet-connected device, be it on their smart TV, gaming console, tablet, phone—or all of the above. 

In fact, there is a mean of 3.9 CTV devices per TV household. This suggests an opportunity for advertisers to think about how to reach consumers everywhere they are and take an omnichannel approach to marketing on CTV.

A/B Test and Iterate (a lot)
In a traditional digital campaign, advertisers launch new creatives all the time, and ruthlessly A/B test messages. While this practice doesn’t happen much yet in CTV, it can and should. 

A/B testing provides advertisers with real data that's optimized, allowing for creatives to constantly be iterated upon and made more powerful so that they can transact better. Taking advantage of A/B testing is the new type of creative thinking and action required to turn CTV into a true performance channel.

Gain a 360-Degree View of the Customer
Advertisers know a lot about their target audience, as do CTV sellers. By bringing the two together, brands can implement digital targeting to get a fuller picture of their customer and who they’re reaching. 

With tools like affinity or lookalike audiences on top of existing targets, advertisers can achieve a bigger pool of inventory and viewers to target.

Think Like a Direct-to-Consumer Brand
Ecommerce destinations and direct-to-consumer companies like Nike do a great job using CTV to drive traffic to their apps and sites for sales. QR codes, overlays and squeezebacks are all formats that are well suited to performance marketing on CTV, and can drive a new level of action (and attribution) beyond general media buys and old-school brand awareness. Every brand should put direct-to-consumer thinking in their approach to CTV advertising.

CTV is digital and real-time. It’s designed for both brand awareness and performance marketing, where yield and outcomes can be optimized. Leaning into all of that is the only way to realize CTV’s full potential—for brands, advertisers, sellers, and content creators.

PALO ALTO, Calif.—Wurl has announced that it will be working with TED to launch a free-ad-supported TED channel. 

The Wurl-powered FAST channel will offer viewers a 24/7 linear channel featuring TED's most celebrated talks, award-winning TED-Ed videos, short films, TED originals, and highlights from TED's conferences. 

“TED represents groundbreaking ideas, presented in an iconic, minimalist format that maximizes attention and impact for all of us as viewers,” said Craig Heiting, Wurl’s head of strategic business development. “Having the opportunity to bring TED’s unique library of content into the world of FAST TV is not only an honor, but a task we will engage with extreme precision to maximize reach and impact for TED.”

TED will leverage the full suite of Wurl services, including Global FAST Pass for worldwide distribution, AdPool for maximized monetization of ad Inventory, Wurl Perform for viewer acquisition and retention, and Global Data Services for optimal data insights.

"Streaming TV gives TED another powerful digital tool to support our mission of bringing great ideas to viewers everywhere," said Alan Seiffert, head of global business development at TED. "With Wurl's reach of over 300 million connected TVs worldwide, and with their innovative and advanced technologies, they are an excellent partner for us to spread ideas in the FAST TV space."

PALO ALTO, Calif.—Streaming TV tech provider Wurl has announced a deal with LG Electronics that will make Wurl-powered free ad support TV (FAST) channels available on LG Channels worldwide. 

Wurl will be distributing the FAST channels globally while also providing monetization services and maximizing revenue to the company.

As part of the deal, Wurl will be available on all LG smart TVs from 2018 forward, including third-party smart TVs that are powered by webOS. 

The global roll-out has already begun with Wurl-powered FAST channels launching in the U.S., UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg. 

The expansion into further territories, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Portugal, Ireland, Finland, Austria, and Switzerland, will continue throughout 2022.

LG Channels is LG's free streaming service, offering a wide selection of premium live and on-demand programming, including movies, TV shows, news, sports, childrens' programs, and more.  

"LG TV customers expect the best when it comes to home entertainment. With this partnership, we are excited to enhance their offerings by vastly expanding the content available to the global audience," said Ingrid Mariotti, director of business development, streamers at Wurl.

PALO ALTO, Calif.—Wurl and ScreenHits TV have announced that they will work together to deliver and monetize free-ad-supported TV (FAST) channels in ScreenHits TV's current territories, the U.S., the UK, Germany, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.

ScreenHits expects to add several new territories later this year as part of its rapid international expansion efforts across Europe, Latin and North America, the Indian sub-continent and Africa. 

These channels will be distributed on the ScreenHits TV app available across several platforms, including on Fire TV, iOS and Android TV now being rolled out across leading smart TV brands.

"This is an exciting opportunity to join forces with ScreenHits TV, one of the most innovative streaming apps available," said Craig Heiting, senior vice president, worldwide business development at Wurl, which interconnects over 1200 streaming channels from the world's top content companies with leading streaming distribution services in over 50 countries. "The ability to provide ScreenHits TV's FAST channels to a global audience is helping millions more viewers easily access the very best of streaming content."

"With Wurl's reach to 300 million-plus connected TVs worldwide across 50 countries, ScreenHits TV (SHTV) will have access to a selection of premium channels for our live feed that we can partner with as we grow in new territories," said Rose Hulse, founder and CEO, ScreenHits TV, which is a curated streaming aggregator. "This will help us to further our goal of continually reaching new viewers and growing revenue for our leading streaming and content partners."

PALO ALTO, Calif.—AppLovin Corporation has announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Wurl, a software platform in the Connected TV (CTV) market, for about $430 million. 

Wurl interconnects over 1200 streaming channels from the world’s top content companies with the leading streaming distribution services in over 50 countries. Reaching over 300 million connected TVs around the globe, the Wurl Network platform helps leading studios such as A+E Networks, AMC Networks, Bloomberg, BBC Studios, CNN, Reuters and Sony, deliver programming to the biggest streaming platforms, including Amazon IMDb TV, Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Rakuten, Twitch, and VIZIO, while maximising monetization. 

The acquisition will extend AppLovin’s software platform capabilities into the large and growing CTV market, which is expected to produce more than $30 billion in advertising by 2025, the companies said. 

“The acquisition of Wurl will further our commitment to building and growing the world’s largest, most-effective digital marketing platform by providing advertisers a seamless way to tap into the highly addressable and measurable CTV market,” said Adam Foroughi, CEO and co-founder of AppLovin. “We believe our software marketing expertise can further optimize the experience for advertisers and consumers as well as enable content companies to expand their audiences and increase monetization.”

“Our shared vision and values made the opportunity to join forces compelling and unique,” said Sean Doherty Sr., CEO and co-founder of Wurl. “AppLovin brings enormous new demand from advertisers and our partnership will enable current customers to realise even more benefits including expanded ad revenue, new viewers, and enhanced distribution to global CTV audiences. Together, we’ll pursue our mission and dramatically impact the CTV market.”

Wurl is expected to retain its brand and operate independently with its existing management team. The acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2022 and be funded with approximately 55% cash and 45% AppLovin equity.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati served as legal advisors for AppLovin, and Fenwick & West LLP acted as legal advisor for Wurl. LionTree Advisors acted as exclusive financial advisor to Wurl.

PALO ALTO, Calif.—Streaming TV tech provider Wurl has launched Global FAST Pass, which provides a global onramp for free ad-supported TV channels and makes it possible to rapidly build worldwide distribution and loyal audiences on hundreds of millions of Connected TVs in over 50 countries. 

Global FAST Pass is designed as a complete solution for content companies to create, manage, distribute and monetize their programming and provides a single onramp that delivers content to all the world’s top CTV streamers. 

Using the service, content companies can create the content and negotiate distribution and then let Wurl manage the myriad complicated, highly technical challenges involved in launching FAST channels

“By integrating with Streamers on a global basis, Wurl has created a superhighway for FAST channels,” said Sean Doherty, Jr., COO, Wurl. “Global FAST Pass provides the lowest possible barrier to entry–technically, operationally and commercially–thanks to end-to-end connectivity, monetization, security and reporting. With Global FAST Pass, our customers are building their FAST businesses at Internet speed. And together, Wurl and our partners are laying the foundation of what will become the Internet of TV.”

The Global FAST Pass service consists of two key elements: Wurl Global Channel Management (channel creation + management); and Wurl Global Distribution (streaming, ad insertion, measurement, etc.)

Global FAST Pass also includes a new, simple pricing structure wherein content companies pay for usage and there are no fixed fees.

“At Wurl, we are constantly innovating to create better, smarter and more efficient ways to deliver content to consumers,” added Doherty Jr. “Our goal is to minimize the bottom-line costs associated with launching a streaming service, making it easier and faster for our customers to get on with the business of monetizing their content.”

Wurl interconnects over 1200 streaming channels from the world’s top content companies with the leading streaming distribution services in over 50 countries. The Wurl Network platform helps such leading studios as A+E Networks, AMC Networks, Bloomberg, BBC Studios, CNN, Reuters and Sony, deliver programming to the biggest streaming platforms, including Amazon IMDb TV, Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Rakuten, Twitch, and VIZIO. It currently reaches more than 300 million connected TVs around the globe,

For more information about Wurl, please visit wurl.com. 

PALO ALTO, Calif.—In a new report, Wurl Analytics has quantified some of the hefty costs streamers face by high churn rates, reporting that the four top SVOD services lost $80.2 million in April of 2021 alone. 

The `Churn Analysis Report 2021’ found that HBO Max had the biggest losses ($33.1 million), followed by Netflix ($17.3 million), Hulu ($15.1 million) and Disney+ ($14.7 million) in April. 

The report stressed that churn doesn’t just involve lost subscription revenue. It also noted that churn rates increase marketing expenses. 

In the US alone, the same four services - Netflix, Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max - collectively spent nearly $50 million in media, but nearly $20 million is attributable to reducing churn, the report found. 

Disney+, HBO Max and ViacomCBS experienced monthly churn rates ranging from 2% to 7%, the report also reported. 

To meet their stated subscriber goals, large SVOD platforms must add hundreds of millions of subscribers just to replace those that churn, Wurl Analytics noted.

It estimates that between 2021 and 2024, Disney+ will churn 333.1 million subscribers, requiring it to attract 472.5 million subscribers in order to reach its stated growth target of between 230 million to 260 million global subscribers by the end of 2024. 

For HBO Max to meet its goal of 150 million subscribers after churn, it needs to acquire 302.6 million new subscribers. 

ViacomCBS's suite of SVOD services needs 210.4 million additions to hit their goals of 150 million subscribers by 2025 and 70 million subscriber additions to hit their goal of 70 million subscribers by 2024.3

"Churn is not a new problem in the video business, of course, but with the advent of streaming services, subscriber churn has escalated and accelerated due to the fact that it is much easier to cancel a streaming subscription than it is to cancel a conventional cable subscription," said Sean Doherty Jr., head of Wurl Analytics. "With this report, we are providing a snapshot of the actual financial impact churn is having on streamers. It is the first of several reports Wurl Analytics will publish each year aimed at providing the streaming TV business with valuable data insights to help inform better business and marketing decisions."

The Churn Report Analysis Report 2021 is available for download here.

PALO ALTO, Calif.—Streaming video distribution and ad services provider Wurl has announced the hours people spent viewing video streamed by its service grew 43% in the third quarter of 2020 compared to Q2 and 98% year-over-year.

The number of ads served also were up sharply for the quarter, posting an increase of 129% from the previous quarter, Wurl said. This growth underscores what the company says is proof that the future of TV is ad-supported linear streaming.

“Everything is accelerating. Leading studio brands are distributing their highest quality programming to CTV [connected television] on new streaming channels. Streaming viewing time is exploding and advertisers are following the viewers,” Wurl CEO Sean Doherty said. “Outpacing the growth of SVOD, ad-supported streaming services are the go-to destination for millions of TV viewers around the world.”

A total of 159 channels launched on the Wurl Network in Q3, taking its channel count to more than 500, the company said. 

More information is available on the company’s website.

Part 1 of 2

The monetization of ad-supported, linear over-the-top (OTT) video suffers from multiple issues: domains of expertise are distributed (try catching an ad insertion and demand person in the same room); acronyms seem designed to confuse (why do some people call it AVOD?); and it uses new, complex, sometimes-wobbly technology. We’ll clear all of that up in this article. 

Not really. You really thought that was possible? Pshaw. But we’ll clarify a small portion related to ways that monetization in server-side ad insertion (SSAI) OTT video delivery can fail. An architecture for that ecosystem is shown below.

Publishers monetize their content by creating ad breaks in their linear streams into which ads are spliced. In typical OTT delivery, these ads—targeted or not—are fetched in close-to-real-time from an ad server and spliced by an SSAI system into each user’s linear video stream. Ad calls are made when ad breaks occur in the playout stream. The returned ads typically require transcoding into the delivery streaming format before they can be spliced for delivery in the stream. 

A publisher with a 15% ad load—that is, nine minutes per hour—might imagine that they can fill each hour of viewing with 36 15-second ads, resulting in, as an example, $0.36 of revenue per hour viewed, assuming a $10 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Unfortunately, that rate of insertion doesn’t ever really occur, because a significant portion of the nine minutes will be filled with ad holes—spots where no ad was inserted for a variety of reasons—which will be covered in this article.

Ad holes are a rarity in broadcast video, where ad placement is carefully pre-planned and is rarely programmatic. In OTT, ad placement is most often not pre-planned; it is often programmatic, and demand is not yet as high. Ad holes are everywhere. 

What causes an otherwise perfectly good ad slot to become an ad hole? There are, broadly speaking, plain errors, systematic issues and misunderstandings. Understanding the root causes of ad holes can help publishers improve their monetization, at the very least by understanding which ecosystem partner to hold accountable for less than optimal yield.

THE VARIOUS ERRORS THAT CAUSE AD HOLES

Even with relatively comprehensive specifications (e.g. IAB’s VAST), straightforward but hard to find errors are common. The most direct error is a “non-conformant VAST response.” Even some major programmatic DSPs—the systems where most ads originate—suffer from this issue occasionally. Non-conformant VAST leads to a parsing error, which isn’t always flagged by the VAST parser on the SSAI system. A more subtle variant of this is an incompatibility between the VAST response and the VAST parser.

Issues encountered in the wild include:

• Expectation on the VAST payload formatting. These include issues such as white space in CDATA blocks or ordering of XML elements in the VAST response. The VAST specification allows variability, but the overwhelming majority of VAST responses, as an example, position XML elements in the same relative order. Some (major brand) systems make assumptions about this order and will break when elements are not in the expected order. 

• Expectation on non-empty VAST XML elements. Data, such as the Ad System ID, are expected by some components as ways to categorize VAST responses. If they are omitted, the response may be completely rejected.  
• Inconsistent data. For example, some ad insertion systems balk when the VAST-signaled creative duration is different from the actual creative duration. Is this an error or a feature? It’s not clear: Should ads that are longer than specified be inserted or rejected? One can make an argument for either approach.  
• Beacon length issues. Inserted ads are measured by beacons—URLs that signal to the ecosystem participants that an ad was viewed. In some situations, these beacons may exceed the URL limit of 4,096 characters and are rejected. These aren’t ad holes; they just look like ad holes, since they do not register as having received an impression, and hence are not monetizing. 
• Weirdly long HTTP headers. Some responses carry very long strings of data that break some servers.    

The above all result in ad holes: ad responses that do not lead to a monetizable impression. 

How are these issues mitigated? Bad or incompatible VAST generated by a DSP is difficult to track. The most common approach to uncovering these issues is to note certain ads that never lead to impressions. This requires per-ad-creative monitoring, which is difficult to automate. Fixing these issues is also difficult, since normally there aren’t direct relationships between DSPs and SSAI vendors, not to mention publishers.

Problems, like long headers, that manifest pair-wise between ecosystem partners—for example a DSP and an SSAI system—are almost impossible to fix without a central entity that can manage all the partners in the ecosystem, each of which is convinced the problem is elsewhere.

The good news is that these types of errors are becoming less frequent over time as the ecosystems mature, including the introduction of central mediating entities. 

However, some issues aren’t errors, they’re incompatibilities between distinct systems, e.g. the demand ad server and the SSAI system. These issues are a bit arcane but worth understanding, so stay tuned for Part 2, which will dig deeper into the systemic issues that cause ad holes and misunderstandings that lead to unfilled inventory.  

Yuval Fisher is senior vice president, technology for Wurl.

PALO ALTO, Calif.—Broadcasters who question just how important targeting individuals with advertising via new NextGen TV capabilities take note: Wurl, a connected TV service provider, today says it has delivered 1.2 billion personally targeted ads in its first full year of operations. 

The company, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Wurl, announced that over the past 12 months it has expanded its network to nine countries, reaching 100 million connected TVs and delivering 225 million hours of programming.

During the period, the company launched 180 streaming channels on the Wurl Network. Key metrics reveal ad impressions grew more than 15 times from the last quarter of 2018 to the same quarter in 2019; average revenue per user (ARPU) for the period grew 75%; and the company’s revenue tripled for the fiscal year 2019, said Wurl.

From Q3 to Q4 2019, the number of channels on the company’s network grew 41% and ad impressions climbed 45%, the company said.

“Our growth has exceeded our own expectations,” said Sean Doherty, Wurl CEO. “Our business model is built on key areas of expansion: adding more video producers to our network, launching more streaming channels, increasing viewers per channel and increasing the advertising fill rate.”

Too frequently the word “middleman” is used as a pejorative, describing someone who not only brings buyers and sellers together but also has the tendency to be an opportunistic interloper.

Look no further than the occasional GEICO car insurance commercial, TheCompanyStore.com bedding ad or any number of local siding, online flower and buy-direct prescription eyeglass and contact lens pitches for examples.

But there are times when it’s essential for someone with the right qualifications to enter the middle ground between parties to make a transaction happen. Sean Doherty sees his company Wurl doing just that in the connected TV marketplace.

A co-founder and CEO of Wurl, Doherty says his B2B network, which interconnects video producers, video services and advertisers, is mending what has proven to be a fragmented market, enabling video producers to reach a bigger footprint with their ad-supported content and advertisers to buy audiences for their commercials at scale.

In this interview, Doherty discusses how Wurl is removing the friction that has plagued connected-TV channels, content producers and advertisers; the way the parties to these transactions have responded over the past year to its offer; and how every new player who connects only strengthens the overall network.

(An edited transcript:)

TV Technology:What is Wurl out to accomplish?

Sean Doherty: We operate a B2B network that interconnects three different constituencies: video producers, video services and advertisers.

The sea change that our company is based on is this migration of viewers from legacy pay TV to connected TV. It’s hard to get everyone to agree on exactly what the numbers are but it seems like there is something like 25% or 30% of television living room viewing time now that is accomplished through internet connected devices, replacing normally what would have been pay TV. We think more than half of TV viewing time will migrate to this viewing platform in the next five years.

TVT:That looks like a big opportunity.

SD: It is a big opportunity because like traditional television for both programmers and advertisers, it is the living room experience. So, it’s high-production, lots of engagement, lots of reach—all of the things that are great about television programming and advertising. Like digital, CTV (connected TV) also has very granular targeting and measurement. Behavioral data can be gathered as well.

But the problem for our customers—both the video producers and advertisers—is that it’s very fragmented—aside from Hulu and Roku, which have pretty large businesses and ad-supported video on TV.

TVT:What’s the upshot of this fragmentation?

SD: Other than those two in the United States, there’s just a lot of tiny little $25-, $50- and $100 million pockets. Many are even smaller than that, and that’s a problem for video producers because they want distribution.

They want a large footprint to receive their ad-supported video, but building connections to each of these individual video services is very expensive to do and to maintain.

TVT:What about on the ad side of the equation?

SD: The big problem for advertisers, who love the idea of connected TV inventory, is they want to buy it at scale. They want to buy it like they have bought TV for the past 40 years, and it is just practically impossible to do it.

When we first started this business, we used to hear these kinds of paradoxical statements from our customers. The video producers would say: “We’ve got plenty of inventory, but not enough ad buyers.” And the ad buyers would say: “We have plenty of demand, but not enough inventory.”

And we asked, “What’s going on here?” It turns out the problem is they are both right, but there is a scale problem in trying to put it all together.

TVT:So, how does your B2B network remedy the problem?

SD: The simple idea we had about one year ago was to create a network that would link the video producers and the video services and the advertisers, and do it in such a way that the video producers—our main customers—could launch TV channels—live, VOD and linear TV channels—via these video services and do it pretty much effortlessly.

Once they have a commercial arrangement with a video service, they just stay on our platform and turn on the channels. We also wanted to help them make money, so we wanted to enable targeted ad insertions through the distribution that we were enabling.

In the past six to eight months, we have launched three products: our Managed Channel Services to help these companies create linear program lineups and live events and schedule them; our AdSpring product, which is basically ssDAI [Server Side Dynamic Ad Insertion] and targeting product for mid-roll advertising; and then our Data Pool product, our reporting product to provide our customers with very granular reporting on people’s behavior, what they watch, for how long, what advertising they consume, impressions and beacons on the impressions.

We launched late last summer [2018], and what happened was the network just blew up.

TVT:Can you quantify the blowing up?

SD: Well, more video producers attracted more video services, and the inventories that got created on the network attracted more advertisers. Now it is growing some months, 30% to 40%. Pretty consistently for the past eight months, it has been growing at around 15% to 20% per month on just about every metric.

We are up to about 20 million monthly hours of viewing, and we are headed to more than 25 million hours.

We are hitting about 100 million unique CTV devices through the video services that are connected to our network. And about 30% to 35% of those become monthly access viewers.

TVT:Have you seen similar result on the advertising side of the equation?

SD: Our advertising demand is just taking off. As all of the streaming that happens on this network grows, it creates inventory. We now have about 450 million ad avails that we are creating each month and that will soon be closer to 500 million.

To fill that inventory, we run this AdSpring service that is sort of in the middle of every ad request.

TVT:How so?

SD: Let’s say you are watching ABC News on Samsung TV PLUS through our network. We are delivering all of the streaming to you. We receive an ad request when an ad pod is close to being inserted based on where ABC News scheduled it.

We get that ad request about 500 milliseconds in advance of when the ad is supposed to be placed, and then we route the ad request to whomever is supposed to fill it.

So, 4 to 4.5 billion times a month, an ad request goes across our network and hopefully an ad comes back and fills and gets displayed.

TVT:You’ve mentioned Roku and Samsung TV PLUS as two of the devices Wurl supports. Are you supporting others?

SD: We are constantly adding new devices to our network—whether it’s Roku or Samsung or Sinclair STIRR or Comcast [Xfinity] Flex and all of their X1 set top boxes for streaming. There are 25 to 28 million Roku devices, and some percentage of those become active users.

Those active users and the number of hours of viewing for each of those active users are increasing each month because the quality of the content on our network is increasing. With more hours of viewing, you get more ad inventory and more impressions. That all translates into a hockey stick of growth across this network of networks that we have built across all of these C-TV services.

TVT:Support for all of this ever-increasing universe of CTV devices must place quite a technical burden on Wurl.

SD: We have about 22 or 23 engineers—our whole company is 35 employees. They spend more time on what you just described than any other activity. Each platform has its own spec for what you need to deliver to them.

So Twitch has their own API for ad insertion, and Samsung has HLS with HLS ad markers. Roku has something else. Sling’s got MPEG TS with SCTE markers. Each of these guys has a 50- to 70-page spec about what you must do to deliver a live streaming channel or live event to them. So our job is to create what we call “connectors.”

TVT:I would imagine that’s a big value proposition—relieving customers and potential customers of the headaches associated with accommodating all those specs.

SD: It’s not just relieve them of the headache, but most of them can’t afford or don’t have the technical skills to do it. They just simply couldn’t do it.

We are trying to normalize this whole thing. We are like Switzerland in the center, or, maybe it’s more like the Tower of Babel—this big translation we do.