Comcast Technology Solutions said it launched a new system for inserting addressable advertising into national linear programming feeds.

Comcast Advertising, another division of Comcast, has signed up as the first TV distributor to use the new Linear Rights Metadata Management (LRM) technology to support its addressable advertising initiatives. 

“At Comcast Advertising, we’re fully committed to accelerating the growth of addressable TV and making it easier for advertisers to incorporate it into their campaigns,” said Larry Allen, VP and general manager, data and addressable enablement, Comcast Advertising. “LRM, along with Comcast Technology Solutions’ expertise in implementing SCTE 224, will provide operators, programmers, and advertisers with the backend technology needed to seamlessly drive scale and simplify the advertising workflow.”

The new system aggregates the metadata of advertising assets, normalizes it into SCTE 224 format, and stores it in the cloud. The data gets distributed to multiple endpoints, ad decision managers and software adapters.

Also: Charter, Comcast Set Joint Venture To Create New Streaming Platform 

"This new industry solution is helping to further drive innovation and scale in addressable advertising by reducing much of the friction that currently exists," said Bart Spriester, VP and  general manager of the Content and Streaming Providers suite for Comcast Technology Solutions. "We are removing many of the manual processes and variations around metadata that have historically hampered the progress of implementing linear addressable ads. We’re confident that LRM can help play a central role in accelerating addressable TV."

Beyond LRM, Comcast Technology Solutions offers its Advertising Suite, which is being used by programmers to support upcoming addressable advertising deployments. CTS said the Advertising Suite provides centralized management of creative ad inventory and streamline workflows automatically and delivers a comprehensive solution for addressable ad management, personalization, ad intelligence and scalability, giving customers the visibility and control needed to optimize ROI on addressable TV campaigns. ■

Roku said it has launched Dynamic Linear Ads in a beta program.

Roku is using technology it acquired when it bought Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising unit last year to insert commercials targeting different viewers in the same ad pods within  linear channels 

Also: Roku Ready To Make Streaming Pitch to In-Person NewFront

Programmers including AMC Networks, Crown Family Media Networks, Discovery and Paramount are participating in the beta program, and Roku said it is calling for more publishers to join before the commercial launch of Dynamic Linear Ads.

"AMC Networks has been focused on enabling the most relevant and effective advertising across all of our ad-supported platforms, establishing a leadership position in addressable ads as we work to bring this powerful capability to 100 percent of our footprint,” said Evan Adlman, senior VP of advanced advertising and digital partnerships. “We are thrilled to partner with Roku in this beta test of dynamic linear ads on the Roku platform, which will allow us to bring the most relevant and effective advertising to our clients and viewers in this important ad environment."

NIelsen had convinced A+E Networks, AMC, CBS, Discovery, Fox, NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia to test its technology with addressable ad campaigns in 2020.

Roku said its Dynamic LInear Ads will give publishers the performance and accountability of digital advertising on linear TV and will bring incremental viewers beyond linear TV and streaming. ■

Changes in the way viewers are consuming video are transforming the TV business, not only for programmers and networks but for the vendors providing the industry with equipment and services.

One of those companies, LTN Global, has had to pivot from a focus on hardware to software to keep up with the demand for producing more events — and creating more channels to put them on — while keeping costs manageable.

“It’s a great time to be a vendor in this business,” LTN Global executive chairman and co-founder Malik Khan said. An industry of cable replacement products has been created and that’s changing the nature of how video is distributed, he said.

Khan pointed to ESPN Plus as an example of the appetite for content and customization sweeping the industry. The subscription over-the-top sports service streams 10 times as many live games as all of ESPN’s cable channels, he estimated.

“That’s a tsunami,” he said. “That’s a massive amount of changes and it requires you to scale your operation 10 times, but not at 10 times cost; maybe at one and a half times cost. That in turn leads to a fundamental change in infrastructure.”

One change in the infrastructure is moving from high-priced SDI (serial digital interface) equipment made specifically for the broadcast business to more generic, cheaper equipment based on internet protocol. A 32-port, 100 Gigabits-per-second Ethernet switch costs about $150,000 and can carry about 2,000 high-definition signals. A 1024-by-1024 SDI switch with a similar capability would cost about $1 million. With Ethernet, equipment costs run about
$75 per stream, compared to $400 per stream using SDI equipment.

In addition to cost savings, IP-based equipment can carry multiple signals simultaneously and reduce data center space.

Moving Into the Cloud

The other change is replacing hardware-like mechanical switchers by moving functions to cloud-based software. For LTN, the ability to pivot to cloud-based software is anchored by the company having its own really fast, really ubiquitous, reliable network, Khan said.

“That has allowed us to do many things and it is fueling our ability to work with something like 15 of the top 20 media companies in the world,” he said. “We have some of the largest media companies building their entire infrastructure on LTN. They trust us.”

LTN helps media companies do everything from creating channels to managing the production of sports, news and other events by being able to bring camera feeds into a remote producer who can switch cameras, switch audio, create graphics, handle closed captioning and tackle data integration — and do it in real time.

WarnerMedia’s Turner has worked with LTN for years. LTN distributed CNN channels around the world and more recently worked with NBA TV. The companies’ relationship has evolved with technology, said Peter Scott, VP of innovation and emerging media at WarnerMedia.

“It’s nice that we can now send video through the public internet, which obviously saves us a lot of cost incurred through satellite and fiber,” Scott said. LTN’s added production capabilities and cloud solutions “give us a buffet of technology offerings,” he added. “As a client, we really like the flexibility.” 

Now, LTN is helping WarnerMedia figure out how to create more professionally made content for more people at a controllable cost. “We’re always looking for solutions that provide great quality and at the same time save us some money and provide flexibility,” Scott said.

LTN’s ability to take raw content and create personalized channels and experiences at scale is something big media companies want to take advantage of, Scott said.

Now, WarnerMedia is working with LTN on dynamic ad insertion to give viewers ads they’re more interested in, he added.

“Listen, I think this is a great company because they see the future and they’ve invested in creating this backbone to deliver content over the internet,” Scott said. 

Restructuring for a New Landscape

LTN recently reorganized, creating three different divisions to align with the needs of its customers. One deals with maintaining full-time channels, the second deals with event production and the third handles core network services.

The traditional way of producing an event meant sending a 53-foot truck to an event and staffing it with 20 to 40 people. Expensive satellite capacity was also needed. The way LTN now works, only a small contingent of people need to be on-site to handle cameras and feed the video to the cloud over the internet. 

“All of the value-added [production] is done in our central facility in Kansas City,” Khan said. “What that allowed us to do is to take the same team and do three events a day instead of one event. It also allowed us to get the best-of-breed equipment and use that same equipment for multiple games, rather than having one truck that has great equipment.”

Having the best people and best equipment means more consistent quality as the volume of work goes up, he said. It also cuts production costs: Shoots that once cost $50,000 to $250,000 are now down to $10,000 to $20,000.

“The digital domain has a voracious appetite for events,” Khan said. “[Producers] can now do that and create a franchise at a very low cost.”

More productions at lower cost is good for clients and it’s also good for LTN. According to Khan, LTN has grown revenue by 75% from 2020 to 2021. (LTN is a private company and doesn’t share financial data.)

Khan said LTN is close to signing a contract with a customer under which it will be responsible for producing, decorating, monetizing and distributing about 5,000 events a year. All of those tasks will be done primarily using software, so there are very few people involved in the process. 

“There’s a whole layer of automation and FAST [free ad-supported streaming television] services in the cloud that are now coming into play, so we’re doing things that required millions of dollars worth of hardware in the past,” he said. 

Khan said LTN is unique in that it builds most of the technology it uses itself. “That means we have to eat the dog food we create,” he said. 

LTN’s technology operation is aligned with its full-time network organization because it’s a 24-hour, nonstop operation with very exacting reliability requirements. “We’d rather build the technology in that business and then use it on an ad hoc basis for individual productions,” he said.

LTN is also involved in the transition of stations from the current ATSC 1.0 digital broadcast technology to the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast format. 

“We are the main conduit by which 3.0 is being implemented in all the cities it has been implemented in,” Khan said. All of the station feeds, both 1.0 and 3.0, go over LTN’s networks. Instead of connecting all of the stations with fiber, each station simply links up to the LTN network. 

The transition from ATSC 1.0 to ATSC 3.0 will also lead to more production, more programming and more revenue. Some of that revenue will come from gaming and sports betting. LTN’s network will make sure neither video nor betting data is delayed. Otherwise, viewers watching a basketball game might try to bet on free throws that have already been made — or missed.

For Khan, keeping up with the accelerating pace of technology will be his company’s biggest challenge. It can’t afford to get comfortable with its own technology. 

“We have to continue to build infrastructure ahead of demand,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s out of control, but you can really mess up on execution in a big way if you don’t keep up.” ■

The negotiations around whether YouTube will remain on the Roku platform offer a great lesson. Both sides are posturing and blaming the other for the breakdown in decision-making. Roku has spent a lot of time and money building a platform that boasts more than 53 million subscribers. YouTube is a powerhouse that has both the eyeballs and powerful Google search algorithms to back up the popular service. 

The real news for TV service providers is how this spat highlights the growing popularity of free and freemium models. It also points to the value of personalized ads and their growing importance in the world of TV advertising. These ads are specifically tailored for an individual and based on what we know about their viewing habits. YouTube has always used this model to drive higher CPMs. Roku also started off this way and has never been tied to the one-to-many broadcast advertising model. Traditional TV will need to figure this out or risk being skewered by viewers looking for more relevance in the 20 minutes of ads they’re forced to watch during an hour of their favorite shows.

I could rattle off a ton of stats that point to the power of personalization but to save time and word count, here are just two. Accenture reports that 83% of consumers are willing to share their data to create a more personalized experience. And 90% of consumers are willing to share personal behavioral data for a cheaper and easier experience, according to SmarterHQ. The net here is that while we may not love the thought of ads invading our world, personalization can make them less irritating — and for some, dare I say, enjoyable.

As the roughly $70 billion per year in U.S. broadcast ad spending moves to streaming and gets spread out over more and more content sources, new distribution and revenue models are needed. Digital ad markets don’t have the limitations of traditional broadcast advertising, where programs act as proxies for targeted demographic segments. Now the focus is on the user and ads are focused on views. 

Any time any person views any content on any device anywhere, it creates a personalized ad opportunity. Even niche content can generate meaningful revenue, since advertisers can target potential buyers directly rather than using content audience type as a surrogate. Dynamic ad insertion (DAI) brings advertisers, content owners, operators and consumers together in a win-win-win-win group hug.

Offsetting Program Costs

It’s not just free or freemium services that benefit. YouTube TV started at a cost of $35 per month. They hiked it to $40 with the addition of the Turner networks. Then it went up to $50 and most recently, $65. The service keeps adding more and more content while being pressured to keep its subscription rates low. Even Google, the inventor of digital advertising business models, can’t ignore the rising cost of content. The easiest way to offset cost is to get a higher price per impression, and you do that through personalization. 

Broadband and mobile service providers see video as a way to make their service stickier and drive revenue. By moving to a hosted managed cloud service, they eliminate the upfront investment cost and pay only for subscribers they sign up. This investment model sets up nicely for an ad subsidized free or freemium video service. Even if free means it isn’t first-tier premium content, people will still watch tier two entertainment. And providers can make money using dynamic ad insertion while gaining access to free, ad-supported content. Once a foothold is established with a free service, subscribers can then upgrade to premium packages. 

As Roku and Google continue to argue over content availability and revenue splits, it behooves operators to heed the wisdom of famous movie lines like “follow the money.” Some OTT apps have shown they can win with a subscription-only model, but let’s not ignore the ad revenue potential of secondary content. While it may have a narrow niche appeal for some, there is a lot to choose from and the content owners are willing to give it away for a share of ad revenue. 

Free and freemium content has become a viable and proven business model. It’s time for operators to embrace the future

Viewpoint author Matt Cuson is VP of marketing and product at Minerva Networks.

As the TV industry pivots to streaming, NBCUniversal boldly predicted that its viewing time with digital audiences will equal its time spent viewing by linear audiences within the next two years.

At its NewFront presentation, NBCU said that including subscribers to its Peacock direct-to-consumer streaming service, it can give advertisers access to nearly 200 million consumers every month across more than 300 digital endpoints.

 Viewers will stream 10 billion hours of content in 2021, with people already watching 900 million hours per month, NBCU said.

Also Read: NBCU Bringing New Versions of ‘Today,’ ‘Noticias Telemundo’ CNBC to Twitter

To reach as many Peacock viewers as possible, NBCU unveiled Spotlight Ads. When an advertiser buys a Spotlight Ad, their commercial is the first ad show to every viewer who tunes in to watch anything on Peacock within a specific time period. 

Peacock has had 42 million sign ups but NBCU CEO Jeff Shell has said that only about a third of those are monthly active accounts, which means they’re either paying a bill or using the service monthly. 

NBCU said Peacock’s monthly reach in key demos is expected to be on par with broadcast prime by the fall.

NBCU also said it is expanding its ability to dynamically insert ads into its some of networks, now available on its app to when the networks are distributed by virtual MVPDs. 

Dynamic ad insertion will be available on CNBC, MSNBC, Syfy and USA Networks when they’re carried by AT&T TV Now, FuboTV, Hulu Live, Sling and YouTube TV. CNBC, enabling advertiser to extend their reach with precision digital targeting against high value audiences. 

NBCU said consumption of its content on vMVPDs is up more than 50% year over year.

In addition, NBCU said it is extending its contextual intelligence product to digital, allowing brands to align their commercial messages with NBCU programming. 

The contextual matches are made by NBCU’s proprietary machine learning platform and the IAB’s category taxonomy.

Roku has agreed to acquire Nielsen's advanced video advertising business and the two companies will work together on standardizing audience measurement including the growing number of viewers who are streaming programming.

The deal will give Roku technology to enable the same dynamic ad insertion and addressable advertising via traditional linear broadcast and cable TV networks as it already offers on its streaming platform. 

Nielsen has been testing its DAI system with a number of programmers including AMC Networks, CBS, Discovery, NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia. 

"We're excited to work alongside our publishing partners and bring the same benefits to linear by enabling real-time replacement of traditional ads with targeted ads," said Alison Levin,  Roku's VP of Ad Sales & Strategy.

"We want to focus to help brands right size media spending and one of the barriers historically has been real-time, four-screen measurement for reach and frequency," Levin said. "So this announcement is a win-win for both sides, but also a win for publishers and a win for brands as well."

The agreement also provides more data for Nielsen as it focuses on counting viewers on a consistent basis across platforms, screens and devices.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

As part of the deal, Roku will get Nielsen's video automatic content recognition (ACR) and dynamic ad insertion (DAI) technologies. 

Roku will integrate Nielsen ad and content measurement products into the Roku platform and further advance Nielsen One, Nielsen's new cross-media measurement scheme.

As more consumers have shifted their viewing to streaming, Roku has been a big beneficiary both in terms of adding users and generating advertising revenue.

“Tens of billions of dollars continue to be spent annually on traditional TV advertising. 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 Parampath, VP 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,” Parampath said. 

Parampath said Roku believes the Nielsen insertion technology is fairly ready, and that Roku will be able to provide the large scale required.

“We’re also excited to become a key strategic partner for Nielsen in their new cross-media measurement products, and jointly drive toward greater transparency and accuracy in TV streaming measurement," he added.

Roku said it was looks forward to adding some Nielsen’s staffers and taking ownership of a portfolio of ACR and DAI patents,

Nielsen and Roku said they would be signing a long-term agreement to add Nielsen’s Total Ad Ratings on the Roku platform. Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings will be natively integrated into Roku’s One View ad buying platform. Roku will also enable publishers to utilize Nielsen Digital Content Ratings.

Roku has been using Nielsen's Digital Ad Ratings since 2015.

“The measurement of ads and content on Roku devices will accelerate the path to a single, deduplicated cross-media currency,” Scott N. Brown, GM, 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.” 

 Roku bought ad tech company Dataxu in 2019 and used it as the basis for its OneView, a self-serve programmatic platform that offers buyers data management, media planning and attribution tools to evaluate their video ad activity. Roku unveiled OneView in May 2020.

Last month, Roku reported an 81% increase in platform revenues, including ad sales, for the fourth quarter.

Nielsen in November agreed to sell its problematic Global Connect business for $2.7 billion to Advent International as part of a strategy to focus on a more unified system of measurement that treats all platforms the same and helps advertisers measure the reach and impact of their advertising.

Nielsen said it would be using big data from set top boxes, smart TVs and other sources on top of its traditional viewers panels to measure audiences.

Nielsen launched Nielsen One in December, saying it will shift itsfocus from average minute per program to evaluating viewing on a second by second basis and move from a unit-based ad model to an impression based system that gives a separate audience number to individual commercials.

The transformation isn’t expected to be fully completed until fall 2024.

Nielsen reported a $35 million profit for the fourth quarter.

Syncbak this week pushed forward with the launch of SBTV, a free, ad-based OTT service that enables local broadcasters to distribute their live feeds and on-demand programming around the U.S. on multiple devices.

Syncbak said Gray Television is the first major station group to offer live, ad-based channels across all markets.

Syncbak formally introduced SBTV on Wednesday (May 16) at an inaugural “TechFronts” event in New York focused on the company’s dynamic ad insertion technology, adSync, and topics centered on the larger internet-driven TV syndication market.

SBTV builds on Syncbak’s other work focused on streaming live, in-market TV signals to internet connected devices for services such as CBS All Access (CBS is one of Syncbak’s financial backers), as well as virtual MVPDs such as PlayStation Vue, fuboTV and Hulu (for its new live TV service).

Prior to the debut of SBTV, SimpleSync, Syncbak’s streaming platform, was being used to power more than 7.3 million hours of live TV programming on an annual basis, about triple the 2.5 million hours it was ingesting the year prior, company CEO and founder Jack Perry said in an interview at the recent NAB Show in Las Vegas.

RELATED: Syncbak Syncs With Virtual MVPDs

This week, Syncbak said it demonstrated direct-to-OTT live streams with dynamic ad insertion to viewers across the U.S. in all 210 DMAs via the SBTV app (for iOS and Android) and on the web at Syncbak.TV.

With SBTV, Syncbak is giving local TV stations a way to reach beyond their local markets with live feeds and on-demand content for shows, including news broadcasts, locally-produced programs, syndicated fare, and other content for which they have rights to distribute on a broader basis.

Alongside the baseline SimpleSync platform, SBTV is also underpinned by a DAI system called adSync, and a Cloud Syndication Marketplace that enables partners to syndicate and license their programming for OTT delivery (live, VOD, or both) via local TV stations that are on board with SBTV.

Gray Television, for example, is delivering MomsEveryday via OTT to its own 57 markets as well as to stations in another 154 DMAs via SBTV. Syncbak said about a dozen shows, each with a handful of seasons (including food, a James Beard-award winning series food. Curated, a show airing in New York City) have helped to seed its Cloud Syndication Marketplace.

Northwest Broadcasting also touted its support for SBTV. “SBTV gives our stations the tools we need to deliver our own, unique, hyperlocal OTT channels,” Brian Brady, CEO of Northwest Broadcasting, said in a statement. 

Canoe, the MSO-backed supplier of dynamic VOD ad tech and services, said ad impression on its platform surpasses 6 billion in Q1 2018, up 25% from the year-ago period.

Canoe, which shared new data in concert with this week’s Pay TV Show in Denver, said those impressions spanned set-top boxes, IP and mobile platforms.

In Q1, the bulk of VOD ad impressions were mid-rolls (5.25 billion), versus pre-roll (806.75 million) and post-roll (90.71 million). The average ad opportunities per mid-role break was 3.85 in Q1, compared to 1.18 for pre-roll ads, and 1.52 for post-roll ads.

Canoe said 99% of ads in mid-roll slots were watched to completion 99% of the time, on average.

With respect to ad frequency, 57% of the time in a given episode, viewers saw the same campaign ad one time, and about 36% of the time they saw the same campaign ad twice.

Some 2,522 campaigns were run on Canoe’s platform in Q1, with 83% coming from external clients, and 17% for network tune-in ads.

Canoe’s footprint currently covers 36 million cable households and the top DMAs in partnership with Charter Communications, Comcast and Cox Communications. More than 100 national TV networks are running campaigns with Canoe, including A&E, ABC, AMC, CBS, CMT, CW, Discovery, Fox, Hallmark, Hip Hop, HGTV, Kabillion, Kid Genius, MTV, MGM, Music Choice, NBC, Sony, Starz, TNT, TVOne, and Univision, among others.

“We continue to see consumer video consumption trending toward on-demand in the living room and cable VOD has played a big role in that,” Joel Hassell, CEO of Canoe, said in a statement. “Even with connected devices capturing more market share in 2017, VOD DAI commands a 19% share of overall premium video ad views.”

Tied to its increased focus on video, Facebook confirmed today that it will begin testing pre-roll ads in spots where users “proactively” seek out content, such as its new Watch offering.

RELATED: Facebook Unveils ‘Watch’ Platform

“While pre-roll ads don’t’ work well in News Feed, we think they will work well in Watch because it’s a place where people visit and come back to with the intention to watch videos.” Maria Angelidou-Smith, product management director, and Abhishek Bapna, product manager, at Facebook explained in this blog post.

They said the effort will start with six-second pre-rolls as Facebook works to understand what “works best for different types of shows across a range of audiences.”

This monetization-focused move comes as video becomes a core focus for Facebook and as mobile continue to be a main ad revenue driver. In Q3, Facebook mobile ad revenues, at $8.9 billion, were 88% of all ad revenue for the period, up from 84% of ad revenue in Q3 2016.

RELATED: Facebook Willing to Experiment with Video

The coming pre-roll ad test was just one of a set of updates from Facebook with respect to video.

It’s also updating the News Feed ranking to improve distribution of videos that users actively want to watch, focusing, for example, on those that have strong repeat viewership.

Facebook is also tweaking its guidelines for ad breaks and providing new metrics for publishers and creators to gauge ad performance.

Starting next month, Facebook will also focus the expansion of ad breaks on shows, with eligibility shifting to videos and episodes that are at least three minutes long. Previously, ad break-eligible videos were a minimum of 90 seconds.

“Our consumer research showed that moving from 90 second to three minute videos with Ad Breaks improved overall satisfaction,” the Facebook execs noted.

NEW YORK — Though there’s some frustration about set-top box video-on-demand advertising being undervalued, the category must continue to evolve, or risk getting overrun by other, more agile platforms.

Cable VOD advertising needs to get better and faster, “or it will fall out of the mix,” Scott Rosenberg, senior vice president and general manager of advertising at Roku, warned at VideoNuze’s 2017 Online Video Advertising Summit here.

Related: Set-Top VOD Ad Views Surging

Set-top VOD can suffer from delays in reporting and from other shortcomings that aren’t present in the OTT advertising realm, he said.

Set-top-box VOD tends to focus on C3 and C7 ratings, but from days eight and beyond, “it’s feeling fragmented,” Maureen Bosetti, chief partnerships officer at media planning and buying company Initiative, said. “There’s an opportunity to get the measurement right.”

It’s also important to get the right creative for dynamically inserted ads, Pooja Midha, senior vice president of digital ad sales and operations at Disney/ABC Television Group, added. “It’s a different pitch process,” she said, noting that such inventory tends to get lumped in with traditional TV.

Although set-top VOD faces challenges ahead, it’s still a significant growth business. Canoe, the MSO-backed advanced ad joint venture, reported in April that VOD ad impressions reached 5 billion in the first quarter, a 21% jump. Canoe, now on track for more than 20 billion ad impressions for 2017, delivered a record 17.9 billion impressions in all of 2016.

However, in the digital advertising realm, there is an increasing pivot toward TV-connected devices. Last week, FreeWheel, the online ad-tech firm owned by Comcast, said Roku players and other TV-connected OTT devices toppled PCs/desktops to jump into the lead with respect to online ad view share in the first quarter of 2017.

Related: OTT Devices Gobbling Up Ad View Share: FreeWheel

“There’s incredible growth to be had there” when set-top VOD and OTT are combined, James Rooke, general manager, publisher platform at FreeWheel, said here as he presented those results.

“We’re very bullish on OTT,” Bosetti said. “The growth there is tremendous … but we need to plan for it appropriately.”

MOBILE MUST BE ‘AGNOSTIC’
A separate panel here focused on the evolution of advertising in another big growth area — mobile.

Mobile video advertising faces a significant challenge because it’s supporting a wide variety of short-form as well as premium, long-form TV content.

Mobile video must be approached as “agnostically as possible,” but the way the market is evolving also means one can’t put a 30- or 60-second spot in front of every piece of content heading to a smartphone, Mike Law, executive vice president and managing director of video investment at Dentsu Aegis Network U.S., pointed out. “I don’t know if we’ve completely solved for that.”

But what type of content is being viewed also matters. Shorter ads and smaller ad loads should be tied to shorter videos viewed on mobile devices, but not so with a show such as ABC’s Scandal, if it’s being viewed on a smartphone.

“That shouldn’t limit the [ad] supply,” Law said. “They’re still a viewer.”

For something like Scandal, those core metrics will be the same across multiple platforms, agreed Justin Fadgen, vice president of business development at Beachfront Media.

Spotify, the music streaming service that has expanded into video, is experimenting with ad models that use smaller loads in order to provide a better overall experience, Brian Danzis, head of global video monetization at Spotify, said.

Using TV-like ad loads on a mobile device can be “kind of annoying” to the viewer, he added.

Spotify has also created an ad matrix that delivers a certain ad format, depending on the device the consumer is using. “Fragmentation is a result of convergence,” Danzis said.

As we all know by now, television has been evolving toward a more personalized experience. Recently, the ability to view high-quality content on devices attached to a broadband Internet connection has obliterated place and device limitations and further hastened the multicast-to-unicast transformation of video consumption.

As these alternatives to the traditional video-consumption model increase in availability, quality and ease of use, so does the advertising inventory and monetization potential for video service providers and broadcasters who manage them. As a result, the media broadcast industry has been on a quest for the “holy grail” of video monetization: Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI), or the ability to deliver fresh, relevant and targeted ads to smartphones, PCs, tablets, connected TVs and virtually any device that receives live or on-demand video programming. The good news is that the industry has come some way in this journey and demand for DAI for linear and on demand content is growing.

Rather than broadly broadcasting loosely targeted ads whose value is diluted by crudely matching regional demographics with audience demographics, video service providers can now deliver targeted, relevant and current advertisements on an individual and/or device level. This means more powerful, resonating ads than ones placed en masse on a channel, driving higher Cost Per Thousand (CPM) revenue for service providers while benefiting consumers and marketers alike.

Today, these refreshed ads in linear and on demand content are taken for granted, because the ad decision is made right at the time that the content is watched. But the onslaught of next generation services, such as cloud digital video recorders (cDVRs), which enable users to record linear content and play it back on any device at any time – whether the content aired a second ago, a month ago or years ago – presents new monetization opportunities and technological challenges. For one, ads in time-shifted content go stale in a matter of days, resulting in no payment from advertisers and rendering them unprofitable. They may also have little or no relevance to the audience.

In order to replace a stale national ad with a refreshed, targeted one, you have to first know where in the stream the ad played. This requires sophisticated ad discovery technology that recognizes and finds all ads in the video stream for subsequent replacement. Rather than letting consumers watch stale, irrelevant or unprofitable ads, ad discovery enables service providers to dynamically deliver a relevant ad. Not only does this open new content monetization opportunities, it enables marketers to reach consumers with more relevant information, reducing chances for consumer frustration.

This kind of ad recognition technology also has other advantages: first, even in North America, national ads that aren’t replaced in linear streams are not typically marked. Finding those ads and marking their location creates new ad insertion opportunities in cDVR content in which the national ads can be replaced. Second, services offering content that contains no ad location markup (for example, content created outside of North America) can now be monetized via ad insertion.

We’ve made great advances in dynamic ad insertion. But delivering targeted, relevant, fresh ads in a linear and/or video on demand environment is only the beginning. The future of DAI will be the unification of ad insertion around multiple services and applications – including linear, on-demand and cloud or network DVRs. As the vendor community develops critical ad-labeling technology, video service providers will be able to turn their cloud DVRs into valuable revenue streams and unify advertising to be more coordinated, non-duplicative, relevant, targeted and profitable across all their services.

Yuval Fisher is chief technology officer, MVPD, at Imagine Communications.

Canoe announced last week at CES in Las Vegas that the MSO-backed advanced ad joint venture had generated more than 18 billion ad impressions through its VOD dynamic advertising insertion platform in 2016, up from the 11.8 billion pumped out in 2015, and the 6.3 billion that ran in all of 2014.

Canoe is still working on its full report for 2016, including Q4 numbers, but the J.V. floated 5.2 billion VOD ad impressions in Q4 of last year, versus 4 billion in the year-ago quarter, Chris Pizzurro, Canoe’s head of business development, sales and marketing, confirmed to Multichannel News.

Though viewing trends are shifting to mobile and OTT devices, set-top box VOD remains a solid growth market. Last month, FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned online ad-tech company, reported last month in its Q3 Video Monetization Report that set-top VOD ad views for programmers with DAI enabled surged 103% year-over-year, and a share of 16%.

RELATED: Set-Top VOD Ad Views Surging

Canoe’s footprint, which spans about 35 million homes, is also about to grow. Following initial deployments by Comcast, Cox Communications, Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, Canoe confirmed last August that Charter Communications (which acquired TWC and BHN last year) has committed to roll out Canoe’s VOD DAI platform to the legacy Charter systems, though exact timing of the deployment was still being determined.

Charter, along with Cablevision Systems, was an original members of the Canoe J.V., butdropped out several years ago. Charter’s now back on board following its acquisitions of TWC and BHN.

Though viewing trends continue to shift to mobile and specialized OTT devices, the set-top box is experiencing a bit of a renaissance with respect to VOD ad views, according to a new study from FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned online ad-tech company.

RELATED: Comcast Wraps FreeWheel Deal

Growth in set-top VOD ad views, for programmers that have enabled dynamic ad insertion, rocketed 103% year-over-year, and a share of 16%, per FreeWheel’s Q3 Video Monetization Report, which based its findings on more than 47 billion video views in the period.

RELATED: Canoe Pumps Out 4.84B Ad Impressions in Q2

Desktop/laptops held the largest share of online VOD ad views, at 36% and up 11% YoY, while showing more signs of leveling out,  followed by OTT devices (22%, up 63% YoY), set-top VOD, smartphones (17%, up 39%), and tablets (9%, up 15% YoY).

Overall, ad views rose 28% YoY, while video views climbed 37%, driven by greater consumption of short-form video, FreeWheel said.  Short-form content rose 31% in the period due in part to news clip viewing tied to the U.S. election

Driven by news coverage and the Rio Olympics, live content  rose 60% YoY, versus a rise of 18% for long-form VOD (20 minutes or more), and 31% for short-form VOD (less than five minutes).

The Summer Games also helped the share of ad views from authenticated (TV Everywhere) viewing for long-form and live content to again reach a peak of 72%, the same high-water mark achieved in Q1 2016. 

Strata, a unit of Comcast Platform Services that manages a media buying/selling platform, has formed a partnership with Hulu that will open up the premium OTT video hub’s ad inventory to Strata’s agencies that are looking to place local and national spots across multiple platforms.

Strata, which claims to process $50 billion of annual ad transactions, said its platform will enable its ad agency partners to use its software to purchase spots on mobile, desktop and TV-connected devices “as conveniently as they would buy a local TV ad.”

RELATED: Hulu to Launch Programmatic Ad Buying

The integration will also let Strata’s agencies reach local audiences on Hulu by Nielsen DMA, state, or zip code, they said, noting that Hulu will convert their impressions to TV ratings so local broadcast buyers can purchase Hulu inventory as part of their overall TV plans. They said this combo will also enable Hulu advertisers to sidestep ad-skipping and viewability issues, pointing to Hulu’s 92% viewability rate, which, they said, is 60% higher than industry benchmarks.

Strata said its software is used on more than 13,000 desktops across more than 1,000 advertising agencies and 99% of broadcast television stations.

Hulu’s primary business runs on a hybrid subscription/ad model, as well as an ad-free option that debuted last fall. Hulu recently closed down its free streaming option, though its free, ad-supported content is still offered on Yahoo View, a service that launched in August.

RELATED: Hulu Launches Ad-Free Option 

Hulu has about 12 million subscribers, and is developing a virtual MVPD service that’s slated to launch in early 2017.

RELATED: Hulu Nears 12M U.S. Subscribers

“Integrating Hulu’s library of premium content into our systems is another example of our commitment to provide the best advertising opportunities to our clients,” Judd Rubin, VP of Strata, said in a statement. “Working closely with Hulu enabled us to engineer media buying software solutions that allow for fluid transactions of ads that can appear on any device. We are excited about our relationship with Hulu and the tremendous opportunities it provides our agencies.”

“Hulu’s partnership with STRATA is a sign of the times that the local broadcast marketplace needs to go beyond their conventional TV buying options to meet their clients’ TV advertising objectives,” added Peter Naylor Hulu's SVP of sales.

Ooyala, the Telstra-owned online video publishing and analytics specialist, said its technology is helping to underpin Vudu’s new free, ad-supported video service.

Complemetngn its transactional VOD service, Vudu last week launched Vudu Movies on Us, a service that will pair off in the market with AVOD services such as Tubi TV and Crackle, as well as linear-style, free, ad-based OTT offerings such as Pluto TV.

Vudu Intros Free, Ad-Based OTT Option

Ooyala said it’s the “exclusive technology provider” for Vudu’s new multi-platform offering, which is using Ooyala Pulse, an advertising platform that manages real-time campaigns. With that system, Vudu can monitor if campaigns are on track to reach their goals and impression commitments, Ooyala said.

“Ooyala has quickly become an extension of our day-to-day team and ad operations; helping us connect with the right buyers, ensuring value is added on both sides of the equation, and that the process is seamless as we enter a brand new market,” Scott Blanksteen, Vudu’s VP of product, said in a statement.

“As new ad-supported offerings emerge in streaming TV, publishers are immediately faced with the challenge of building their audiences in an app-based environment that lacks unified search capabilities and a user-friendly means for content discovery,” added Seth Walters, senior partner of connected television at Modi Media, the advanced-TV arm of GroupM.  “Advertisers are faced with significant fragmentation when trying to reach audiences at scale.  Vudu Movies on Us presents an opportunity to place our clients’ messaging within an app that already has an established audience.”

RELATED: Telstra Eyeing IPO for Ooyala: Report

Ooyala’s customers include NBCUniversal, Star India, Sky Sports (U.K.), ITV Studios (U.K.), RTL Group (Germany), M6 (France), TV4 (Sweden), Mediaset (Spain), America Television (Peru), and Media Prima (Malaysia), am among others. 

Canoe, the MSO-backed advanced advertising joint venture, said it delivered 4.84 billion VOD ad impressions in Q2 2016, up from 4.13 billion in Q1.

Canoe noted that it has delivered 9 billion ad impression year-to-date, putting it on pace for 18 billion for all of 2016. Canoe delivered 11.8 billion VOD ad impressions in 2015, and 6.3 billion in 2014.

In Q2, Canoe delivered 4.17 mid-roll ad impressions, versus 569.28 million pre-rolls, and 100.32 million post-roll ads. Canoe also supported 2,166 ad campaigns in the period, with 78% coming way of external clients, and the balance from network tune-in ads.

Canoe’s footprint today covers about 35 million homes and 130 plus DMAs through deployments by Comcast, Cox Communications and Charter Communications (via Charter’s recently purchased Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks systems).

The TWC and BHN acquisitions put Charter back on board with Canoe. Charter, along with Cablevision Systems, were original members of the Canoe J.V., but dropped out several years ago.

It was not immediately known if Charter intends to extend support for Canoe in the legacy Charter systems. We will update the story as more details are known.

Update: Chris Pizzurro, head of business development, sales and marketing at Canoe, confirmed via email that Charter has committed to rollout Canoe's platform in its legacy systems, through the timing of deployment is still to be determined.

Canoe, the MSO-backed supplier of a dynamic ad insertion platform for VOD, said it delivered about 4.13 billion ad impressions in Q1 2016, a 70% increase over the year-ago period.

Based on Q1 figures, Canoe is on pace to deliver 16.52 billion VOD ad impression in 2016. The advanced ad joint venture delivered 11.8 billion impressions in 2015, and 6.3 billion ad impressions in 2014.

Canoe also pumped out 1,751 total campaigns in Q1 2016, of which 75% were for external client ad campaigns, and 25% were for network tune-in ads.

Canoe’s platform currently supports about 35 million homes via systems served by partners Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks. Two in that group, TWC and Bright House, are in the process of being acquired by Charter Communications, a former member of the Canoe crew.  Canoe also works with more than 80 national networks, including ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, NBC, Discovery, HGTV and TNT, among others.

Per Canoe’s latest report, the bulk of the VOD ad impressions were for mid-roll spots (3.55 million), versus 465 million pre-roll spots, and 115.9 million post-roll spots. The average ad opportunities per break boiled down to one for pre-rolls, four for mid-rolls and one for post-rolls.  

Ad impressions for the quarter were spread fairly evenly by day of the week, though were unsurprisingly the heaviest on the weekends.

 “Cable Video on Demand continues to be an incredibly valuable advertising vehicle for programmers, cable operators, and brands” Canoe CEO Joel Hassell said in a statement. “We are well on our way to doubling the number of dynamic ads impressions delivered through Canoe for the fourth consecutive year and we couldn’t be happier with positive results reported by our programming customers.”

Media, ad technology and data specialist Cadent has formed a new division, called Cadent Technology, that merges the technology teams of BlackArrow and Cadent Network, a national TV advertising media solutions provider.

Formation of the new unit comes about six months after Cross MediaWorks (Cadent’s  holding company) announced the acquisition of BlackArrow, a dynamic ad insertion company that counts partners such as Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Charter Communications, Bright House Networks, Rogers Communications, and Liberty Global/Virgin Media. 

In the new structure,  New York-based Cadent Technology will focus on developing addressable, cross-platform advertising and data solutions that support BlackArrow’s new and existing customers, while Cadent Network will continue to encompass Cadent’s media solutions, the company said. 

“The creation of Cadent Technology reflects our commitment to help the pay-TV industry monetize video delivered to any screen at any time. The merging of the teams and their complimentary expertise creates a full range of products and services from self-serve advertising software to fully managed inventory services, across all forms of linear and non-linear TV inventory,” Nick Troiano, CEO of Cadent and the former CEO of BlackArrow, said in a statement.  

OTT devices such as Roku boxes, Apple TVs and gaming consoles have become key conduits for digital video advertising, but the traditional set-top box remains a significant player in the overall market.

In its Video Monetization Report for Q3 2015, FreeWheel, the multiscreen ad-tech firm acquired by Comcast in March 2014, discovered that the set-top VOD accounted for 18% of total video ad views studied by FreeWheel, making it the second largest device category following desktops and laptops. This report was FreeWheel’s first to incorporate metrics on STB VOD devices.

“To be sure, there is significant scale to be tapped in the STB environment and Publishers and cable/satellite operators are only scratching the surface,” FreeWheel noted. “The volume we see here represents another step towards truly unified, full screen, fully viewable, and fraud-free television.”

The Q3 report from Canoe, the MSO-backed VOD advertising joint venture, amplified those numbers, noting that ad impressions in cable VOD programming jumped 40% versus the year-ago period.

Still, digital video continues to gravitate across a variety of screens. Per FreeWheel, monetization of digital content across platforms outside of desktops and laptops reached nearly 50% of video ad views in Q3, driven by strong growth across OTT devices (up 157%) and smartphones (up 67%).

The study also took another look at TV Everywhere trends, which continue to rise. While ad views from TVE products jumped 242%, authenticated viewing for long-form and live TV accounted for 65% of monetization in Q3, up from 46% in the year-ago quarter, FreeWheel found.

FreeWheel’s report also amplified how different content tends to be consumed on different devices. Viewers watching video on desktops/ laptops and smartphones gravitated to short-form clips (accounting for 59% and 69% of their respective ad views), long-form viewing was most popular on tablets, which saw 43% of ad views coming from shows that were 30-minutes or 60-minutes in length. TV-connected OTT devices, meanwhile, saw 61% of their ad views originate from live TV content, FreeWheel said. 

Comcast has struck a deal to acquire This Technology, a multiscreen video company that has specialized in dynamic ad insertion and scaled IP video back-office systems, including an alternative content delivery platform called “SwitchStream” that enters play in TV blackout situations.

Financial terms were not announced, but This Technology CEO Jeff Sherwin announced on his company’s Web site that its products and services will continue to be developed, supported and sold as part of the solution portfolio of Denver-based Comcast Wholesale, a unit that runs the company’s content delivery network and multiscreen video services. It was not immediately how many This Technology employees will be joining Comcast.

Update:  Most of This Technology's team (it has 63 employees total) will be joining Comcast’s Colorado-based VIPER team, and a portion will be joining Comcast Wholesale. VIPER, an acronym for Video IP Engineering and Research, is Comcast’s home-grown video infrastructure for IP-delivered multiscreen video services and apps.

This Technology is headquartered in Denver, and also operates an office in Beijing. This Technology had become an increasingly important technology partner to Comcast and its platform will further enhance Comcast’s transition to IP video, the MSO official added.  

“We are thrilled that THIS TECHNOLOGY is becoming a part of Comcast,” Comcast EVP and chief technology officer Tony Werner said, in a statement. “THIS TECHNOLOGY’s innovative video infrastructure platform and dynamic team of technologists have long played critical roles in our ongoing mission to evolve our video delivery infrastructure. Integrating THIS TECHNOLOGY into our advanced video group will accelerate our development cycles and strengthen our ongoing transition to IP video.”

“THIS TECHNOLOGY has been focused on helping MVPDs and programmers navigate changing business and technical landscapes with solutions that ensure the right content gets to the right people on the right devices,” Sherwin said. “These efforts align squarely with Comcast’s ongoing work to help the industry move to an all-IP environment.”

Founded in 2006, This Technology raised a $7.5 million “A” round in 2012 led by General Catalyst Partners. Its known customers include Comcast and its corporate cousin, NBCUniversal, Verizon Communications and ABC.

Execs on This Technology’s advisory group and tech advisory board include Jeffrey Binder, the CEO and co-founder of Denver-based virtual MVPD startup Layer3 TV, and fellow Layer3 TV co-founder and CTO David Fellows.

This Technology, once a rumored acquisition target of SeaChange International, is the latest IP and ad-tech vendor to be acquired by Comcast. Comcast recently acquired targeted and programmatic advertising company Visible World, and closed its purchase of online video ad-tech firm FreeWheel last May.

Canoe, the MSO-backed advanced ad venture, cruised to more growth in the second quarter as it handled 2.77 billion VOD advertising impressions, beating the 2.56 billion impressions it pumped out in Q1.

The bulk of those Q2 impressions (2.34 billion) were mid-rolls, versus 330.3 million pre-rolls, and 94.75 million post-rolls.

Canoe also handled 1,241 VOD ad campaigns in Q2, up from 912 in Q1 2015. Most (89%) were external client ad campaigns, spanning categories such as auto, toys, technology, pharma, hospitality, theatricals, retail, pet care, home improvement, packaged goods, healthcare and booze. The rest were network tune-in ads.

Through first half of 2015, Canoe dealt 5.34 billion ad impressions, closing in on the 6.3 billion impressions produced for all of 2014. Canoe crossed the 10 billion ad impression mark last November, a milestone that came about two years after it launched its VOD dynamic ad insertion platform.

Canoe’s latest growth surge comes as its footprint that now covers 35 million-plus homes and 48 of the top 50 DMAs. Following initial rollouts with Comcast and Time Warner Cable, Canoe has also been rolled out in markets served by Cox Communications and Bright House.

Charter Communications, which is in the process of acquiring TWC and Bright House, is not currently a member of Canoe. 

Update: Chris Pizzurro, Canoe's head of product, sales and marketing, said discussions with MSOs outside the J.V. "have stepped up quite a bit" as Canoe's ad impressions continue to ram up.  He said no deals were imminent, but noted that conversations are ongoing with major and independent cable operators. 

Penthera,  a startup that specializes in software that manages the secure downloading of TV shows, movies and other content to mobile devices, has reupped its existing agreement with Comcast and has notched deals with Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications.

That’s according to Michael Willner, the CEO of Penthera and the long-time cable exec who was set to take the helm of GreatLand Connections, the MSO spin-off that was to emerge from the proposed (and now scuttled) Comcast-Time Warner Cable transaction.

Comcast started to use Penthera’s Cache & Carry system for downloadable titles offered through an older app called the Xfinity Player in 2012, but is now using the technology to support it on the Xfinity TV Go app as well as for Comcast’s Cloud DVR, which lets customers “check out” recorded titles for viewing on mobile devices when they are offline.

TWC and Charter, which are now set to merge under an agreement announced Tuesday (May 26), are in the process of customizing Penthera’s SDK for their respective environments.

Willner said Penthera has several more deals in the pipeline with other MVPDs as well as with some "major” programmers in the U.S. and abroad. He said Penthera hopes to announce its first deals with programmers “within weeks” that will use the company's download engine with their video apps.

Penthera is also in the process of building a next-gen version of its platform that will enable its partners to switch out ads in TV shows that have already been downloaded . Those capabilities, covered in several patents that have been granted to the company, will ensure that the ads in downloaded shows are kept fresh and should position MVPDs to secure additional rights that enable them to expand the amount of titles they can offer in a downloaded fashion. 

While dynamic ad insertion is used widely in streamed video, “in the downloaded world, it becomes more complicated,” Willner said. “It’s not about when you download the program; it’s about when you watch it in order for the content owners to monetize the viewing of that ad by the consumer. “

Under Penthera’s ad-swapping technique, the system is aware of where the viewer is located and when the last time the viewer made contact via the Internet, and can download a fresh set of ads in the background and insert them into the program that was originally downloaded.

 “It’s constantly updating,” Willner explained.

Willner said discussions about adding that capability are underway and the hope is to have it ready to go later this year or in early 2016, noting that the feature will be “critical” in order for Penthera's partners to secure the rights necessary to offer a greater selection of titles for downloading.

“This had to be solved,” he said.

As a business update, Willner said Penthera is considering an admission of new shareholders through a private offering.  Willner and Sidney R. Knafel, co-founders of Insight Communications (now part of TWC), reunited to invest in and lead Penthera in 2012.

 “We don’t need a whole lot of money in order to get to break even,” he said.

David Grabert, a cable, media and ad industry vet late of Cox Communications and the MSO-backed Canoe joint venture, has been named global director of corporate communications at GroupM, the New York-based media investment giant.

Grabert, who most recently led corporate communications at Clear Channel Outdoor, will now lead strategic external and internal communications for GroupM.

Grabert will be based in New York and report to GroupM global head of marketing Elizabeth McCune.

“Having David in this important role shows GroupM’s commitment to being a vocal industry leader,” McCune said, in a statement.

Grabert has previously held senior communications and marketing positions at Cox Communications, Comcast and Canoe, the cable J.V. that is now focused on dynamic ad insertion for VOD.

Canoe, the MSO-backed advanced advertising venture, said its dynamic VOD ad insertion platform served up 2.56 billion ads in the first quarter of 2015, soundly beating the mere 803.84 million it pumped out in the year-ago quarter, and just ahead of the 2.52 billion it delivered in Q4 2014.

The Q1 total, which reflects the venture’s broader rollout with MSO partners and with a bigger group of programmers, puts Canoe on pace for 10.24 billion viewed ad impressions for all of 2015 and crush the 6.3 billion viewed ad impressions it served up for all of 2014.

In its VOD Viewed Ad Impression 2015 Q1 Report, Canoe said the vast majority of ads were mid-rolls (2.1 billion), versus 273.1 million pre-rolls and 94.73 million post-rolls (see chart above). During the quarter, ad impressions were weighted the weekends -- Saturdays (439M ads) and Sundays (432.1M ads).

Canoe ran 912 VOD ad campaigns in the quarter – 86% were for external ad client campaigns, while the rest were for network tune-ins. That’s up from 864 campaigns in the fourth quarter of 2014, which was comprised of 78% external client ad campaigns.

Canoe, a J.V. of Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks, said its DAI-VOD footprint currently covers 35 million-plus homes in over 130 MDAs.

Canoe, the MSO-backed advanced advertising joint venture, said its video on demand (VOD) dynamic ad insertion platform now spans 130 DMAs, including 48 of the top 50.

That’s coming way of deployments across the board with Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and at Cox Communications markets. Canoe, whose VOD DAI platform is enabled in MSOs serving more than 35 million digital cable homes, said its platform now touts a national reach.

“Canoe has achieved national reach and meaningful scale with its VOD DAI platform,” said Canoe CEO Joel Hassell, in a statement. “Many advertisers are finding it delivers a great complement to their TV campaigns by delivering younger, wealthier and more engaged audiences. We look forward to the continued expansion of VOD advertising into 2016.”

In February, Canoe announced that its platform handled 6.3 billion viewed ad impressions in 2014, including 2.52 billion in the fourth quarter alone. It said it’s delivered a better than 20% surge in viewed ad impressions in each quarter of 2014, and that it handled 1,924 campaigns during the full year. 

Canoe said it has already served up 2 billion ads so far in 2015, and that its ad insertion platform currently stewards ads for more than 50 TV networks, with another 70-plus in the on-boarding process. 

As part of a major restructuring, Canoe shut down its interactive advertising unit in February 2012 to refocus efforts solely on VOD dynamic ad insertion. The J.V. began to insert ads into set-top-based VOD content in October 2012.  

This Technology, a Denver-based multiscreen video company, said it has landed a patent tied to dynamic ad insertion, while also announcing that it now counts three of the nation’s top five cable operators as customers.

The patent – U.S. No, 8,949,882 – describes a “system and method for enabling content providers to identify advertising opportunities.” 

According to the company, the patent, obtained on Feb. 3, 2015, describes how to identify dynamic ad inventory and defining attributes such as ownership, length and interactivity -- elements that are critical to the delivery of targeted advertising.

“The present invention relates generally to service provider video networks, and more particularly to a method and system for identifying advertisement opportunities in a service provider video data stream,” This Technology notes in the patent.

Without that method, the company said, MVPDs and programmers would not be able to identify inventory ownership when preparing to insert each of their dynamic ads into the same video stream.

“THIS TECHNOLOGY’s latest patent dates back to an application we made 2007, when the delivery of targeted and relevant ads to any device existed only as an idea on the back of napkins,” Jeffrey Sherwin, This Technology’s CEO, said in a statement. “We were early to recognize MVPDs would ultimately require freedom and flexibility in their advertising architecture to effectively deliver DAI. This patent demonstrates our commitment to delivering technology that levels the DAI playing field for Internet video and service provider video ad decisioning systems."

With the new one factored in, This Technology said it has secured eight patents so far.

Its announced customers include Comcast, Verizon communications, NBCUniversal and ABC, and now claims to have deals with three of the top five cable operators.

Imagine Communications has closed its acquisition of RGB Networks, a deal announced last month that expands Imagine's ad insertion, video encoding and cloud DVR technology and expertise.

Imagine still has not disclosed the value of the deal, but said when it was announced that about 100 RGB employees would be joining Imagine alongside a plan to merge RGB’s and Imagine’s operations in Sunnyvale, Calif.

“RGB Networks’ technology, people and customers complement and accelerate our vision and roadmap defined by IP, software, cloud and multiscreen,” Imagine CEO Charlie Vogt said in a memo announcing the closure of the deal, its fourth acquisition in the last 12 months. “Video is increasingly at the center of social networking and the media and entertainment we consume. Imagine Communications is poised to lead the industry into the new frontier,” he added. 

BlackArrow has hit its first European target -- Virgin Media, the U.K.’s largest cable operator.

The advanced ad firm and the MSO have struck a partnership to insert ads into video-on-demand content that's made available on Virgin Media’s QAM-based set-top boxes, including its new TiVo-powered hybrid QAM/IP platform, as well as mobile devices that support the operator’s authenticated TV Anywhere service.   

The win is BlackArrow’s first in Europe, and comes about three months after the company announced it had  expanded into the region and opened an office in London.

The agreement with Virgin Media, an MSO acquired last year by Liberty Global, will give BlackArrow the potential to reach about 5.3 million more set-tops/TV screens, and a broader range of IP-connected devices that are outfitted with the cable operator’s app.

With the addition of Virgin Media, BlackArrow estimates that its platform will have a reach of more than 37 million homes, a figure that also factors in deployments with Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks, and Rogers Communications.

The win with Virgin Media “solidifies our expansion strategy in Europe…it’s a true multiscreen deployment,” said BlackArrow president Nick Troiano, who is also assuming the duties of CEO following the recent resignation of Dean Denhart.

Troiano said BlackArrow and Virgin Media expect to reach commercial deployment of the new dynamic advertising insertion platform during the first quarter of 2015, starting at the set-top box, followed by an expansion to Virgin Media’s TV Anywhere service.

“We are excited to be partnering with BlackArrow. Working with them will allow us to offer more efficient and flexible ad models to better support the changing needs of our advertisers and broadcast partners,” Scott Kewley, Virgin Media’s director of digital entertainment, said in a statement. “We look forward to exploring these advanced initiatives in 2015.”

The Comcast Wholesale unit of Comcast Cable said it has developed a new way to insert ads into both linear and video-on-demand programming by integrating the workflows of its Comcast AdDelivery and VOD aggregation and delivering platforms.

The new set-up allows advertisers, their agencies, and creative shops to manage cross-platform advertising campaigns running in prior episodes of TV series that may be viewed via VOD as well using a single cloud-based web portal, the company said.

“Providing a full service solution for digital ad insertion across both linear and on demand is a valuable improvement for television advertising,” said Matt McConnell, SVP and GM of Comcast Wholesale. “This brings the advertising community closer to its vision for an ‘Advertising Everywhere’ ad management solution for reaching TV audiences across all TV and Internet-based platforms and markets.”

The MSO said Comcast AdDelivery currently supports more than 10,000 advertisers, agencies and post houses and distributes spot TV advertising directly into the traffic management systems used by most national and local, cable and broadcast outlets in North America as well as media reached by global ad delivery platforms.  Comcast said its Wholesale unit’s VOD platform currently distributed more than 20,000 hours of programming for more than 275 content providers.

Setting it sights on growth opportunities, advanced ad company BlackArrow has expanded into Europe and openened an office in London that will also serve as the home for a data center for the market.

BlackArrow said the new facility will enable it to dedicate resources to the European TV and ad market as it finds new customers for a dynamic ad insertion management  and campagin platform aimred at cable operators, telcos, satelite TV providers and OTT services.

BlackArrow, which announced the expansion ahead of the IBC show in Amsterdam, has five people dedicated to sales support for Europe (it has about 115 total employees), and plans to expand the London office and invest in additional local support offices in the region, according to a company spokesperson.  Noorez Nasser, senior director, European accounts, is heading up efforts in the region.

“While each country is unique, all pay-TV providers share a similar goal of delivering the best possible TV services to their customers and partners,” said Dean Denhart, CEO of BlackArrow, in a statement. “Our expansion into Europe will further enable us to deliver regionally optimised solutions to support the growing demands of our international customers.”

BlackArrow’s currently deployment base spans 32 million homes in North America with Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Rogers Communications.

The new focus on Europe could give BlackArrow to growth. Earlier this year, industry sources said the company was working with advisors to explore potential “strategic options” (subscription required) for the advanced ad firm.