NCC Media, the TV ad sales and technology company owned by Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, has changed its name to Ampersand, adding that it plans to aggregate viewership data from its partners for targeted advertising and to build on its Open AP partnership.

The new name reflects the company's mission of unifying the TV advertising ecosystem across all screens, inventory and audiences, Ampersand said in a press release.

In addition, Ampersand said it has unified aggregated viewership data from nearly 40 million households in the Comcast, Charter and Cox footprints. The company added it is building on its Open AP partnership, allowing advertisers who work with Ampersand’s Client Partnerships team to directly share audience definitions created in OpenAP for expression and use in local advanced advertising.

As part of that expanded relationship, Ampersand said it will serve as part of the central hub for network-enabled addressable ads for Comcast, Charter and Cox. Working in partnership with Canoe, Ampersand will help TV programmers enable addressable capabilities on their national linear and VOD TV inventory.

"Thirty years ago, NCC showed the TV world the power of working together, unifying the fragmented cable TV ad market within a single, open platform for the benefit of advertisers, agencies and MVPDs," Ampersand CEO Nicolle Pangis said in a press release. "The Ampersand name and the new audience products represent both a nod to our past and our vision for a successful TV future in which the industry rallies around a shared approach for connecting brands to audiences across the entirety of the viewing experience."

NCC Media, the national TV advertising sales, marketing and technology company owned by Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, has announced its expansion into digital ad buying.

By offering online ad buying capabilities, NCC Media can now deliver cross-screen campaigns across linear, VOD, addressable TV, digital video, display, social media, out-of-home and mobile.

Related: Comcast, Charter, Cox Form New Advanced Ad Group

NCC Media, which functions as the exclusive addressable sales arm of Comcast, Charter and Cox, touts a combined footprint of 80 million U.S. households across its three cable operator owners. It said it surpassed $2 billion in revenue in 2018.

The shop also claims to have partnerships with “every major cable, satellite and teleco service provider.” Its ad buys, NCC Media said, can be coordinated at the household level across more than 85% of the U.S. MVPD market.

"Digital advertising is an important component of our clients' marketing mix,” said NCC Media CEO Nicolle Pangis, in a statement. “Today's launch supports our strategy of expanding the efficient platform NCC built for the TV world to handle more of our clients' media comprehensively. The new capabilities bring increased precision to brand marketing while greatly simplifying the way advertisers manage and monitor consumer narratives across the entire consumer journey."

"By bringing digital ad planning, buying and execution into our comprehensive TV data platform, NCC has opened up compelling, new advertising capabilities, providing marketers with powerful reach and intelligence to run more meaningful, efficient and consumer-friendly campaigns," added Andrew Ward, president at NCC Media. "It's a necessary and transformative step that improves the advertising equation for marketers, media owners and consumers.”

The three cable giants that own NCC Media said they have named GroupM programmatic leader Nicolle Pangis president and CEO of the national cable advertising sales organization.

Pangis had been global chief operating officer at GropuM’s [m] Platform, where she oversaw strategic partnerships, product management and technology development. Prior to [m] Platform, Pangis was global chief revenue officer of Xaxis, an early programmatic digital media business, then its global chief operating officer.

“NCC has an excellent reputation in the linear ad space, and will now extend that leadership position into the advanced ad business,” said David Kline, executive vice president and president of media sales at Charter Communications. “Nicolle, now armed with premium multiscreen television content, great viewership insights and the scale required to deliver on advertisers needs, combined with her past experiences in programmatic digital, is the perfect combination needed to drive NCC to great heights.”

NCC Media is owned by Charter, Comcast and Cox, and is looking to grow its data-driven media business with both linear networks and addressable advertising.

“NCC Media is a trusted media partner for many of the world’s largest advertisers, and I’m thrilled to join the company as we launch the next phase in our development,” Pangis said. “I’m excited to build out the teams and platforms that truly unlock the best of NCC Media and empower our partners and brands with the best products as the evolution of addressable media continues.”

In April NCC created a new division that will design, deploy and sell unified advertising solutions across its participants’ national footprint. The group will build products that deliver targeted audiences across linear and video on-demand platforms.

Related: Comcast, Charter, Cox Form New Advanced Ad Group

“We are excited to have Nicolle on board to lead NCC’s transition,” said Billy Farina, senior vice president at Cox Media. “This is another step in future-proofing NCC and a clear sign that we are reinventing the business to meet the demands of brands and marketers.”

Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications have teamed up with ad sales company NCC Media to form a new division within NCC to design, deploy and sell unified advertising solutions across the country to participating NCC partners.

The group will use non-personally identifying data and targeting capabilities to create advanced advertising products and will launch later this year. NCC is jointly owned by Comcast, Charter and Cox and provides national, regional and local marketers with advertising solutions that allow them reach consumers via TV programming and targeted online content on every screen.

"Today's announcement is a natural extension of the great work we are already doing with Charter, Cox and NCC Media in cable advertising. Together with our partners, we have new opportunities to build advanced advertising solutions that deliver scale, consistency and reliability," said Comcast Cable CEO David Watson in a statement.

Comcast Media 360, Comcast Spotlight's former national advertising sales team, will form the foundation of the group together with resources from NCC Media, Charter and Cox. The group will build products that deliver targeted audiences across linear and video on demand (VOD) platforms. It will drive research, data and analytic capabilities to provide consistency in how the advertising industry measures the effectiveness of an advertisement and simplify how agencies manage campaigns.

"This new group within NCC Media has the ability to make a major impact for all players within the advertising landscape," said Charter chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge in a statement. "It has the power to transform the way we measure advertising effectiveness across linear and VOD through best-in-class data and technology."

Andrew Ward, who currently serves as vice president of CM360, will head the new group as general manager. Ward, a 15-year veteran of NCC Media, has more than 30 years experience in the ad business. At Comcast Spotlight he launched the company's addressable advertising platform as well as new data and analytic capabilities.

"In today's rapidly changing media marketplace, advertisers are looking for scale, reliability and proven results to reach audiences across devices and time," Ward said in a statement. "Charter, Comcast, Cox and NCC Media are uniquely positioned to lead this industry evolution with integrated advertising solutions driven by non-personal data, precise audience delivery and robust performance measurement."

NCC Media's board is spearheading the initiative, led by David Kline, executive vice president and president of media sales at Charter Communications; Billy Farina, senior vice president at Cox Media; and Marcien Jenckes, president of advertising at Comcast Cable.

"Together with Charter, Comcast and NCC Media, we have the scale needed to provide even better value to our customers, and we are committed to defining clear standards around measurement that will help marketers better plan, buy and execute campaigns," said Cox president Pat Esser in a statement.

RELATED:Campaign 2016’s Early Winner: Cable | Election 2016: The Apps Campaign

Next year is shaping up to set records for local cable political advertising, just as this year has been about presidential candidates drawing historic TV audiences to their debates.

The debate-viewing phenomenon started with interest in Donald Trump and has maintained momentum for both Republican and Democratic clashes. On the ad-sales side, the growth is driven by data, data and more data.

Kantar Media has estimated political candidates will spend about $4.4 billion on TV ads in 2016, with about $3.3 billion going to cable networks and $800 million of that earmarked for local cable ads, a 23% increase from the $650 million spent on local cable in 2012.

It seems that almost every candidate, regardless of political affiliation, is recognizing the value of local cable as a vehicle to get their message out to precisely those they want to hear it. President Obama’s campaign successfully tapped Rentrak set-top box data in 2008 and 2012 to figure out which shows and networks its voters were watching.

Now, according to Rentrak president of national television Chris Wilson, there is even more data to exploit.

Some candidates buy ads during the 4:30 a.m. local news, rather than in primetime, because the earlier broadcast has a higher concentration of the voters they want to reach, Wilson said.

Obama also taught campaigns to buy ads on multiple networks and in markets and on channels where no other spots from competing candidates are running. His 2012 campaign bought ad time on more than 100 networks, while other candidates averaged about 20 to 25.

“He went so much deeper,” Wilson said. “And he had 100% of the noise in areas where [Republican candidate Mitt] Romney didn’t run ads. Voters weren’t getting a counterpoint.”

At cable operator-owned NCC Media, director of political strategy Tim Kay said current campaigns so far are using, on average, 35 more networks than in 2011, including Food Network, HGTV, AMC and sports outlets.

In the past, local newscasts were a top priority. That isn’t necessarily the case anymore.

“They were looking for frequency and saturation in the marketplace,” Kay said. “Now, they’re looking for these nuggets of individual voters across the television networks. They’re finding they’re not watching the local news.”

Sports is a draw, especially for the live-viewing factor. Strong prospects include the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in March, typically followed in states with heated primaries, and Big Ten Network and SEC Network football in key states like Florida or Ohio ahead of the general election.

Comcast is continuing to offer household-addressable ads (currently within on-demand programs) and satellite-TV providers DirecTV and Dish Network are in the second year of D2, the household-addressable election ad program reaching into more than 20 million homes.

The 2014 races brought in ads from more than 175 campaigns, mostly in statewide races, while the two satellite-TV providers were focused on getting systems in place and raising interest, “which was easy,” Joe Hockenjos, vice president at AT&T AdWorks, said. (AT&T now owns DirecTV.)

Popular targets now include party-affiliated voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, he said. Some candidates weeks ago booked ad time via D2 in the two states right up to the New Hampshire Primary and Iowa Caucuses. Business is expected to be good at least through Super Tuesday on March 1, Hockenjos said. “For our product, it’s high, high demand,” he said.

Whereas candidates used to hold off until the primaries were coming up soon, they are booking well earlier, Kay said. During the 2014 midterm elections, some Republican candidates bought ads a year in advance.

“They’re trying to build up a message earlier to try to persuade the audiences,” Kay said of early ad buyers. “Those last few weeks that used to be about persuasion are now are about [voter] turnout.”

Kent Gibbons contributed to this story.

Cable saw strong a turnout among political campaign-ad buyers this midterm election season, helped by numerous close races for governor and senator and by candidates using selected cable networks, rather than just by buying ads on local newscasts, industry ad sellers said.

While total political-ad spending is lower when there’s no presidential election, cable is likely to bank as much in 2014 in ads as it did during the 2012 season, Dan Sinagoga, vice president of political advertising at Comcast Spotlight, the top cable company’s ad-sales division, said.

That’s been largely at the expense of local broadcasters, according to Sinagoga. He said the cable industry’s share of dollars spent on political ads will hit about 30% this cycle, continuing a trend that saw it take more than 20% in 2012.

Comcast also added more possible commercial minutes to the mix this time around by freeing up some of the “avails” — the 2 minutes per hour typically allotted to local ads — that would normally go to promoting its triple play, high-speed Internet or other services. “It will help us keep easily five to eight million additional dollars that we probably wouldn’t have been able to fit traditionally,” Sinagoga said.

Headed into this non-presidential election cycle, advertising tracker Borrell Associates had predicted cable networks would do $719.3 million in political ads. That would be 46% more than in the last midterm races, in 2010 ($492.7 million).

Tim Kay, director of political strategy at cable operator-owned NCC Media, cited Kantar Media’s forecast of $600 million to $800 million in local cable ad sales and said, “We’re definitely on the latter part of that number,” or above $700 million, headed into Election Day on Tuesday (Nov 4).

“What’s interesting is, we’ve run more commercials, as of two weeks ago, than in all of 2012,” he said.

Kay said most ads are still flowing to the big three favorites of Fox News Channel, CNN and ESPN. “But we’re seeing a lot of non-traditional networks pop up, such as TV Land and Bravo,” he added.

NCC bought a schedule of ads from CNN in October, which helped expand the inventory beyond the local-avail minutes. Kay would not reveal sales specifics but he said the number of political ads NCC placed on CNN were up from both 2012 and 2010.

Sports events have been big among political buyers, Kay said, especially National Football League games.

Sinagoga said Comcast saw gains on non-traditional political-ad outlets such as Animal Planet and Oxygen. “One of our hottest networks this year has been Hallmark [Channel], and that was never the case leading into 2012.”

As for hot markets, NCC’s Kay said noticeable spikes have come in Omaha, Neb., due to the state’s race for governor; in Colorado, with close contests for governor and U.S. senator; and in North Carolina, which has a tightly-contested U.S. Senate race.

Colorado, Texas (especially during this year’s primary elections), Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Arkansas were all significant for Comcast this year, Sinagoga said.

Comcast also added an element to the on-demand programming mix this time by dynamically inserting advertising into programs addressed to individual households, Sinagoga said. That was a first step toward what the company expects will be household address-ability across its national footprint by the time the 2016 campaigns roll around. That “niche” product did well in Virginia, Florida, New Hampshire and Colorado, he said, and “is going to be a seven-figure addition to our overall pie.”