NBCUniversal said it is selling some of its national TV commercial inventory using a self-serve programmatic platform and that retail chain Target has made the initial buy.

The programmatic platform uses technology and data from 4C to target audiences for ad campaigns.

NBCU also makes some of its inventory available via programmatic to buyers using AOL, TubeMogul and Videology.

“This is a watershed moment for advertisers, who have been looking for a way to unlock the power of first-party data in television,” said Kristi Argyilan, senior vice president of marketing for Target. “Through programmatic ad buying, NBCUniversal is giving us the opportunity to apply better data to our TV decisions and choose the programming that resonates most strongly with our guests.

NBCU is the first to use 4C to create a private marketplace within linear TV.

Read more at B&C.

Videa, the supply-side programmatic TV company owned by Cox Media Group, has hired Oscar Rondon to the post of VP of product.

Prior to Videa, Rondon was the senior director of TV strategy at TubeMogul, the programmatic TV firm recently acquired by Adobe late last year. Prior to that, he held exec slots at AOL’s Adap.tv unit, WideOrbit, Viacom/BET, Invision, Fox and Discovery Communications.

RELATED: Cox’s Videa Launches Programmatic Platform

“Oscar’s skills and experience align nicely with the direction we are moving toward at Videa,”  Shereta Williams, president of Videa, said in a statement.  “We are excited to have him as part of our team, and we look forward to his contributions in helping Videa remain at the forefront of our industry.”

Rodon has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Spanish from the University of Miami and holds a Master of Arts in Communications from Baruch College.

Making a big move into linear TV, programmatic ad giant Rubicon Project has made a deal with Placemedia that gives Rubicon Project’s clients access to Placemedia’s supply of premium ad impressions.

The two companies believe that programmatic TV, which has been slow to take off, is poised for strong growth and that by teaming one of the leaders in the digital space with Placemedia’s inventory—which reaches more than 100 million U.S. homes in 210 local markets—they can provide the kind of multiplatform campaigns advertisers are demanding.

“The big story here is that we’ve got a very sympathetic view with Placemedia,” said Jay Sampson, head of strategic partnerships for Rubicon Project. “They have a very nice position in programmatic television with linear, and we have what we believe is the digital industries leading guaranteed orders platform that can take advantage of these linear impressions coming into the marketplace.”

Read more at B&C. 

Adode said it agreed to buy programmatic TV advertising platform TubeMogul for $540 million.

Adobe said the acquisition of TubeMogul will create the first end-to-end independent advertising and data management solution that spans TV and digital formats, simplifying what has been a complex and fragmented process for the world’s biggest brands.

The acquisition of TubeMogul further strengthens Adobe’s digital marketing and advertising technology.

“Whether it’s episodic TV, indie films or Hollywood blockbusters, video consumption is exploding across every device and brands are following those eyeballs,” said Brad Rencher, executive VP and general manager, digital marketing, Adobe. “With the acquisition of TubeMogul, Adobe will give customers a ‘one-stop shop’ for video advertising, providing even more strategic value for our Adobe Marketing Cloud customers.”

Read more at B&C.

Programmatic advertising specialist clypd has introduced the Optimize Private Marketplace (PMP), a suite of new and enhanced ad sales tools tailored for TV’s upfront market.

The company said its new offering builds on clypd’s existing linear TV private marketplace platform, and includes elements and features such as data onboarding, yield-optimized and audience-focused scheduling, and proposal generation.

Clypd said several media companies, including Discovery Communications, ESPN and Fox Networks Group, have been using its platform with brand and agency partners. Also cited was Volpi Foods, which worked with its agency, Zero Point Zero Production, to execute an advanced ad campaign across Fox Networks during the Copa America tournament.

“clypd’s main mission has always been to help media companies navigate the changing TV advertising landscape,” Jason Burke, VP of product at clypd, said in a statement. “Optimize PMP brings major enhancements to the $74 billion market through software solutions that provide data-focused tools and yield optimization innovations for upfront and scatter negotiations.” 

Multiscreen ad firm YuMe has forged a programmatic advertising partnership with StickyADS.tv that will integrate YuMe’s demand side platform (DSP) with StickyADS.tv’s supply side platform (SSP). 

The combo, YuMe said, will give advertisers and agencies access to premium video inventory online and on mobile across the globe, including access to more than 105 billion monthly bid requests, 150-plus private exchanges in 150 locations worldwide, and 20 “leading” TV broadcasters. 

Paris-based StickyADS.tv was recently acquired by FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned advanced ad-tech company. 

“After successfully launching our end-to-end programmatic video advertising platform last year, we’re pleased to announce such a pivotal strategic partnership for YFA in Europe,” Jayant Kadambi, chairman and CEO of YuMe, said in a statement. “This partnership expands the ability for our clients to purchase StickyADS.tv’s premium inventory across our major markets in Europe in a number of different formats, including Outstream and mobile, to deliver video campaigns in a seamless manner across multiple screens and devices. 

“We are delighted to enter into this formal agreement with YuMe that will contribute to widening our demand partner pool - more than 90 server-to-server demand integrations are live today,” added Gilles Chetelat, COO and co-founder at StickyADS.tv. “Through this new addition, we can now provide another premium direct demand source to our clients across the globe. YuMe’s strategic relationships with premium advertisers, especially in the US, will drive rapid growth for our clients.”

FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned advanced ad-tech firm, said it is strengthening its programmatic video capabilities via the acquisition of StickyADS.tv, a supply side platform (SSP) that helps publishers build, run and operate their own private exchange.

The deal, FreeWheel said, will give the company an automated system that will help its clients manage video inventory across multiple screens, while also providing a “TV compliant experience.”

Paris-based StickyADS.tv supports several major broadcasters in Europe, including TF1, France Télévisions and M6, as well as premium publishers such as Spiegel, Corriere della Sera, The Economist, and La Place Media. StickyADS.tv was founded in 2009.

“We are very excited to make this announcement. We are bringing together two companies who deeply understand the opportunities for the ‘New TV’ ecosystem on both sides of the Atlantic,” Doug Knopper, co-founder and co-CEO of FreeWheel, said in a statement. “StickyADS.tv has been a preferred SSP partner since September 2015 and in that short time we have been thoroughly impressed by both the quality of their platform and the knowledge of their team.”

“Our clients’ need to support automated sales has drastically accelerated over the last 18 months. We believe StickyADS.tv brings best-in-class SSP technology, specifically their focus on private exchange capabilities that put the publisher in control,” added James Rooke, FreeWheel’s chief revenue officer.

Comcast acquired FreeWheel in 2014. Its clients include AOL, DirecTV, Turner, Europe’s Sky  Channel 4, as well as corporate cousin NBCUniversal, which recently launched a linear programmatic sales initiative.

Canada-based media and broadcast company Corus Entertainment has formed an exclusive deal with Visible  World, the ad-tech company acquired by Comcast last year, that will enable programmatic advertising capabilities for linear TV services.

Corus, they said, is the first Canadian broadcaster to commit to bringing a more automated, data-driven programmatic-style to linear television, claiming it will enable advertisers to get higher returns on their TV ad buys.

For the rollout in Canada, the solution will use traditional Numeris ratings, as well as aggregate, anonymized data, and audience segmentation information.  

They said advertisers and media planners can use existing in-house demand-side platforms or connect into the Visible World system to plan, buy, and report on their campaigns.

Corus’s portfolio includes 45 specialty television services as well as 15 conventional TV stations.

“Through our Next Generation Advertising offering, we are delivering superior results to our advertisers by leveraging advancements in data and technology,” Greg McLelland, EVP and chief revenue officer at Corus, said in a statement “Bringing programmatic capabilities to television will not only streamline the buying process across platforms, it will also enable advertisers to gain new insights into audiences to optimize their media buy.”

³We are looking forward to the partnership with industry-leading broadcaster, Corus,² said Seth Haberman, Founder & CEO, Visible World.

“We believe the collaboration will help enhance ad sales efforts with data-driven insights and automation across the Canadian marketplace and further Comcast Platform Service¹s partnership with Corus,” added Visible World CEO Seth Haberman.

Comcast acquired New York-based Visible World and its programmatic TV subsidiary, AudienceXpress, last year.

Cox Media’s Videa programmatic TV unit said it has made a series of deals that will increase the scale and scope of the business it does.

Videa said its supply-side platform reached agreements to get ad inventory from the Raycom and E.W. Scripps stations group. It will work with the demand-side platforms TubeMogul, the Trade Desk and VideoAmp. It also  made a deal with media tech company and data provider 4C.

“The new deals with our sell- and buy-side partners enable us to create scale with both breadth and depth of inventory in local markets, while also providing the highest programmatic demand to our broadcast clients,” said Shereta Williams, president of Videa. “We are excited to expand our automated sales solution and make it easier to buy local audiences at scale.”

Read more at B&C.

Timed ahead of the 2016 Upfronts, AOL is pushing deeper into the programmatic TV sector with a “self-serve” buying platform.

AOL, acquired by Verizon last June, said the new self-serve module extends its ONE by AOL: TV managed module that was launched in 2014 and is part of its “unified” programmatic platform, ONE by AOL, introduced about a year ago.

The new self-serve platform, which adds reporting and analytics on the backend, will take aim at a piece of the total U.S. TV ad spending pie, which generated about $74 billion in 2015, Dan Ackerman, SVP of programmatic TV at AOL, said.

TV continues to represent the bulk of the ad marketplace, given its immense reach, and TV ad spending continues to rise, he added, noting that programmatic advertising models are now primed to handle this large-scale arena and to deliver on the same methods and techniques that have made programmatic such a hit in the digital domain.

“There hasn’t been inventory available at scale with TV like there is in the digital space,” Ackerman said.

The new TV-focused, self-serve platform is designed to bring a new level of automation that connects buyers and sellers, while also adding efficiencies and enabling more data-driven targeting and decisioning into ad campaigns that extend beyond age, gender and household income.

AOL, Ackerman said, is in talks with multiple national broadcast and cable TV networks about tapping into its self-serve module, with more than a dozen that have been integrated ahead of the fall TV season.

Omnicom Media Group has been named as the ONE by AOL: TV self-serve module exclusive agency launch partner, and will begin testing on the new platform on behalf of its clients.

“This provides our clients the opportunity to begin to realize the benefits of advanced targeting in linear TV,” John Swift, CEO, North America Investment at Omnicom Media Group, said in a statement. “It is a critical first step in our journey towards programmatic and, ultimately, household level addressability at scale in TV.”

AOL’s product launch arrives amid a flurry of activity around programmatic TV. Last month, AT&T hooked up with Videology on an automated, self-service private marketplace for linear TV advertising. NBCU, meanwhile, launched a linear programmatic sales initiative in February that will be part of its upfront sales.

Sky Plc is getting more involved in the programmatic ad tech game via a $10 million strategic investment in Boston-based DataXu, a maker of marketing analytics, data management and media activation software.

Founded in 2009, DataXu specializes in “programmatic marketing” -- automated, data-based planning and trading of ads across multiple devices and formats. Its customers include well-known brands such as Bose, Lexus, Ford , 3M, Mercedes-Benz, Vodafone and UnityMedia, the German cable operator that’s part of the Liberty Global empire. DataXu claims that its platform can analyze and optimize buying decisions on over 100 billion digital advertising opportunities daily.

With the latest funding, DataXu has raised $76 million so far, per TechCrunch.

Sky said its ad sales division, Sky Media, will also collaborate with DataXu to “explore a number of new opportunities,” including extending the reach of its new cross-screen Sky AdVance product. In 2014, Sky Media launched Sky AdSmart, a product tailored for niche/smaller brands.

"This investment will help us develop a deeper understanding of programmatic advertising, and play our part in shaping the market as it progresses," said Jamie West, Deputy MD at Sky Media, in a statement. "Combining Sky's knowledge, experience and innovation in advertising with DataXu's programmatic marketing expertise will provide exciting opportunities for both businesses, and most importantly, for Sky's advertising partners."

Sky has also made recent investments in OTT and streaming companies such as TV4 Entertainment, Pluto TV, Roku, Whistle Sports, and VR content startup Jaunt.

Bridging the digital and TV advertising worlds, Dish Media Sales said it has entered the programmatic TV game with a platform that uses real-time bidding technology and ties in partnerships with three demand-side providers – DataXu, Rocket Fuel and Tube Mogul.

Dish said its new, proprietary platform will allow advertisers to purchase linear TV ads on an impression-by-impression basis, and target on a household level across the MVPD’s national addressable advertising footprint.

“Dish Media sales has created a platform that seamlessly integrates into the digital ecosystem so digital advertisers can purchase linear TV through an avenue in which they’re comfortable,” Adam Gaynor, vice president of Dish Media Sales, explained. "We know that in the digital ecosystem, buyers truly want control. They want to identify a target and go into a system, find that target , and execute a buy."

Though Dish’s programmatic TV offering currently carries the “beta” label, “We’re open for business – we’re ready to go with these partners,” Gaynor said, noting that Dish has been working on its programmatic TV program for a couple of years.

Dish Media Sales will siphon off a “portion” of its addressable/targeted ad inventory and place it into its new programmatic platform during the early phase. Dish said its targeting criteria includes “80 segments per impression” based on demographics and viewing behaviors, and that its national addressable audience is currently comprised of more than 8 million households.

 “If we see more demand in that [beta] phase, we’ll add more inventory,” Gaynor said.

Like other MVPDs, Dish has access to about two minutes per hour of ad inventory across its network lineup, equating to about 6 million 30-second spots a year.

He said Dish has lots of “triggers” in place to light up more programmatic inventory. “But I do see in time that it becomes one big pool of inventory that both addressable and programmatic are pulling from,” Gaynor said.

For this phase, Dish’s programmatic TV offering will focus on the company’s DBS (direct broadcast satellite) ad inventory. Gaynor, however, envisions that Dish could eventually extend that to inventory offering through Sling TV, Dish’s new OTT-TV service, as well as inventory tied to TV Everywhere applications.

Dish hasn’t announced when its programmatic TV offering might shed the beta label, enabling its partners to launch it to the digital industry,  but when it does, Gaynor expects to come out of it with additional partners on board.

Though the definition of “programmatic” has become a topic of debate, in Gaynor’s view it has to involve a level of automation, include premium inventory, and provide access to solid data that can be modeled against and matched with.

“We believe that there’s still a lot of guesswork in not only what other people call programmatic but in television [advertising],” he said. “We take that guesswork away. We know the households and we can deliver the messages to those households.” 

Bringing more advanced advertising capabilities in-house, Comcast has struck a deal to acquire Visible World, the New York-based maker of targeted ad systems and a programmatic TV platform via its AudienceXpress subsidiary.

The announcement, made Thursday in this blog post by Visible World CEO Seth Haberman, comes more than three months after The Wall Street Journalreported that Comcast and the vendor were in M&A talks.

Visible World’s partners include Comcast, Bright House Networks, Cablevision Systems, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Suddenlink and Time Warner Cable, among others. Cox Media and Suddenlink are among the known customers of AudienceXpress.

Comcast’s proposed acquisition for Visible World also comes about a year after Comcast  acquired online advertising specialist FreeWheel.

Financial terms of the Comcast-Visible World deal were not announced, but the MSO plans for Visible World to operate as an independent business.

Haberman said the deal will help to take the ad tech firm to the “next level.”

“As the industry continues to evolve and expand, we’ve also looked for new opportunities to change, expand, strengthen and position our business for future success,” Haberman wrote. “So today, I am thrilled to announce that we have found the perfect partner to help us achieve our goals and help us take our business and services to the next level: Visible World has signed an agreement to be acquired by Comcast.”

“Visible World is a dynamic company and a real complement to our existing advanced advertising initiatives,” added John Schanz, executive vice president and chief network officer for Comcast Cable. “Visible World offers a diverse spectrum of services that serve a variety of needs across the television advertising landscape. This partnership reflects the business and technology trends we are seeing in the television industry today. We look forward to helping the talented Visible World team expand and accelerate their business and create more value for distributors, advertisers, agencies, programmers and affiliates.”

Founded in 2000, Visible World has raised about $33 million, including a $25 million "C" round, according to CrunchBase. 

Rentrak said it has notched a deal to provide TV ratings and VOD measurement capabilities to Game Show Network, claiming the deal will help the network make more efficient ad buys for its clients.

“GSN consistently ranks within the top 25 percent of all broadcast and cable networks and Rentrak ratings information provides us the ability to highlight the unique quality of our audience,” GSN’s VP, research strategy, Michael Michell, said in a statement. “Rentrak’s granular TV measurement service will play a key role in supporting our research needs across the board.”    

“We are excited to have GSN subscribe to our TV services and we look forward to helping them advance their business,” added Chris Wilson, Rentrak’s president of national television.

Notably, the deal comes almost a month after Rentrak teamed with Visible World subsidiary AudienceXpress to establish a “data-rich” programmatic TV ad platform. 

Rentrak said its TV ratings service gathers data from more than 30 million TVs and VOD viewing across more than 117 million televisions in the U.S. and Canada. 

Comcast is in talks to acquire Visible World, a maker of targeted advertising systems and a player in the white-hot programmatic TV sector, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing unnamed sources. 

Comcast and Visible World were not immediately available for comment, but the paper noted that a deal isn’t imminent and the discussions could instead lead to a deeper relationship between the two companies. 

While an acquisition of Visible World would give Comcast direct access to key targeted/addressable advertising technologies aimed primarily at set-top boxes, the company’s AudienceXpress subsidiary is focused on programmatic TV systems that bring digital-like automation to the advertising sales process.

Visible World’s partners include Comcast, Bright House Networks, Cablevision Systems, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Suddenlink and Time Warner Cable, among others. Cox Media and Suddenlink are among the known customers of its AudienceXpress subsidiary. 

Comcast Ventures is also one of the investors in privately held Visible World.

Comcast has already signaled its interest in owning Web-style advertising companies and technologies. Last year, the MSO acquired online advertising specialist FreeWheel, which just issued a report showing that TV Everywhere advertising jumped significantly in the fourth quarter of 2014. 

Developing… 

Cox Media, the ad-sales unit of Cox Communications, has teamed with TubeMogul to help advertisers buy ads on linear TV and digital video ads using a common interface, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. 

According to the report, Cox Media will use TubeMogul’s platform to target specific audiences and create campaigns across TV and Web video inventories.

The agreement is the latest on the programmatic front, adding automated features to the process of buying and selling ads.

It also expands on other programmatic-facing work underway at Cox Media, which has also been working with companies such as clypd, AT&T AdWorks and AudienceXpress on its automated advertising initiatives. Mike Zeigler, VP of business development and operations at Cox Media, told Multichannel News in a recent interview (subscription required) that all of Cox Media’s inventory is available through programmatic systems.

“There is no carve,” he said. “We don’t consider it a remnant business.”

And the Oscar for programmatic buying goes to ad agency DigitasLBi, which for the first time used software to purchase ads in the Academy Awards broadcast.

Acting on behalf of a client that asked not to be identified publicly, DigitasLBi bought local TV spots in nine markets through the programmatic partnership between media software companies TubeMogul and WideOrbit.

The Oscar buy follows a Super Bowl ad bought programmatically by Mondelez for its Oreos and Ritz brands in the Erie, Pa., market, and illustrates that programmatic buying is steadily spreading from the digital realm to the TV universe.

Programmatic buying automates the sales process and uses big data to identify advertising inventory that closely matches a marketer’s target audience.

“We wanted to really get in the marketplace with programmatic television,” says Scott Marsden, senior VP media at DigitasLBi. “Obviously we know that there is going to be more and more availability of inventory there and we want to develop the expertise as quickly and possible.”

Read more at B&C.