NBCUniversal is expanding its addressable ad offerings in a partnership with Charter’s Spectrum as both companies look to protect against the rise of streaming.
Programmers and distributors have traditionally found themselves at odds fighting over carriage agreements. But the growth of streaming services, which typically offer advertisers better targeting and measurement capabilities, has led to “unprecedented cooperation” between both sides of the aisle, said David Kline, evp of Charter and president of Spectrum Reach.
“If Mars attacked, everybody on Earth would get together, even if they were enemies, and work together for a common goal,” said Kline. “Where we might be at odds with our affiliation agreements, we know we need scale for advertising, and it’s brought us together.”
Through the deal, NBCU will now be able to sell addressable ads within its video on-demand inventory distributed by Spectrum. It expands NBCU’s total addressable footprint to 45 million households. The partnership provides an added revenue stream for Spectrum, which enables the ad delivery, and it allows NBCU to sell spots at a premium.
“There’s a recognition that in order for the premium video ecosystem to continue to grow and support the content investments that we as programmers are making, those partnerships are required,” said Krishan Bhatia, president and CBO of global advertising and partnerships at NBCU.
NBCU is also testing addressable ads on smart TVs through initiatives from Nielsen and Project OAR. All of this inventory is sold together through NBCU’s One Platform, Bhatia said.
Other programmers are also eyeing the lifeboat of addressability. AMC recently completed addressable campaigns with Volkswagen and its agency Omnicom Media Group that ran across Comcast and Charter cable systems, which reach roughly 25 million homes.
Programmers and distributors are pushing into addressable advertising to offer marketers digital-like targeting that streaming services offer. While linear viewership still outpaces that of streaming, there is expected be fewer traditional pay TV households in the US than non-pay TV households by 2024, according to eMarketer. To both capture current linear ad dollars and prepare for a streaming future, programmers like NBCU are revamping their product offerings.
“We’re creating cross-platform technology that ultimately lends itself to managing this converged transition, that the ultimate goal that the entire business will be operating like a digital business” said Bhatia.
