COLOGNE – Google’s efforts to break in to TV seem to have had as many reboots as a dodgy old laptop. But the lingering developments in Chromecast, Google Fiber and more give broadcasters the jitters, says an ad-tech exec who meets with them frequently.
“Google sees intermediaries like television networks as being unnecessary,” according to Videology‘s chief commercial office Ryan Jamboretz. I don’t anticipate Google giving up on breaking the back of the TV industry any time soon. That seems to be a long-run plan for then, to get in to that market.
“Customers are saying, ‘We have legacy ad-serving technologies’. That’s not enough to defeat $10bn in R&D investment by Google every year.”
Videology’s recently-published Q2 insight report on the US video market found a growing proportion of advertisers picking viewability as their primary campaign objective.
That’s something TV networks can offer in spades. But Jamboretz says that the big guns from the online world still spook TV companies.
“It’s a factor that comes up in pretty much every one of our discussions – our knowledge of Google and Facebook, and how what we’re doing helps a broadcaster compete against that,” he says.
“Whilst it presents great challenges competitively, it presents opportunities, too, in that there are a lot of companies that don’t want to be disintermediated by Google.”
This interview was taped at DMEXCO ’16. It is part of a video series of industry leaders at the exposition. The series is sponsored by Videology. For more Beet.TV coverage of DMEXCO, please visit this page.
