Shifting consumer-viewing preferences are fueling a big influx of over-the-top, premium video advertising inventory in both video-on-demand and live streaming. SpotX is helping DISH Network’s Sling TV work with “buyers of all shapes and sizes” to facilitate programmatic buying of that inventory.
“Obviously this is a new area of the business and it’s changing very rapidly,” says SpotX Chief Revenue Officer Sean Buckley. “Consumers are really starting to shift their consumption behavior. And obviously we’re seeing on the flip side some of the virtual MVPD’s and digital offerings really start to take off.”
Just a few years ago, the broad conception in the industry was of a shortage of premium video supply, what with much of it locked up by things like traditional Upfront marketplace deals.
“That was definitely true for a long time,” Buckley says in this interview with Beet.TV. “Certainly over the past three to six months we’ve seen the amount of supply, specifically around OTT both VOD and live streaming, really start to surge.”
SpotX’s major offerings are its ad-serving platform and programmatic infrastructure for media owners like Sling. The company also has an agreement with DISH Media Sales wherein DISH can leverage its first-party audience data through SpotX’s platform.
“We’ve seen great results there,” Buckley notes. “We’re taking that data and not only enabling programmatic transactions but we’re doing that in both VOD and live streaming environments, which is really the cutting edge of the digital ad industry.”
Given the learning curve that exists in the OTT space—both on the buy- and sell-sides—SpotX created an Advanced Solutions Group to help everyone figure out the “various technologies that touch our platform. It’s a different engagement with each of our customers,” Buckley adds.
On the buy-side, SpotX helps to decipher live, linear OTT traffic patterns because they “tend to look a lot different than what, for example, the DSP’s or the agencies are used to. You have to address the traffic differently and the environments differently than you would, for example, a desktop web environment.”
Asked about pricing of premium video ad inventory, Buckley looks at it from a digital perspective. OTT commands a premium over formats like out-stream and short-form, “but we think we’re reaching the point where there’s great balance in the market. Pricing isn’t necessarily a huge barrier and I think both sides see value in what the market is bringing to the table at this point in time.”
This video is part of series on developments with OTT. The series is presented by Sling TV and DISH Media Sales. Please find more videos from the series here. For the Sling/DISH report on OTT and the marketplace, download this report.
