Streaming has become an integral part of upfront negotiations, with buyers and sellers discussing not just units and shows, but also the balance between linear and streaming supply.
Now buyers are seeking signals from publishers to enable curation, allowing them to create custom packages of publishers and programs tailored to specific advertiser needs.
“Every conversation is multi-screen at this point,” Kris Magel, VP, head of global agency partnerships, FreeWheel, in this video interview with Beet.TV.. “Streaming has become a huge part of any upfront.”
The Rise of Curation
“Curation” of publisher inventory is expected to play a significant role in the upfronts, as agencies recognize the inefficiencies of transacting programmatically with each publisher individually. Curation addresses this by consolidating inventory into one place, providing a unified view of the audience across all publishers.
This approach benefits advertisers by offering scaled inventory in brand-suitable content while managing audience reach holistically across different publishers.
“You should be able, as a buyer, to to make a deal with five or six or 10 or 20 different publishers, bring that inventory into a curation platform, aggregate it on a custom basis based on the needs of your specific advertiser, so it’s all content that the advertiser would be comfortable with,” Magel said.
“Curation allows you to pull all of that inventory into one place, put it together, and then you get to see your one single audience across all of those things,” he added. “Ultimately, they get the opportunity to have a scaled inventory set in content that makes the most sense for the brand and they can manage their audience reach holistically across all of these different publishers.”
FreeWheel’s Evolving Role
FreeWheel, traditionally a publisher-side advertising technology provider, has evolved to serve the agency side of the business as well. The company serves direct IO programmatic ads into the streaming environments of a significant portion of the premium publishing marketplace.
FreeWheel aims to streamline the process by enabling agencies to connect directly with publishers. This eliminates the need for multiple intermediaries and tech platforms, fostering a more direct and efficient relationship.
“What we’ve realized is, as the company that sits with the publisher and is literally serving the ad, we are the last mile,” Magel said.
You’re watching Beet.TV coverage from Programmatic Activation Summit 2025, presented by FreeWheel. For more videos from this series, please viist this page .
