Steve Ellwanger

While converged television and video advertising software provider Videology started on the demand-side of the ad business, it’s also had good traction on the supply side. Now it wants to be the unifying factor in making advanced TV the most effective and efficient it can be for both sides of the table. “What we’re trying […]

Can industry optimism and collaboration defeat fragmentation? From the viewpoint of Marcien Jenckes, the answer is a resounding yes. Jenckes, who is President, Advertising, Comcast Cable believes now is the time to be very optimistic about what premium video can be. “It is the best way for marketers to reach their audiences. We’re coming off […]

About four months from the merging of MEC and Maxus, Starcom veteran Amanda Richman has been chosen as CEO USA of the as-yet unnamed entity. Coming on board in October, Richman will report to MEC Global CEO Tim Castree. “Amanda is a fantastic choice to be our US leader,” Castree said in a news release. […]

Nielsen is giving its media clients a standardized way of measuring their content viewing on distribution heavyweights Hulu, Facebook and YouTube with the latest expansion of its Digital Content Ratings. Participating TV and digital publisher clients can now capture incremental viewing of their content within their reported audience numbers. They will receive credit for video […]

The early 1960’s were interesting times for radio and television, as Congress considered regulating audience research. How simple those days must seem now that the Media Rating Council—formed as the media industry’s self-regulating body—has tackled cross-media audience measurement. This becomes more evident when one considers that the MRC is still dealing with standards for digital […]

As mantras go, “know thy audience” certainly speaks volumes about cross-platform television viewing. Content providers that take this to heart will become preferred partners to agencies and advertisers as innumerable publishing options are inevitably winnowed out by their capabilities and the quality of their offerings, says Nancy Dubuc. The President and CEO of A+E Networks […]

Left-leaning political video network The Young Turks has raised $20 million in its latest and biggest funding round, with participation by Jeffrey Katzenberg’s venture firm WndrCo. Also backing the startup of former MSNBC anchor and TYT co-founder Cenk Uygur were 3L Capital, Greycroft and e.ventures. In 2014, TYT received $4 million in backing and executed […]

Just as you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can’t judge a television network based on age and gender attributes alone. “Most networks are going to look somewhat similar. Although the audience size may be different, they’re going to have similar audience comps,” says Ben Tatta. Hence the gradual shift toward audience-based selling, […]

When is good enough not good enough? For Brian West, it describes the current state of measuring viewing audiences on mobile and connected-television devices. “There still is this tendency to prioritize measurement on desktop and kind of treat mobile and connected TV as also-rans in the measurement space,” says West, who is Director, Multiplatform Research, […]

If bigger is better for companies like Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable, it’s also a boon to cross-platform measurement providers like comScore. Often overlooked by headlines heralding the continued merging of cable providers are the gains made in tracking consumer behavior and the ability to match it with product and service consumption—benefitting both programmers […]

When mobile devices emerged as platforms for video viewing, there was a steep learning curve for ad buyers. Fast forward to over-the-top viewing on big-screen television sets and it’s déjà vu all over again. There’s no denying the trend of OTT viewing in the living room environment. As FreeWheel reported earlier this week in its […]

Now that OTT devices are responsible for the lion’s share of premium video viewing, there’s no shortage of content on the publisher side. What is lacking is a deep understanding of how best to buy and sell OTT inventory, which FreeWheel is addressing with its new research track called Signature Insights. The first installment of […]

What’s the difference between bidding on real-time, digital advertising avails and addressable television inventory? Not much, thanks to aggregation and automation. While the national addressable TV footprint grows bigger with each passing year, many advertisers are making use of household targeting to hone in on specific audiences. And those capabilities are getting more sophisticated, as […]

Viewing of premium video is certainly fragmented. But the same holds true for selling ad inventory programmatically, regardless of whether “pipes are connected” from the desktop all the way to set-top box video on demand. “There are different levels of maturity in terms of the ease or liquidity of programmatic transactions and there are different […]

Television networks whose programming is seen in such out-of-home venues as airports, restaurants and offices are getting a welcome lift from Nielsen. Lift as in the incremental size of OOH audiences beyond traditional ratings metrics. Time Warner’s CNN and Turner Sports this week signed on for Nielsen’s OOH measurement service, which uses a panel of […]

Pleasing television viewers while meeting advertiser goals is the constant balancing act facing ad-supported content providers. With this in mind, Fox Networks Group recently embraced YouTube’s six-second ad format as it continues to experiment with limited-ad offerings and enhanced audience targeting. “Our biggest form of competition in human attention in the entertainment television space is […]

Coming off of its best TV Upfront ever, NBCUniversal has seen at least a tripling of its data products. While it’s a testament to the company’s investments in data capabilities and the NBCU Audience Studio, there’s still work to be done to deliver the best possible ad experience to consumers. This is the assessment of […]

CANNES – Are media buyers too preoccupied trying to define “TV” and “video”? It’s worth approaching the issue from the sell-side, by way of Fox and ESPN. The answer rests on delivery systems, according to Joe Marchese, President, Advertising Revenue, Fox Networks Group. “The idea is, is a stream being delivered in a way in […]

CANNES – For MEC, understanding the consumer purchase journey involves making waves and showing clients how their “momentum” stacks up against competitors. It’s a blend of data, content and technology—something that the Cannes Lions festival is catching up to, according to the global media agency’s Nathalie Haxby. “We’re seeing a lot of that now with […]

CANNES – As long as television and premium video remain atop the ROI stack for marketers, agencies need to solve convergence of the two for their marketer clients. If they don’t, they could be disintermediated by giants like Facebook and Google and knocked down a rung on the value chain by new entrants like Accenture. […]