Ashley Swartz

SAN JUAN — It was billed as the revolution for television ad sales – the emerging prospect of using internet-connected platforms and audience viewing data to plan, execute and measure TV ad campaigns in real-time. After all, “programmatic” advertising unleashed “real-time bidding” (RTB) on to the world several years ago now. Today, real-time auctions for […]

SAN JUAN — Ad spending on over-the-top (OTT) TV was expected to increase 40% to $2 billion in 2018, with addressable TV spend reaching $800 million, according to Magna. That means spending on addressable TV – with which buyers can use advanced data and return path to more precisely target viewers and households – would represent only […]

SAN JUAN — It’s now 13 years since the phrase “data is the new oil“, it is believed, was first uttered. Now we are living in a world which is swimming – or, perhaps, drowning – in the sticky, digital substance. For many in broadcasting, data is proving to be transformational to the way they […]

SAN JUAN — It did it once before in an earlier media era, so can cable groups’ joint sales group tackle another wave of ad platform fragmentation? Operated by Comcast, Charter and Cox Communications, NCC Media launched in 1981 to provide a common way for ad buyers to get on to disparate and disconnected cable, satellite […]

SAN JUAN — As much of the advertising landscape moves from human-, direct-sold advertisements to a data-infused, automated process, does the nature of TV become mechanistic along with it? That was one of the many tricky balances debated in a fireside discussion at Beet Retreat between Turner EVP of data strategy and product innovation Jesse Redniss […]

MIAMI – The next generation of television—as represented by things like the ATSC3.0 standard—is now in sight. Then again, so is the moon. To hear panelists at the recent Beet Retreat Miami explain it, lunar landings might be easier to achieve than getting TV broadcasters en masse to quickly embrace the future. Asked by moderator […]

MIAMI — We are nearing the end of a year in which the murmurings of discontent toward the biggest tech companies grew in to a crescendo. Media companies, advertisers, politicians, police and all manner of citizens have lined up to take pot-shots at the platforms. At this point, no-one would bet against lawmakers taking significant […]

MIAMI — It is the “new oil” that is fuelling value creation in businesses across the world, and now the TV ad sales business is really getting its motor running on data. Advertisers’ own primary data, off-the-shelf datasets and more… a new world of viewer information has opened up to make TV ad targeting to […]

VIEQUES, PR – With several years of addressable television, digital ad serving and analytics experience under its belt, Sky TV has committed to rolling out its Sky AdSmart addressable platform throughout its five-country footprint between now and the end of 2018. One key competitive advantage is that it only charges advertisers for impressions that garner […]

VIEQUES, PR – Underlying the just announced consortium formed by Fox, Turner and Viacom called OpenAP is the reality that audience-based television selling is “complicated and complex,” according to David Porter, Turner’s VP of Ad Innovation & Programmatic Solutions. To speed advertiser adoption, the three media companies are hoping to make it much easier for […]

MIAMI – When it comes to what’s next in TV, Google’s goal is to operate as an open platform for future of TV. “We enable buyers and sellers to activate on data, to support direct deals, and to support programmatic in a seamless and efficient way,” says Jennifer Koester, Director Telco and Video Distribution at Google, in this […]

MIAMI — Back in July, when the sun was still high in the sky and the presidential election was yet to rip the US apart, an event took place in ad-tech land that united two disparate tribes. Mediaocean, whose software helps advertisers automate their operations, acquired INVISION, a peer whose technology helps TV companies do […]

BOSTON – To the uninitiated, Media Access Control could sound like something they’d like to be able to do during political campaigns. But as television content and advertising continue to go over-the-top, the household set-top box identifier known as MAC is slowly giving way to IP addresses and other alternatives. MAC identifiers and cable TV […]

BOSTON – When Ashley Swartz discusses the nuts and bolts of digital media, it’s reflective of her background in manufacturing systems. Hence her view that connecting disparate data and systems is “not sexy” and that media company content management systems “are dirty and messy.” They’re also the main reasons why she started Furious Corp., an […]

The words “sophisticated” and “manual” would seem to be mutually exclusive, yet they go hand in hand with addressable television advertising. That’s because everything’s manual with addressable at this stage of its evolution, according to Mike Bologna, President of MODI Media. “So you could argue that the most sophisticated and exciting part of the television […]