Matrix’s Media Sales Gateway Admiral Now Live On Gray Stations

Matrix Solutions, a provider of global media revenue management technology, says Gray Television has launched the first phase of Matrix’s automated, cross-platform media sales gateway, Admiral, across all stations in all markets. This initial stage, including a modernized sales proposal system for linear advertising, “serves as an essential jumping-off point for the media industry’s transition to converged advertising,” Matrix says.

The fully developed media sales gateway, the company says, “will provide the infrastructure and workflows to automate converged advertising sales, from demand through order fulfillment, digital and OTT inventory, traditional spot, and impression-based/dynamic ad insertion for live linear. Advancements offered within the proposal system include incorporating multiple markets and different rate cards within the same proposal.”

As a fully transparent and interoperable system built on open API infrastructure, Admiral is an open system that provides flexibility for both the ingestion and dissemination of all data, including any measurement, currency, or rate and inventory optimization. Matrix says the system’s “dynamic interoperability ensures that orders are routed automatically to the appropriate execution system. Additionally, Admiral will shift orders to new execution if how and what a client sells changes, dramatically reducing the impact of change.”

“We view this phase as a significant first step in transforming our business as we evolve as entities,” said Karen Youger, Gray SVP, sales operations. “We are thrilled to be a vested partner working alongside Matrix as they develop this next-level technology that will enable us and our industry to adopt and accelerate converged advertising workflows with ease.”

Announced earlier this year, Gray Television is one of four investors in Admiral (the others are CoxReps, Graham Media and Hearst Television), which is being developed and released in phases. The next stage will include a fully converged experience for traditional linear, digital and OTT workflows, with a completion target of July 2023.

“Our vision for Admiral has remained steadfast as we continue to work with our media partners to deliver a system that allows them to sell linear like digital and to do so in a manner that leap-frogs moving from linear to impression-based workflows and, ultimately, dynamic ad insertion” shared Mark Gorman, CEO, Matrix. “I often relate the development of Admiral to that of building a bridge as we are connecting media companies to a converged, cross-platform experience, where it does not matter what you are selling, but it is easy to facilitate with significantly less friction.”