Mark your calendar for Mediaweek, October 29-30 in New York City. We’ll unpack the biggest shifts shaping the future of media—from tv to retail media to tech—and how marketers can prep to stay ahead. Register with early-bird rates before sale ends!
AMC Networks, the self-styled “leader in targeted streaming” is continuing its digital overhaul, this time with the announcement that it has partnered with two of the biggest names in ad tech.
Top line
The entertainment company has announced tie-ups with two of the biggest ad-tech companies on the public markets (Magnite and The Trade Desk) that enable programmatic and addressable advertising on linear TV.
AMC NEtworks claims this as an “industry first” as it enables the type of automated trading of advertising space more typically associated with digital media on live TV.
Between the lines
Early activations of the partnership took place in Q3 as part of ad campaigns for brands including Best Western and Smithfield Foods with the broadcaster claiming it introduced the capability in order to enhance targeting (not to mention inventory-prices) around its original content such as The Walking Dead, etc.
Previosuly, such buys were only available against AMC Network’s web content, which typically commands a lesser price. The process of facilitating programmatic buys on linear TV involves advertisers cross-referencing their first-party datasets with those of the media-owner—this is usually facilitated through an encryption tool such as a data clean room—to improve the granularity of their audience targeting.
Bottom line
AMC Networks claims the partnerships are crucial to “protecting the core linear product” with the company working with Magnite in order to introduce the recently launched functionality with the company claiming that it will aim to make 100% of its linear TV inventory addressable.
Additionally, it also claimed that the partnership with The Trade Desk, a buy-side tool popularly known as a demand-side platform, helped increase the number of advertisers it can offer inventory to, given the DSP’s broad base of media buyers.
