The company’s bolstered offerings will provide advertisers with increased scale and access to engaged audiences across satellite and streaming premium inventory.
DIRECTV Advertising, a pioneer in addressable advertising, today announced the programmatic enablement of its linear satellite inventory. Powered by the company’s proprietary ad tech stack, DIRECTV Axis, and as part of its mission to “set TV free,” programmatic buyers will now have access to increased inventory, scale and untapped audiences across satellite and streaming.
Despite streaming’s growing share of TV viewing, traditional linear TV still dominates ad impressions, generating nearly six times more than streaming, according to Comscore’s The Score. DIRECTV Advertising is working to close this gap by enabling programmatic capabilities on its satellite households, allowing for the same real-time bidding, campaign execution via private guarantees (PG) or private marketplaces (PMPs) and enhanced signals that is native in traditional streaming environments. This innovative approach offers buyers access to premium, brand-safe inventory through their preferred DSP and SSP across all DIRECTV endpoints.
“In today’s rapidly evolving media landscape, buyers require a new level of flexibility. We’re excited to set TV free,” said Amy Leifer, Chief Advertising Sales Officer, DIRECTV Advertising. “By enabling satellite households to be accessed programmatically, we’re creating flexible, seamless solutions for marketers to reach premium TV inventory.”
DIRECTV Advertising is currently in market with select partners including, Publicis Media Exchange (PMX), Magnite, and Basis Technologies, with plans to make this inventory more widely available in the first quarter this year.
“DIRECTV Advertising is meeting marketers where they are by automating and streamlining how customers are engaging with TV,” said Tyler Kelly, president, Basis Technologies. “Having unparallel, preferred access to DIRECTV’s brand safe, premium content via programmatic advertising methods gives Basis Technologies and our clients unique opportunities to reach incremental audiences.”
As DIRECTV Advertising expands its programmatic inventory, the company is also leveraging universal IDs and content metadata to boost relevancy and transparency, as well as to enhance brand safety for today’s buyers. By enabling more signals, brands can reach and manage their audiences on a granular level and gain a deeper understanding of the content they’re running within.
“We’re excited to help DIRECTV Advertising bridge the gap between linear and streaming, creating a unified workflow for buyers to seamlessly access inventory across their portfolio,” said Sean Buckley, President, Revenue, Magnite. “At a time when control and transparency are top of mind for programmatic buyers, DIRECTV Advertising is meeting the moment by enabling more signals within their content. These advancements have generated new opportunities, such as in live sports, where clients can leverage rich contextual signals to get closer to the content and enhance transparency.”
Choice and flexibility are core to DIRECTV’s offerings to both advertisers and consumers alike. Late last year, DIRECTV launched MyFree DIRECTV, a free premium TV experience that allow viewers to effortlessly access content within the DIRECTV platform. With the addition of this new consumer offering, combined with the connected devices from their linear satellite footprint, DIRECTV’s streaming footprint is doubling, bringing more scale to digital buyers.
