DISH Network Corp (NASDAQ:DISH) will commence testing automated ad sales, in an effort to shift away from the pay-TV industry’s old way of selling ads via phone calls, in-person deal-making and paperwork.
Before officially launching it, the company will start a digital ad market that will enable advertisers to purchase linear TV ads as a beta test. DISH said that it will collaborate with ad-buying firms including Rocket Fuel, DataXu and TubeMogul.
TV still presents the biggest share of advertising revenue, though digital ads is growing rapidly, decreasing the dominance of television. According to research firm eMarketer, advertisers are anticipated to spend about $70.6 billion on TV this year and roughly $58.6 billion on digital media, including mobile phones.
The pay-TV industry has come under pressure to follow a similar policy, as more eyeballs are shifting to online video on digital services and more advertisers are getting flexibility of purchasing and selling digital advertisements on the fly.
DISH and other pay-TV providers gather consumer data with the help of their set-top boxes, which are already being utilized for targeted advertising. The company’s vice president of media sales and analytics, Adam Gaynor said that DISH will make use of 80 specifications like gender, education, age, and looks to introduce more data sets in order to make targeting more sophisticated. Ads can be placed immediately on the Web. Comparatively, TV ads can be purchased in real-time, though it takes few days to slot it into programing, Gaynor added.
Last year, Walt Disney’s ESPN tested programmatic ad sales for its SportsCenter show. While the networks including ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox and their partners independently sell ad slots, programmers like the Food Network could make use of the automated ad market of DISH, Gaynor said.
