A new year, a new decade may have only just begun but, for some, minds are already turning to the key point in the US TV ad sales calendar.

Upfronts season peaks in May, when video and TV content owners showcase their upcoming repertoire in a bid to secure advance ad buyers from brands and their media agencies.

In this Consumer Electronics Show (CES) video interview with Beet.TV, Jay Prasad, chief strategy officer at LiveRamp’s TV division, talks about what is different about 2020’s upfronts season and what the industry is still lacking.

“Coming out of CES, it’s already basically going to be upfront season,” says Prasad, whose appointment to LiveRamp was announced at CES. “The Beet Retreat (an executive event in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in February) is basically the last respite before the next crazy months of the upfront starts.”

LiveRamp Welcomes Industry Leader Jay Prasad to the LiveRamp TV Team

Prasad is the former TubeMogul and VideoAmp executive with a long history in online video business.

LiveRamp is an ad-tech is an audience identity resolution provider, aiming to help ad buyers knit together fragments of consumers’ disparate digital breadcrumb trails.

It offers Identity Link – a cross-channel customer identity graph of advertiser, third-party and TV viewership data

“What’s missing in the marketplace is a scaled, neutral company who can actually make interoperability work amongst all of the big media companies via connective tissue to the brands and the agencies,” Prasad adds.

“That means you’re not buying or selling media, you’re not owned by a media company so, therefore, you can be a trusted steward of all of the data that is required to create this liquidity.”

LiveRamp recently published its guide to the upcoming 2020 upfronts.

How to Elevate the Conversation for the 2020 TV Upfront

This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of advanced TV at CES 2020 presented by Amobee and hosted by GroupM Worldwide.  For more videos from the series, please visit this page