RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CALIF. – Linear TV ad budgets have gone from a steady migration to connected TV to a full-on deluge after two decades of industry predictions. The shift has followed linear viewership rates that push buyers toward direct insertion order deals seeking CPM guarantees and impression volume.
“I’ve been saying this for 20 years, but linear dollars are actually coming online now,” Bethany Hillman, SVP for Data and Advertising Operations at TelevisaUnivision, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. “With linear viewership rates declining, what we see is that a lot of people are moving into the direct IO business because they’re looking to move some of their linear dollars.”
This shift creates opportunities for programmatic advertisers and media buyers to capitalize on live sports events with co-viewing factors and social media tie-ins, though premium CTV inventory currently relies heavily on insertion orders and direct deals.
Direct relationships reveal intent
TelevisaUnivision protects first-party data assets by distinguishing between direct and programmatic sales, with direct relationships enabling transparent conversations about brand objectives while programmatic private marketplace deals remain opaque regarding targeting strategies.
“It’s been very easy on the direct side,” Hillman said. “We’ve been able to talk to brands and advertisers directly on what it is they’re searching for. Programmatic becomes a little bit more opaque, so we don’t see the targeting for a [private marketplace] PMP deal. In that case, it’s been very important for us to have that direct relationship with the agencies and advertisers to understand not only what they’re looking to purchase, but try to translate that back into our own audience.”
Household graph bridges screens
TelevisaUnivision built a household graph as foundation for first-party identity strategy, mapping digital-concept individuals into linear-concept households to monitor viewing across communal television devices and individual laptops or mobile phones.
“What we did immediately was map individuals, which is sort of like a digital concept, into a household, which was more of a linear piece of it,” Hillman said. “Being able to monitor those individuals and households across devices has been critical, especially when you think about a television, which is sort of like a communal device, into individual devices like a personal laptop or a cell phone.”
OEM complexity creates operational burden
Moving premium CTV inventory to programmatic requires extensive testing across every original equipment manufacturer platform running the VIX direct-to-consumer app, with constant troubleshooting when information flow suddenly stops.
“It’s not just my own and operated app,” she said. “It’s me thinking through every single OEM that could be running on those and the challenges and the distinctions for all the devices. That really, for an operational piece of it, is a heavy lift to get started, especially once you think you have everything set and it’s working correctly. Of course, something all of a sudden stops passing information.”
Value exchange justifies data use
Consumer privacy protection balances with first-party data leverage through value exchanges including relevant content recommendations, what-to-watch-next suggestions, and reminders about available episodes or new releases.
“If I’m getting pieces of more relevant content sent to me, if I’m seeing what to watch next, if I’m getting reminders of something that I wanted to watch that’s now available online or the next episode, I think that that’s a real consumer benefit and a value add for them,” Hillman said. “It’s constantly balancing those two pieces, the exchange, but also obviously keeping everything in a very privacy compliant way and making sure that your data is clean, it’s actionable, but it’s also very safe for the consumer with that value exchange.”
