Robert Andrews

COLOGNE — When Europe’s new GDPR consumer data law came in to effect on May 24, introducing new limits on how companies could process and target using consumers’ data, it caused a big drop-off in the amount of advertising being bought programmatically. Sharp eyes noticed that programmatic ad demand volume dropped by up to 40%, […]

COLOGNE — It has survived the Corn Laws and economic criticism of its own. Now The Economist says it is emerging from two of its latest challenges in fitter shape. In this video interview with Beet.TV, the newspaper’s global digital revenue SVP Michael Mullaney says his title has found fear about the GDPR law and advertiser resistance […]

COLOGNE — The era when news publishers were happy to just adopt big ad-tech firms’ stacks is over. Now they want to control their tech and, with it, their own destiny. So says the man who runs programmatic ad-tech at one of the world’s biggest news publishers. “The key, the underlying thing across all this […]

When you are operating across multiple devices and channels to reach consumers that have fragmented in the last few years, you soon run up against a big problem. Those devices each throw off different data streams. Add that to the unique data sets also created when you buy ads through multiple places. It’s enough to […]

It is the number-nine news organization in the United States, with 52 million monthly uniques and 11 million social followers. But, like any local news company, the challenge for Advance Local is piecing together its network of local strengths in to something that has both scale and on-the-ground relevance. To date, Advance Local has made […]

If you were thinking it has been some time since the advertising world saw another technology acronym introduced, get ready to welcome the “CDP”. After DSPs, DMPs and SSPs, chat about “Customer Data Platforms” has been getting louder in 2018. But what is a CDP and what is their future? In this video interview with […]

SAN FRANCISCO — It owns dozens of local TV stations in 44 US markets, and several TV production companies besides – so how is Raycom Media adapting to the rapidly-changing world of TV ad sales? Beside a $3.6 billion merger with Gray earlier this summer, the company has tapped WideOrbit, a San Francisco-based company with a […]

SAN FRANCISCO — It may not quite be mom-and-pop, but it sure is father-and-son. Lilly Broadcasting is the US local broadcasting company previously run by George Lilly and son Brian, now by Brian and brother Kevin. With operations in Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Hawaii and Michigan, Lilly is keeping things small. But finance chief Wade […]

SAN FRANCISCO — What happens when you combine two media analytics problems with aspirations on driving growth for their clients? A perfect “marriage”, says one of the parties involved. Revenue Analytics is the Atlanta company aiming to drive revenue. WideOrbit is a San Francisco-based company with a software platform that handles  scheduling, billing, content management and invoicing for […]

The roll-out of addressable TV ad targeting systems continues apace – but total audience addressability still seems some way off. So Sorenson Media is getting creative in its approach to the problem. Sorenson’s solution is an addressable platform for linear TV which uses smart TVs to swap out ads otherwise broadcast in conventional transmissions. The […]

When Roku’s CEO told The Vergecast podcast last week the company wasn’t a hardware company but an advertising one, it seemed to surprise watchers. But he wasn’t kidding. Roku, which has been making streaming media players for TV for a decade now, generated $225 million in platform revenue last year, which includes advertising. According to this Motley Fool analysis, whilst […]

When demand-side ad platform The TradeDesk branched out its business offering last year, it was described as “betting its future on the future of TV“. Fast-forward a year, and The Trade Desk is also helping Sling sell its OTT digital TV inventory through its DSP. In this video interview with Beet.TV, The TradeDesk TV strategy and partnerships […]

Founded four years ago, VideoAmp aims to help advertisers and media owners plan, package, execute and measure the success of de-duplicated and precisely targeted campaigns that reach linear TV, VOD, OTT and digital consumers. Now it is taking a step up by acquiring one company and partnering with another. The outfit has acquired IronGrid Data […]

Amid all the hubbub about “omni-channel” marketing, if there’s one agency that should be best placed to execute on the opportunity, it is surely the one with “omni” in its very company name. As if that was not enough, however, Omnicom Group has just launched a new software suite for delivering a single-customer-view across all […]

CANNES — Many in the ad industry are pointing the finger inward, blaming the sector for alienating audiences through the over- and extreme use of targeting technology. That kind of consensus is forming, with executives promising to rebalance the audience relationship through better messaging. Still, even as the industry looks to correct itself, it is […]

CANNES — Together, they have partnered to raise the bar for addressable TV advertising, the new practice through which ad buyers can target viewers down to the household level. So, what do Sky and Finecast think is the future for addressable? Sky is the UK’s leading pay-TV provider, whose AdSmart was one of the world’s […]

It is now over a year since some US TV networks came together to strive for commonality in how they tap the opportunity of advanced TV ad targeting. Now, it seems, they want to kick it up in to the next gear. Last year, Fox, Turner and Viacom teamed to co-found OpenAP, a new consortium to […]

The digital platforms are commanding a greater and greater share of ad spend, and may even now be contributing to a forecast decline in US TV ad spend. How can the TV industry fight back? By simplifying and going large, says Operative CEO Lorne Brown, in this video interview with Beet.TV, Together with FreeWheel, Brown’s […]

CANNES — Over-the-top TV adoption may be exploding – but that explosion is louder in some corners of the world than others. In this video interview with Beet.TV, the chief revenue officer of ad-tech firm SpotX explains that his company has seen a swing for its revenue mix toward OTT – but that is not […]

It’s no coincidence that TV companies are facing a challenge to retain ad spend migrating to digital ecosystems run by the big native behemoths. Several initiatives and companies are now trying to tackle that problem. But what will it really take for TV to become a “platform”? In this panel discussion moderating by MediaLink’s Matt […]