TV company OpenAP, a consortium of TV publishers whose members include AMC, Fox, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS, The Weather Channel, and Univision, today rolled out its supply-side platform. According OpenAP’s release, the SSP delivers “the largest cross-publisher footprint of inventory avails accessible to buyers in one environment,” reaching “virtually all U.S. households.”
To be clear, the SSP connects advertisers with traditional linear TV inventory — not household addressable or connected TV. According to The Wall Street Journal, once buyers “select and reserve inventory provided through the SSP, they will still need to work with the individual sellers and use traditional insertion orders to complete transactions.” Still, the offering tracks inventory availability in real-time and centralizes buying, making it smarter all around to the benefit of both advertisers and publishers.
Omnicom’s Omnicom Media Group is is the first agency to use OpenAP’s new platform, with testing across OMG agencies in the first half of 2021.
“Connecting Omni to OpenAP marks a significant step towards automation of traditional TV by bringing more speed, efficiency and visibility to TV inventory, enabling more flexibility and accountability in this medium,” said Matthew Kramer, managing director of advanced advertising at Omnicom Media Group North America, in a statement.
David Levy, CEO of OpenAP, on the launch: “We’re grateful for our publishers and partners at OMG who have remained firm in their commitment of investing in and building more sophisticated ways to buy and sell premium TV advertising.”
The launch of OpenAP’s SSP comes at an interesting time in television as CTV and streaming now dominate the conversation. Make no mistake — traditional TV viewing is being cannibalized, with audiences migrating to digital options.
However, data from TV Vision finds (chart below) that linear consumption has grown during the pandemic as more people are stuck at home due to local lockdowns and social distancing.
