Robert D. Thompson 
In the last two years of connected TV’s growth, marketers and local publishers haven’t exactly been the primary beneficiaries.
Jeff Quandt wants to change all that.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Quandt, vice president of revenue partnerships at Entertainment Studios, says 2022 is going to see increased ad sales for CTV – and he believes local media can shake things up.
Keep it local
Quandt’s Entertainment studios is part of the Allen Media Group whose portfolio understand The Weather Group, Pets.tv and more.
When he acquired The Weather Channel in 2018, Local now, a 24-hour local news and weather service, came in tow.
The company has since restarted offering as a free and ad-supported streaming television offering with increasing diversity.
It includes local news, weather, sports, traffic, movies, TV shows, documentaries, and channels geo-fenced to user’s zip code, as well as plenty of content licensed from channel partners. premium.
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The local differentiator
Quandt, who headed Pluto TV’s programmatic partnerships until last year, says local can help new FAST TV services find audiences, differentiating themselves from “homogeneous” rivals.
“A few of the larger legacy FAST platforms dominate the space and there is often not much differentiation between them,” explains Quandt.
“So what a newer player in space like Local Now has to do is deliver the unique pieces that only we can.
“We really see local as a critical part of content experiences. At Local Now, we’ve gone ahead and concluded content offerings and over 200 different DMAs where you can get personalized content around local weather, news, traffic, sports, all of that good stuff.
CTV’s growth prospects
Connected TV ad spend in the United States has grown in a healthy way, although eMarketer expects annual growth from 2022 to be even slower than in 2019.
Quandt of Entertainment Now says, “It can be difficult to reach an audience. As CTV has started to grow, finding some of these audiences can be a challenge, especially compared to traditional television.
“There is still a lot of money to grab,” he says.
“We will follow this momentum where 2022 will be even more important than this year, especially at the dawn of an election year.”
Programmatic and direct
He’s aiming for an initial 2022 ad sales season in which he wants to offer buyers both programmatic and direct-sell inventory.
Over the past year, the Quandt team has developed partnerships with programmatic procurement platform (SSP) vendors like Unruly Media. Now he’s looking for combination tactics.
“Programmatic covers most of our income,” he says. “We love this mix of direct and programmatic, but we’re not trying to operate in a space where programmatic is handcuffed.
“We want to move forward when we’re working on our initials, and programmatic is always a big conversation on the table. This will continue even more. It is by working hand in hand that we have had success in the past.
You are watching “Unlocking the Potential of CTV / OTT for Advertisers & Publishers,” a Beet.TV leadership series presented by Unruly. For more videos, please visit this page.
