Open A.P. Recap

The news of Open A.P. is still ricocheting around the TV world and will have reverberations that carry through the buying season. Here is a round-up of key media coverage and industry reactions.Fox, Turner And Viacom Team Up in TV Ad-Targeting PushAdvertising Age -- Jeanine PoggiThe biggest barrier to audience targeting on TV has been marketers' inability to buy specific audience segments across rival networks. But Fox Networks Group, Turner and Viacom are looking to change that by teaming up on a platform that would standardize audience targeting among the three. Called OpenAP, the platform allows advertisers to target audience segment across the three network groups, buying whatever programming will deliver those groups.Turner, Viacom and Fox Join Forces for Data-Driven TV Ad BuyingWall Street Journal -- Mike Shields“The move comes as the TV industry is looking to adopt some of the precision ad targeting and automation that has become standard for digital advertising. Ad buyers, while enthusiastic about moving beyond classic broad demographic targeting on TV, have grumbled that data-driven ad buys are hard to execute at scale … If this product works well, more sophisticated ad buying on TV could accelerate rapidly.”Open AP: One More Step On TV’s Journey To True AddressabilityTV[R]ev -- Alan WolkFox, Turner And Viacom announced their new ad targeting platform, Open AP today. While Open AP is definitely a step in the right direction, it’s still what’s known as “indexed” advertising: advertisers can buy against shows that index well for specific demographics. It is not “addressable” advertising, where the network can actually show different ads to different viewers. That capability is currently only in the hands of the MVPDs who have the technological ability to deliver addressable ads to during the two- to three-minutes per hour of ad space they are allotted.OPEN LETTER FROM FOX NETWORKS GROUP, TURNER AND VIACOM ANNOUNCING OpenAPTurner Press ReleaseToday, we are proud to introduce OpenAP, television’s first-ever open audience platform. Founded by a consortium of television publishers and operated by a leading independent auditor, OpenAP will deliver cross-publisher targeting and independent measurement for advanced audiences.That premium content reaches 93% of all television audiences today, and we hope it will expand if additional publishers join OpenAP in the future. This consortium is a necessity to move our industry forward.Turner, Fox, and Viacom Unveil a ‘Laser Focused’ Television Ad Targeting ProgramReuters -- Tim BaysingerWith the TV upfront season weeks away, advertisers are seeking audiences beyond the ones measured by Nielsen, which are based on age, gender and income, mimicking ad buying on the digital side. A third-party auditor will measure how many times an advertiser’s commercial runs in front of the particular audience.Analysts Like OpenAP But Debate Timing and ImpactBroadcasting & Cable -- Jon LafayetteBrian Wieser of Pivotal Research “First, more network groups need to participate. The absence of NBC Universal from OpenAP at this time is particularly notable because they are the largest owner of national TV ad inventory and because they are already actively developing their own efforts in this space. Fragmented approaches are probably unhelpful to the industry.”How Turner, Fox And Viacom Seek To Simplify TV Audience SegmentationAdExchanger -- Kelly LiyakasaWhile Fox, Turner and Viacom were already matching data against panels to find audiences, historically, clients would have to go through that process with each network, said Joe Marchese, president of advanced advertising products for Fox Networks.“We think this is a step in the right direction to optimize linear based on audience-based buying,” Marchese said. “That will help reduce waste and, ultimately, reduce the ad load, ideally, which is a win-win for the consumer. Making ads more relevant for the user is something we’ve been very vocal about at Fox. OpenAP is designed to allow other TV broadcasters with premium audiences and content to join, said Sean Moran, head of sales for Viacom.Advertisers Have a New Way to Buy TV spotsNew York Post -- Claire Atkinson“There’s no additional fee for being part of ‘Open A.P.’ It’s a not-for-profit,” said Sean Moran, head of sales at Viacom. The idea could also help TV networks deliver more-relevant ads to viewers based on their interests.Fox, Turner and Viacom Will Launch a Standard Audience Targeting Platform for Networks and AgenciesAdweek -- Jason LynchAs each company has worked on their respective audience targeting platforms, they kept hearing from clients who “were hoping that we would get together to make it much more simplified and scalable for them to do business with us,” said Donna Speciale (president of Turner Ad Sales). For now, Speciale will say that the platform is “data-agnostic” and can accommodate any data sets, or syndicated data sets, that clients and publishers want to use.