Sean Buckley on Magnite’s Mission To Streamline Disney’s Ad Game Across Platforms And The World

“Since we launched our exclusive partnership with Hulu in the US six years ago, our relationship with Disney has expanded significantly” notes Sean Buckley, Chief Revenue Officer at Magnite. We sat down with Buckley recently to discuss that expansion and how his team is working with Disney on everything from international expansion to live sports.   

ALAN WOLK (AW): How have the ways Magnite works with Disney evolved over the last six years and beyond longevity—which is rare enough—why is this worthy of being called out? 

SEAN BUCKLEY (SB):. Our partnership now encompasses the company’s entire portfolio of ad-supported VOD and live inventory, including ESPN and Disney+. 

In addition to streaming, we also support Disney’s other formats including display, short-form video and most recently podcast inventory. We’ve grown beyond the US and support Disney in other mature markets including Australia and Latin America. 

Disney has been a great collaborator throughout our relationship. Earlier this year they made their video inventory accessible to buyers through our ClearLine platform. 

AW: Can you explain the ClearLine offering: how is it enhancing? What makes it unique and how does it impact Disney’s ability to execute one-to-one deals with key buyers?

SB: ClearLine is Magnite’s direct buying platform, built into our supply-side technology. It provides buyers with access to the premium video ecosystem. While ad dollars are moving from traditional TV into streaming, a meaningful portion is “stuck” in traditional IO-based transactions, often due to the cost structure of programmatic. We developed ClearLine to address that concern, putting more dollars toward working media and making it easier for media owners to securely share data with buyers through a self-service interface.

ClearLine has drawn considerable interest in the market, and we now have major holding companies, leading independent agencies, and in-house brands actively leveraging the product. On a forward looking basis, we are making heavy investments in specific areas like live as well as formats such as tiles on the home screen to improve ad delivery and streamline access. 

AW: As Disney is expanding globally, how are you working to support customers across different regions and platforms?

SB: While there has been a strong focus on the growth of streaming in the US, and rightfully so, a similar trajectory in many international markets is inevitable and presents a huge opportunity for our customers. In Australia, our local broadcast partners like Nine and Seven, have long adopted BVOD (broadcast video on demand) and have been ahead of other parts of the world in online delivery of VOD. We also played a meaningful role in live ad delivery for the Olympics in the AU market this summer. In addition to Disney, a number of our customers are leaning into the global opportunity streaming presents. For example, our OEM customers like LG and Samsung as well as FAST services like Pluto.tv are expanding their advertising businesses globally and require a partner who can support them in many markets around the world. We have dedicated teams on the ground across the major markets in Canada, LATAM, EMEA and JAPAC. Our clients appreciate the local subject matter expertise and support that we provide. 

From an infrastructure perspective, we provide publishers like Disney with TV-level quality and service including strict uptime requirements and 24/7 technical support. For the premium publishers we work with, and especially in high-stakes video environments, it’s imperative that we help deliver a smooth ad experience.

AW: What are the opportunities and challenges you’ll face going into the Latin American market specifically with Disney? What is the market like there and are all countries in about the same place when it comes to streaming?

SB: Streaming TV is seeing significant growth in Latin America. Smart TV ownership in Latin America (65.7%) is actually higher than North America (61.7%) and Western Europe (59.6%) according to eMarketer. We’re working with a number of media owners including Disney as they expand into Latin America to meet consumers where they’re watching. 

Based on research we’ve done in the region, Latin American audiences are also very leaned into ad-supported streaming options and they are willing to view ads in exchange for quality content. That being said, Latin America is a large continent and there are differences from country to country; countries like Brazil and Mexico lead the way in terms of streaming TV viewing. 

Programmatic is still developing in Latin America and we see a lot of opportunities here to create more efficiencies for both media owners and buyers. 

AW: Live sports are notoriously tricky on streaming. How are you going to help Disney stay on top of that—what’s the secret sauce?

SB: Magnite has helped power the monetization of live sports on Disney properties for several years. With live, the core focus is on the viewer experience. Traditional programmatic tools weren’t made for live TV environments. The response from many media owners has been to sell this content through direct channels, allowing only approved advertisers and ads to run. While this solves some concerns, it effectively caps the revenue that publishers can be making and limits opportunities for advertisers. 

Within Magnite Streaming, we have built tools designed to improve the way that we support large traffic spikes during appointment viewing TV. Live Stream Accelerator (LSA) is a tool that allows us to manage load balancing with both media owners and our demand-side platform partners, ensuring faster and more efficient user experiences without interruptions. Disney has leveraged components of this product for their live sports inventory.

AW: It looks like ESPN and ABC News podcast inventory is now part of this deal. How are you handling this vis a vis streaming—is there cross-platform buying and measuring, so is podcasting a separate deal?

Sean: Disney leverages our DV+ SSP to monetize their audio inventory portfolio which includes the ESPN and ABC News podcasts. We’re integrated with Disney’s podcast network and this inventory is curated and packaged in Magnite’s deal libraries. 

AW: Disney’s Jamie Power mentioned the importance of driving automation and executional ease. How is Magnite helping in that process and what is unique about your approach?

SB: We have spent a lot of time working with Disney to build out automated operational workflows. One example of that is the advanced creative workflow we’ve built with Disney and our demand-side platform partners. This allows us to automate the submission, review, onboarding and transcoding of ad creative across the thousands of creative that run on Disney’s inventory. This was incredibly important for Disney due to their strict creative guidelines and the manual time spent with the legacy process.

Additionally, by integration with DSP deal APIs, we have automated the process for setting up programmatic guaranteed and biddable deals on Disney inventory.

AW: What future trends are you seeing that may impact your relationship with Disney and other customers, which allow you to provide even greater value?

SB: There’s clearly a narrative in the market questioning the future value of the SSP in lieu of some of the recent moves from other players in the space, which I understand. I think there’s a natural reaction anytime a large media owner announces some aspect of home-built technology or a DSP announces a “direct” integration initiative. With that said, the reality is almost always more nuanced. And on these points, I want to be clear I’m speaking about Magnite specifically, not all SSPs, as stark differences have developed among SSPs, particularly in streaming:

Our offering is modular to account for the fact that, while large media companies sometimes look at aspects of ad technology in-house, it is rarely end-to-end (outside of the walled gardens). There are aspects that make much more sense for publishers to license than build. For example, at the rate of change we see in programmatic and streaming, the technology and necessary capabilities need to adapt at a rapid pace. Disney is a great example of this, we developed a deep integration and workflows with their proprietary technology starting from day one. 

SpringServe, the ad server technology we acquired in mid-2021, has been a transformational addition to our streaming business. With over 90% of Magnite’s US CTV partners now leveraging this technology, we’ve meaningfully broadened the ways we support customers far beyond the capabilities SSPs have historically been known for. This includes functionality in areas like inventory sharing between programmers and distributors, forecasting, and robust creative review protocols.