Ventura: The Trade Desk’s Big Leap… Into What, Exactly?

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Written By Michael Shields

After months of reports and speculation, The Trade Desk finally came clean about Ventura, the company’s upcoming TV operating system. This is a fascinating move by a company that has touted having a “clean” business (just a DSP, just for buyers) and has partners in the TV OS space (like Roku).

This raises lots of questions:

  • A TV OS is nothing without actual people buying and using TVs with the tech baked in. How is The Trade Desk going to get shares going quickly so that this thing actually matters?

  • Will it actually be better than what’s out there? We all know that search and discovery in a CTV world ain’t great. Can an ad tech company that is seemingly fully invested in making this work, do it better?

  • Will The Trade Desk be able to sell ad inventory for the TV apps that its OS distributes? That’s what Roku does, for example – won’t that put the buy-first tech company on the sell side?

  • What’s the retail media/TV commerce play here, if there is one? Roku is actively testing in this realm. Walmart and VIZIO surely will get aggressive here once they finally come together. (BTW, Walmart’s DSP - Walmart Connect - happens to be powered by The Trade Desk). The Trade Desk has made a big retail media push on the web - is there a partnership in the works to get TV commerce off the ground?

  • What am I missing?

TV’s OS Wars: The Battle For Interface Dominance. Part 1

The television, once a simple device for passive entertainment, has evolved into
a complex ecosystem of software, hardware, and content.

In this report, we’ll examine the strategies of all the key players, the challenges and opportunities they face, and the implications for the future of television consumption worldwide.

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Michael Shields
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