Rak Patel, Chief Commercial Officer at Channel 4
UK broadcaster Channel 4 this morning announced it is significantly opening up programmatic access to video on-demand inventory on its eponymous streaming platform, launching five new partnerships with ad tech partners. Amazon Ads, FreeWheel, Hawk, PubMatic, and Yahoo DSP will now all have direct access to Channel 4’s on-demand offering, significantly expanding the route available to advertisers to run campaigns with the UK broadcaster.
Channel 4, in contrast to fellow UK broadcaster ITV, had already opened up programmatic ad sales to third-party ad tech businesses, namely Google’s DV360, The Trade Desk, and Adform. Now Amazon Ads, Hawk, FreeWheel Buyer Cloud and Yahoo DSP will all be added as DSP partners, while the broadcaster is also integrating with sell-side business PubMatic’s direct-to-supply offering Activate.
Rak Patel, Channel 4’s chief commercial officer, said that the strategy is ultimately aimed at making life easier for advertisers. “In response to market demand for greater flexibility and scale in programmatic, these integrations perfectly align with our advertiser-led, agency-aligned strategy and our commitment to continuous innovation,” said Patel. “By making Channel 4’s distinctive content and rich audience insights available through these partnerships, we’re making it easier than ever for brands to plan and activate campaigns with real impact.”
Debate continues across the TV world around the pros and cons of opening up programmatic access to a wide range of partners, and Channel 4 has been fairly liberal on this front when compared with other European broadcasters. Many big American TV businesses, however, have opted to work with a much broader selection of partners, and today’s announcement brings Channel 4 more in line with this approach.
There’s not an obvious right or wrong answer. Broadcasters who choose a more restricted approach typically cite the dangers of seeing their inventory commoditised within a DSP or access route where buyers can quickly and simply shift budgets from one broadcaster to another, or even over to a video sharing platform. They also tend to question whether the value added by these intermediaries outweighs the fees they themselves take for their part in the process.
Not all agree with this calculation, believing that the unique datasets and access to demand provided by ad tech partners justify the take rates. And the risk of course is that if a broadcaster isn’t available through a buyer’s preferred buying platform, an advertiser may simply buy elsewhere.
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