UK broadcaster Channel 4 announced today it has launched ‘All 4 Private Marketplace’, a new tool which will let advertisers buy inventory on its All 4 catch-up platform through real-time bidding. Private marketplaces for All 4 inventory will be available to buyers on demand-side platform The Trade Desk, via a partnership with sell-side platform Freewheel, and Channel 4 says it expects its marketplaces to be available on Google’s DV360 DSP in the coming weeks.
Channel 4 already offered programmatic buys through its existing marketplace M4RKETS, also available through The Trade Desk and Freewheel, as well as Adobe’s DSP. But M4RKETS is limited to buys for specific inventory at a fixed price. The broadcaster says that the new product will offer advertisers a more flexible approach, letting them adapt and upweight investment in campaigns based on performance in real-time.
All 4 Private Marketplace will let buyers access inventory across all devices, with targeting based on both the genre of the content, and demographics of the audience such as age and gender. And the product should dovetail with the company’s broader investment in cookie-free targeting. Channel 4’s BRANDM4TCH product, launched last year, allows advertisers to use their own first-party data to target known customers, or suppress audiences in order to target new customers.
Channel 4’s chief revenue officer Verica Djurdjevic said the new tool, alongside the company’s broader investments in ad tech, significantly contributes to its ‘Future4’ strategy. As part of this strategy, released last year, Channel 4 has committed to delivering 30 percent of total revenues from digital advertising by 2025.
There’s still plenty of progress to be made, since as things stand digital ad revenues make up 17 percent of Channel 4’s total revenue. And providing buyers with real-time bidding capabilities that they’re familiar with elsewhere may help bring new buyers into TV.
“Channel 4 moving into the biddable programmatic space marks a big step forward for the industry,” said Will Gough, AV Partner at Amplify UK, one of the agencies involved in All 4 Private Marketplace’s testing period. “Not only will it give legacy and new to broadcast advertisers a new entry point into the market, but it also provides greater flexibility and begins to future proof broadcast video when sat alongside other video platforms in this space.”
