LONDON — Respected UK public broadcaster Channel 4 may be a public broadcaster – but, unlike the BBC, it still has to raise its own funds commercially. So, the company is hoping its coming-soon PVX programmatic video trading platform will give it a foundation to reap more of the money coming in to programmatic.
Announced in November following a year-long pilot on Freewheel’s Fourfronts technology for upfront programmatic ad sales, Channel 4 had used DSPs from Freewheel, TubeMogul, Adap.tv (AOL) and Videology. PVX (programmatic video exchange) will be deployed not on Channel 4’s live linear broadcast TV but in video ads served up in views of its All4 catch-up service, available across multiple devices.
“It represented around 15% of our total video-on-demand revenue so far this year,” Channel 4 digital and partnership innovation head Jonathan Lewis tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “We see that growing to around 30% next year.”
Channel 4 won’t get there just because programmatic video advertising interest is growing amongst its own customers, even though research shows the PVX-delivered All4 ads are 72% more efficiently targeted and delivered 24% more effective ad recognition than a standard Run of Site (ROS) campaign.
In addition, Lewis wants more companies than just Channel 4 to use PVX. “PVX we see an an opportunity, potentially, to encourage other premium publishers to join,” he adds. “Our long-term ambition is whether or not we can grow our publisher base within our platform and sell that inventory on their behalf.”
There is something of a UK TV programmatic arms race kicking off. ITV recently opened up programmatic video capability with RadiumOne, satellite network and channel owner Sky has tapped Videology to run its programmatic capability.
“We fully expect our competitors to be in the mix in the next 12 to 18 months time,” Lewis adds.
This video was produced at the Future Of TV Advertising Forum. Beet.TV’s coverage is sponsored by Xaxis. You can find more Beet videos from the conference on this page.