• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, May 7, 2015

Placemedia, a supply-side platform (SSP) for linear television, on Thursday announced it will offer programmatically sold inventory at the the TV upfront. The “programmatic upfront” inventory will be available through ad tech platforms The Trade Desk, Tremor Video and Collective.

Placemedia’s upfront inventory will be from local cable providers, national cable networks and local broadcasters, per a release. Placemedia claims to give advertisers access to 30 billion monthly traditional TV impressions from networks such as A+E Networks, AMC, Bravo, CMT, CNN,  ESPN and more.

On the surface, Placemedia’s “programmatic upfront” is not all that different from the traditional upfronts: Advertisers will be able to secure guaranteed impressions and prices upfront.

What will be different, Placemedia, The Trade Desk and Tremor Video contend, is the process that follows.

“This is different because buyers will actually access this linear TV inventory through [the DSPs] of Trade Desk, Collective, Tremor Video, not IOs or rate cards that are normally used in upfront deals,” said a Tremor Video representative.

Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk, spoke with Real-Time Daily about the new partnership.

He acknowledged that this week’s announcement is more about putting the initial pipes in place -- “you can consider it alpha, right now,” he said -- but asserted that material differences will be immediately evident. 

“There is more precise targeting now,” he said. “There’s definitely work that has to be done, and some stations will be more supportive than others,”  he said, adding, “but it’s happening right now.” Green said he hopes to have the “programmatic upfront” offering available to all clients at some point during the second half of this year.

Green explained that in the past, advertisers and agencies would give their money to someone representing the content owner at the upfront. From there, the representative would take care of the ad selection, delivery, etc.

“But what’s happening now,” Green remarked, ”is that the buy-side is getting more involved in that decision of where they run, what they are going to run.” He continued, giving an example: “Buyers can be more assertive and say: ‘I only want to run on this station if the follow conditions are met.’”

Those are the types of requests the “programmatic TV” offering will be able to help with right away -- the types of requests that are either complicated, multifaceted, rely on large amounts of data, or all of the above.

In other words, the types of requests that are “just really difficult to cobble together by hand,” Green said.