• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, April 1, 2025

ORLANDO, FL -- The Trade Desk's Jeff Green made a compelling case for investing in ad-supported news on the open internet during the ANA's media conference here this morning and he's putting their money where his mouth is.

Likening the shift in programmatic ad spending from the open internet to "walled gardens" to an investment-style "short" against democracy, Green described how the DSP's (demand-side platform) new "News Navigator" product is bringing programmatic ad dollars back to bona fide news publishers -- just in the nick of time.

He told ANA attendees the system has already generated $50 million in incremental programmatic buys on ad-supported news sites, and that it's pacing to do at least $200 million and as much as $500 million this year.

During a conversation with Ad Fontes Media Chief Strategy Officer Lou Paskalis, which collaborated on the launch of News Navigator last year, Green said the system is helping to correct an imbalance that economically hobbled news organizations since they first began publishing online -- and famously traded analog ad dollars for digital dimes, or in some cases much worse.

"Every week in the U.S., on average, two journalistic platforms fold," Paskalis noted, adding that many of them have been local news organizations, meaning that community-based news relevant to democracy -- "things like gerrymandering or the local school board deciding to ban books that we read as kids doesn't get covered. And if that doesn't get covered, the people don't know.

As big and influential as The Trade Desk is in the programmatic advertising marketplace, Paskalis noted it's "just one DSP.

"If others followed your lead there we could absolutely change the trajectory of ad-supported news in America and ensure that people who can't afford a subscription actually have access to high quality news and not their mother’s sister’s brother’s cousin’s nephew’s interpretation of the news."

While the conversation did not delve into the current administration's recent attacks on the other major democratic institutions, including the courts, threats to free press publishing, and even the Constitution, Green noted that supporting America's news organizations is more important than ever, because of a corresponding deprecation of "truth" on social media platforms, especially Meta's.

While he did not address Meta's more recent, post-election decision to discontinue fact-checking and removing disinformation, Green said Meta fundamentally altered its business model in April 2024 in a way that already began downplaying the content of bona fide news content in favor of short, TikTok-like video content.

“If you just make this about dollars and cents -- as I think Facebook shareholders might urged [Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg] to do -- I can either take an impression, put it on news, and then I have to pay the news company 80 cents on the dollar or 60 cents or whatever they would pay them," Green explained, adding, "Or, I can run it on short videos, which will enable me to compete with TikTok, and my cost of goods is essentially zero. I will make more money and compete with TikTok. And I don’t have to testify before Congress about what is truth. I’ll do that. And that’s what they did."

In other words, Meta took steps that have "de-monetized" ad-supported news in favor of -- how shall I say this -- less informing content, and Green expects others, including Google, to follow suit.

"Prepare for Google to do exactly the same thing," Green predicted, adding, "The DOJ trial revealed this -- 90% of the spend to [Google's] DV360 goes to YouTube. So they're in the same boat. The economics are steering them in the exact same direction.

"So if the open internet abandons journalism, there's no one left. And there is no journalism."