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Local linear television advertising will be bought and sold on programmatic platforms within the next two to three years, agreed panelists on a TVNewsCheck webinar last Thursday moderated by this reporter. But in the meantime, there is plenty of work to do to bring the industry to that point.
It’s well known that local linear television has been losing ground to digital competitors for at least the last decade. Some of this can be attributed to the overall decline in linear audience and some to the relative difficulty and higher cost of buying local linear across multiple markets compared to buying advertising on digital platforms like Meta or Google. But efforts are underway — by such players as ITN and Magnite and TVB — to bring programmatic buying to the local linear television marketplace, something that the panelists agreed is essential.
Local audiences still hold a great deal of value for advertisers, the panelists said. But the challenge is unlocking that value so that advertisers can reach the audiences they are targeting across a very fragmented landscape.
“The value of a local audience has never been higher. Advertising budgets in their aggregate have gone up. The focus on delivering a localized message to reach a highly engaged local audience is incredibly high, whether it be through performance marketing, social media, traditional digital or broadcast,” said Christopher Martinez, OTT director of sales, Hearst Television. “It’s about solving the problems of the modern marketer, and that might be a place where we’re a little