Programmatic ad buying is coming to local TV slowly at first but should gain momentum and become significant over the next three years, according to a new report by BIA/Kelsey.
BIA/Kelsey expects that programmatic buying will account for no more than 1% to 2% of the local spot television marketing in 2016. However, in a updated version of its report, entitled Programmatic Is Coming To Local TV, BIA/Kelsey said its analysts believe that can ramp up relatively quickly based on the example set by the national TV market.
“We’ve seen this pattern in the national television market as well, where programmatic has experienced explosive growth in the past year,” said Rick Ducey, managing director, BIA/Kelsey. “Local television has a number of complicating factors to sort out in order to accommodate widespread programmatic adoption, beginning with lack of measurement reportage—other than age and gender—different workflow software, and there needs to be integration of TV stations and platforms.”
The report notes that the core proposition is that programmatic TV can add efficiency and accuracy to the buying and selling of TV inventory.
However, it also identified four impediments to the success of programmatic TV: lack of transparency, potential for sales channel conflicts, concerns about reach and frequency unduplicated across channels, and data and universe standardized definitions.
Programmatic Is Coming to Local TV: 2016 Mid-Year Update features insights from interviews conducted in June 2016 with a panel of industry experts drawn from agencies, data firms and platform companies. Those interviewed for this mid-year update were from 4C, Cadent, Epsilon, Hubbard Broadcasting, The Media Kitchen, placemedia, Quantum 11 and WideOrbit.
