Savveo – a Charlotte-based ad tech startup focused on cross-channel media buying – and media agency Empower, announced a joint partnership with television group Scripps that will focus on accelerating the advancement of local programmatic TV buying.
“The progress we have seen through our relationship with Empower and Savveo has advanced our efforts,” said Michael C. O’Brien, vice president of sales for the television division of The E.W. Scripps Company. “We will make local programmatic buying and selling in linear TV a reality in 2015.”
Beginning in Q2 2015, Savveo and Empower will execute local broadcast programmatic buys with Scripps-owned TV stations.
For now, programmatic TV buying continues to take place on a local level, but it is moving quickly toward adaptation on a national scale. For TV groups like Scripps with a large stable of owned stations, partnerships like these should contribute pretty immediately to top-line revenue – but, while it is great for undersold inventory, its impact on larger direct buys is what the industry will be paying attention to.