Scripps heads Political CTV Consortium
April 6, 2022
A group of local US broadcasters led by The E.W. Scripps Company have come together to serve political advertisers with broad audience reach on connected TV platforms during what’s expected to be a record election-spending year.
Cox Media Group, Capitol Broadcasting Company, Graham Media Group and other broadcasters are participating in the initiative.
“Collectively, we have a wall of inventory, and we’ve found a way to work together to make it easy for agencies to access that,” said Samantha Osborne, senior director of national sales for the Scripps Political CTV Consortium in Washington, D.C. “They can reach a high percentage of voters while making their own decisions but without having to work through numerous sales reps from different organisations. With the broadcasters we’ve assembled, we have billions of monthly premium connected TV impressions available for political advertisers.”
Experts project roughly $9 billion in spending in 2022, matching the presidential cycle of 2020, with as much as $1.8 billion of that expected to go to internet-delivered television platforms, or CTV. In 10 states alone – Florida, California, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan – $3.9 billion is projected to be spent on political advertising.
The Scripps Political CTV Consortium allows agencies to work with one representative to reach multiple publishers who have premium, guaranteed owned-and-operated inventory. Osborne said Scripps is exclusively working with Magnite, the independent omnichannel sell-side advertising platform, to make CTV inventory available to agencies and programmatic buyers.
“Magnite is excited to be powering the technology for the Scripps Political CTV Consortium,” said Mike Laband, senior vice president of CTV Platform for Magnite. “Working closely with Scripps and the consortium media owners, we are providing the market with a unique, scaled offering for political CTV ad investment.”
“There are times when it makes sense to work together to produce a new and innovative product for the best interest of customers,” added John Conway, vice president of WRAL Digital for Capitol Broadcasting. “This is one of those times when we can provide industry-leading service by collaborating.”