Streaming businesses can’t always predict what consumers will want until they have a consumer’s attention, which is why data is essential to win that precious engagement. By now you’ve surely heard of the Netflix smash hit Squid Game, the dystopian South Korean series that has become an international phenomenon. More than 142 million households have viewed the series in just under a month after its launch, smashing the previous record of 82 million held by Bridgerton and making it the most viewed title on Netflix ever.

TikTok is coming to TV.

It’s starting off on Amazon TV at first, but we’d be shocked if it didn’t quickly expand its footprint throughout the entire TV ecosystem.

And TikTok isn’t the first social media platform to make the leap to TV—YouTube has been available on TV for many years, and the amount of YouTube video that’s watched on an actual TV set has been growing rapidly.

If you asked ten ad tech veterans what constitutes first-party data, you’d likely get ten responses that all map back to identity. From email addresses to demography, the industry’s view on what defines first-party data tends to focus exclusively on audience data. But are we missing part of the point? What about context and all of the data associated with it too? Shouldn't we be paying attention to that too?

Live sporting events were the last exclusive part of the cable bundle; new box office releases were similarly exclusive. Their arrival to streaming signals that we have arrived at a tipping point. 

“If you are just looking to buy inventory, then you can do that directly from the various programmers and you can buy that inventory very cheaply. But you are not getting any sort of targeting,” notes Raghu Kodige, CEO of LG Ads. “Whereas when you buy directly from LG ads, you are buying a specific audience based on a very strong layer of data. We can give you data about viewers across linear TV and across all the other apps, because we can capture what is on the glass.”

Between new streaming services, massive increases in CTV ad spending, and growing investments from major tech players, the digital video ecosystem is moving quickly and showing no signs of slowing down. Amidst this turmoil, however, YouTube stands above the fray as a seemingly immovable giant. The company’s revenue increased by 84% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2021, driven in large part by a rebound in online advertising.

With third-party cookies and other “traditional” means of identifying customers slowly fading into obscurity, marketers are looking ahead to the next generation of targeting tools.

As part of our upcoming series of Special Reports on the Emerging Smart TV Ecosystem, we sat down with Raghu Kodige, CEO at LG Ads, to discuss why owning both the hardware and the software makes smart TVs a perfect vehicle for content discovery, something that benefits programmers and viewers alike.

With cameras ready to roll on the long-awaited sequel in the “Bill & Ted” franchise, no one knew a global pandemic would force Orion pictures to “Face the Music” in more ways than one. In addition, no one could predict that “Bill and Ted Face the Music” would become a playbook for the future of not just Premium Video on Demand (PVOD), but launches across the board, from PVOD to theatrical.

From our private TV[R]EV Thought Leaders Circle event, VIZIO's Adam Gaynor on why open standards are essential to addressable advertising's future.

As part of our upcoming series of Special Reports on the Emerging Smart TV Ecosystem, we sat down with Ken Norcross, Inscape's Director of Business Development, to discuss how TV Measurement is evolving and why smart TV OEMs and their ability to use ACR data to measure both linear and streaming give them such a big leg up