Dish Media said that its set-top box video on demand ads are now available for purchase programmatically and in real time.
It will allow advertisers to bid on the linear inventory through private, real-time auctions set up with demand-side platforms such as The Trade Desk, and immediately deliver ads and receive impressions.
"Dish Media is continuously innovating to develop new capabilities that help advertisers make the most of their investments," said Kevin Arrix, senior vice president of Dish Media, in a statement. "Enabling our set-top box VOD inventory drives programmatic video ads into traditional linear households, a previously untapped audience for digital buyers."
Dish Media said it can now sell ads programmatically across both Dish and Sling TV platforms for the first time. The company said programmatic purchasing on Sling TV in 2019 contributed to more than 10,000 individual brands airing advertisements on inventory, up from 7,500 the year prior.
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Arrix said Dish Media’s new VOD offering was built to integrate into the existing environment while introducing a new set of impressions to the market. The new VOD inventory gives advertisers access to more than 60 TV networks on broadband-connected set-top boxes. Dish Media is using dynamic ad insertion to expose its inventory to programmatic advertisers and hopefully attract digital ad budgets that weren't traditionally spent on TV.
"Advertisers innately want to create bridges across the entire television ecosystem so they can reach their desired audience in every environment," said Tim Sims, senior vice president of inventory partnerships at The Trade Desk, in a statement. "Dish Media's VOD capability gives advertisers a new set of inventory to buy in real time and way to scale their audience. This is a major milestone that showcases the massive opportunity happening right now in connected TV."