Hearst Television and Comcast-owned FreeWheel are partnering on an OTT video advertising solution combining Hearst Anyscreen with FreeWheel’s Monetization and Revenue Management (MRM) platform.
Hearst Television will be able to expand availability of ad inventory on its owned properties and use additional inventory sources within the FreeWheel marketplace for its OTT advertising campaigns.
FreeWheel described its partnership with Hearst as a first step toward enhancing the value of local broadcast inventory, and that the next stages will focus on the co-development of initiatives to further the unification of digital video and linear TV inventory.
“Keeping pace with the expectations of the marketplace, we are constantly evolving and improving Hearst Anyscreen to the highest standards of inventory quality and reporting transparency,” said Adam Noble, Hearst Television’s director of ad products, in a statement. “Our integration with FreeWheel enables an improved connection to premium inventory from natural partners such as A+E Networks, and opens up additional supply from preferred partners while maintaining the same high standard of quality and compliance that we have always offered our clients.”
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“Our work with Hearst fits perfectly with our overall objective of allowing television to operate with the ease of a platform, while delivering targeted audiences at scale,” said James Rooke, general manager of FreeWheel Publishers, in a statement. “In this case, we’re thrilled to be helping to ensure that local advertisers can use TV and video to meet their specific marketing objectives.”
The new advertising partnership for FreeWheel comes a few weeks after the company held a “NowFront” event. During the presentation FreeWheel also announced the launch of rebranded FreeWheel Media sales team. FreeWheel has been operating a media sales business since its acquisition of StickyAds in 2016, which it consolidated with Strata, Adazzle, VisibleWorld and AudienceXpress under FreeWheel in 2017.
But the rebranding is intended to solidify its investment and offer the combined solutions to the TV and video marketplace for ease of transaction for the buy side.