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DVB moves towards Targeted Advertising specification

23.01.2018

Following the publication of the Study Mission Report on Targeted Advertising in September, the DVB Steering Board approved the creation of a dedicated group to implement the report’s recommendations. The CM-TA Group is co-chaired by (pictured above, left to right) Angelo Pettazzi (Mediaset) and Vincent Grivet (TDF). The latter will address the topic of targeted advertising at DVB World 2018 in Warsaw (12-14 March 2018).

First implementations: 2020

It is anticipated that the CM-TA group will agree a set of Commercial Requirements for targeted advertising by June this year. The subsequent draft specification would go before the DVB Steering Board for approval, and once approved could pave the way for the first market implementations in 2020.

In a joint comment, the CM-TA co-chairs, said, “There is a genuine appetite for TA to be made available for classical broadcast television. This is accompanied by the overall feeling that with too many technical solutions there is a risk of fragmentation in the marketplace that would hinder any progress. This is where the work of DVB on TA can help unlock the full potential of TA in broadcast television.”

DVB Chairman, Peter MacAvock said, “With the formation of CM-TA, DVB shows that it is committed to remain the central hub where the specifications of the TV industry are written, and in this case in close cooperation with HbbTV.”

Why focus on TA?

The overall advertising market is shifting rapidly towards digital, programmatic, targeted or addressable models. Advertising is an essential source of revenue for the TV ecosystem and therefore TV advertising will be a part of this shift towards new delivery models.

As initial solutions for addressable TV advertising are being introduced, it is noted that the underlying technologies are predominantly proprietary and have a narrow scope. This creates a risk of technology fragmentation and could act in adverse ways for the existing TV ecosystem.

Study Mission findings

In March 2017, in light of this major trend and its potential impact on the TV ecosystem, DVB decided to set up a dedicated Commercial Module – Study Mission Group (SMG). Its purpose was to assess the relevance of generating a new DVB specification dedicated to enabling Targeted Advertising serving at the very least classical broadcast television.

The Study Mission Group published its final report in September 2017 which concluded the following:

  • targeted advertising is very likely to have considerable commercial importance in the context of broadcast TV, and it is a high priority to enable broadcasters to offer such models to their advertising customers;
  • no satisfactory, complete, open technology framework enabling TA in the context of horizontal broadcast TV is currently available, though HbbTV appears to provide a robust starting point;
  • given the combination of the high commercial importance and the lack of a suitable enabling technical framework, it was advised that DVB should generate a dedicated DVB-TA specification (or technology framework) to fully enable TA, focusing on horizontal broadcast business models as a minimum;
  • this DVB-TA framework should be generated in close cooperation with HbbTV, with a view to re-using all relevant existing (or future) HbbTV assets.

Last November, the DVB Steering Board approved the Study Mission Group report and the creation of a dedicated CM-TA commercial subgroup to be tasked with implementing the TA SMG recommendations. HbbTV and DVB have agreed to a tight cooperation for the work as set out by the liaison established between the two groups.