Latest news with #FreeWheel
Business Wire
15-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Scripps Partners With Freewheel to Accelerate Advertiser Investment Across Women's Sports and Live Events Including the WNBA and NWSL
CINCINNATI & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP) is partnering with FreeWheel, a global technology platform for the television advertising industry, to increase advertising opportunities across women's live sports content on ION, Scripps' national sports and entertainment network that reaches every U.S. TV household over-the-air and on all major pay TV and connected TV services. Bringing audiences the excitement of WNBA and NWSL games alongside original programming like the 'State Farm ® WNBA Friday Night Spotlight on ION,' ION is offering brands a premium way to be part of the energy around women's sports. Last month, Scripps also announced that ION will be the exclusive television home to both the inaugural SI Women's Games and the Elevance Health Women's Fort Myers Tip Off college basketball tournament. Through this partnership, Scripps and Freewheel aim to not only increase investment in women's sports but also bring new advertisers to the arena. 'In addition to surges in viewership across our tentpole women's sports content on ION last year, we saw more than two dozen new brands advertising with Scripps,' says Seth Walters, head of CTV sales at Scripps. 'As the demand for women's sports content accelerates and viewers increasingly seek it on streaming and connected TV platforms, we want to continue to bring more brands into the fold through our expanding roster of live women's sports and our always-on distribution.' FreeWheel's focus on the growth of programmatic advertising across sports and live events in streaming is reflected in an enhanced product suite built to handle the unique challenges of live TV. With expedited programmatic activation via creative pre-approvals, tools to anticipate real time viewership that ensure proper pacing and ad-serving at scale, FreeWheel is ensuring that programmatic advertising can support the continued growth of live sports across streaming. 'CTV monetization through the first eight weeks of this NWSL on ION season has seen a major uptick vs. last season, increasing over 200%,' says Walters. 'We are looking forward to working with FreeWheel to power this explosive streaming growth and unlock new monetization opportunities for the forthcoming season of the WNBA.' The return of the WNBA on ION this Friday, May 16, follows a successful 2024 season where average viewership for the State Farm ® WNBA Friday Night Spotlight increased by 133% over 2023 and attracted more than 23 million unique viewers across games and wrap shows. 'Coordination between publishers, advertisers, and tech partners is critical to ensure the success of these live events,' says Greg Bel, Vice President, Head of Supply at FreeWheel. 'Scripps and ION are meaningful players in the connected TV space, and, through our partnership, we are ensuring that advertisers who rely on programmatic as their primary buying strategy can take advantage of the growing momentum of women's sports to put their brands in front of highly engaged audiences.' The popularity of women's sports is set to continue growing, with 36% of fans who do not currently watch women's sports saying they plan to in the next 12 months, according to Comcast Advertising's 2024 ' Behind the Remote: A Deep Dive into Sports Viewership & Fandom ' report. About Scripps: Scripps Sports serves professional and college sports leagues, conferences and teams with local market depth and national broadcast reach. Scripps Sports currently has partnerships with the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the National Hockey League's (NHL) 2024 Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, the 2023 Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights, the new Utah Mammoth and the NCAA's Big Sky Conference. Scripps Sports is a division of The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP), a Fortune 1000 American media company. About FreeWheel FreeWheel empowers all segments of The New TV Ecosystem. We are structured to provide the full breadth of solutions the advertising industry needs to achieve their goals. We provide the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types, and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers. With offices in New York, Chicago, London, Paris, Beijing, and across the globe, FreeWheel, A Comcast Company, stands to advocate for the entire industry through the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more information, please visit and follow us on X and LinkedIn.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Inside Universal Ads' plan to reach the next 100K buyers of TV ads
This story was originally published on Marketing Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Marketing Dive newsletter. Over the next few weeks, marketers will learn what's coming down the pike in video advertising at both the Interactive Advertising Bureau's digitally focused NewFronts, taking place May 5-8, and at spring upfront presentations. While historically a time for major brands and agencies to cut deals, this year's ad-buying bonanza features a new platform aimed, not at existing spenders on national and local TV, but the channel's next 100,000 buyers: an e-commerce-heavy field that hasn't yet made the leap to the home's biggest screen. The platform, called Universal Ads, was announced ahead of the Consumer Electronic Show in January as part of Comcast's efforts to create a one-stop TV advertising platform that simplifies premium video buying. Since launch, Universal Ads has added publisher and technology partners to improve its offering to the small- and medium-sized businesses that have mostly bought social video but are looking to take the next step in advertising. 'We want to replicate the way you buy YouTube for premium TV,' said James Grant, general manager of Universal Ads. Bringing the ease of online ad buying to TV requires both developing new tools and providing access to premium video as a category, rather than a fragmented publisher-by-publisher approach. To address the former factor, Universal Ads hired talent from the walled garden world to create solutions that resemble what advertisers are used to in the digital and social realms. For the latter, Universal Ads relies on FreeWheel, the connected TV ad server that has already been adopted by major players in video and standardizes how Universal Ads defines and targets audiences. Among Universal Ads' digital-first team is James Borow, an architect of Snapchat's ad manager who emphasized how critical FreeWheel is to realizing Comcast's goal to modernize TV transactions. 'When he was familiarizing himself with FreeWheel, [Borow said], 'You guys have done the hard part — the ad server exists,'' Grant recalled. Growing partnerships Initially launched with partners including A+E, AMC Networks, DirecTV, Fox Corporation, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Roku, TelevisaUnivision, Warner Bros. Discovery and Xumo, Universal Ads last week added Estrella MediaCo, Fuse Media, LG Ad Solutions, Scripps, Spectrum Reach and Vizio to its publisher slate.
Business Wire
29-04-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
FreeWheel Introduces New Tools to Simplify Streaming Advertising for Brands and Publishers
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today FreeWheel, a global technology platform built for the streaming advertising industry, introduced new capabilities to its industry leading software that strengthen the connection between buyers and sellers to improve the entire ad-supported TV experience. New tools in the FreeWheel Streaming Hub include advanced platform customizations, improved data signals and optimized bidding. As the largest CTV marketplace, FreeWheel is focused on simplifying media buying to allow more advertisers to find their audiences across premium video. 'At FreeWheel, our goal is singular: how can we deliver positive business outcomes for our partners across the streaming ecosystem,' says Mark McKee, General Manager at FreeWheel. 'It's why we integrated our programmatic and direct capabilities more than half a decade ago, and why today we are sharing we have further streamlined and enhanced our offerings so more advertisers can connect with more premium publishers to deliver a thoughtful brand and viewing experience.' Because the FreeWheel SSP is directly integrated into Streaming Hub, FreeWheel's enhancements are growing the premium streaming marketplace and making it a more effective platform to connect advertisers and publishers. Another upgrade is dynamic floor pricing which gives additional flexibility to match advertisers with publishers while maintaining enhanced control and ensuring efficiency, transparency, and precise targeting for advertisers. 'Roku offers the premium content that is crucial for advertisers,' says Miles Fisher, Senior Director, Strategic Advertising Partnerships at Roku. 'We strive to meet buyers where they want to transact and our partnership with FreeWheel makes it even easier for them to work with us.' While data-driven insights have become a critical component of TV advertising, discrepancies in quality have posed challenges for both buyers and sellers. Enacting standard signals across all content sources makes it easier for advertisers to find audiences, at scale, across platforms. When enriching these insights with Comcast data through the FreeWheel Identity Network, which integrates leading identity solutions with first-party identity data, FreeWheel is enabling efficient audience targeting that delivers more demand back to publishers. 'Spectrum Reach's integration with FreeWheel makes it even easier for programmatic buyers to access our premium inventory at scale within their preferred demand-side platform,' said Rob Klippel, Senior Vice President of Product, Technology and Operations at Spectrum Reach, the advertising sales business of Charter Communications. 'Powered by our privacy-focused, addressable data and unmatched household reach, advertisers can effectively connect with potential customers and drive real results.' "FreeWheel's enhanced capabilities within their Streaming Hub allow us to deliver more precise audience targeting while maximizing efficiencies across DIRECTV's premium inventory. We're particularly excited about how these improvements will help us continue to connect advertisers to engaged viewers across our platform, creating a more seamless advertising experience for viewers and marketers alike,' says Matt Van Houten, SVP, Product, Operations, and Business Development, DIRECTV Advertising. "Through A+E Global's partnership with FreeWheel, we're expanding our addressable inventory capabilities, enabling advertisers to deliver smarter, data-driven targeted placements across our entire content portfolio,' says Tyler DeNicola, Vice President Programmatic Revenue and Partnerships, A+E Networks. 'This precision targeting not only enhances our monetization potential but, most importantly, creates a more relevant and engaging audience experience." As live events solidify their place in the streaming universe, FreeWheel is investing in the tools needed to ensure a seamless ad experience during these high-pressure moments. From adjusted campaign pacing, viewership surge anticipation, and expanded advertiser diversity, publishers and brands can both be confident they are enhancing the viewing experience with their advertising offerings. 'Live sports continue to be one of the most powerful draws in streaming, due to audience loyalty and high engagement rates,' says Keith Kazerman, President of Streaming at Locality. 'With FreeWheel, we're creating new pathways for local advertisers to access premium, addressable live sports inventory that has traditionally been out of reach.' About FreeWheel: FreeWheel empowers all segments of The New TV Ecosystem. We are structured to provide the full breadth of solutions the advertising industry needs to achieve their goals. We provide the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types, and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers. With offices in New York, Chicago, London, Paris, Beijing, and across the globe, FreeWheel, A Comcast Company, stands to advocate for the entire industry through the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more information, please visit and follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn A+E Global Media ™, a joint venture of Disney-ABC Television Group and Hearst, is an innovative, multiplatform content powerhouse that reaches audiences everywhere and is comprised of some of the most popular and culturally relevant brands in media, including A&E®, Lifetime®, The HISTORY Channel™, LMN®, FYI®, and VICE TV®. Our audiences extend to more than 414 million households in 200+ territories and in 40+ languages. With over 70,000 distinct assets available around the world, the company produces best-in-class content across the multiplatform landscape. A+E Global Media boasts full-scale production capabilities with A+E Studios ® and A+E Factual Studios™. A+E Digital encompasses Websites, Apps, social media, short form content, AVOD offerings; and SVOD products A&E Crime Central™, HISTORY Vault ® and Lifetime Movie Club ™ and 60+ FAST channels from the company's wildly popular library. A+E Global Media is headquartered in the United States, with owned & operated entities in Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and a joint venture in LATAM. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, X and Facebook. About Charter: Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR) is a leading broadband connectivity company and cable operator with services available to nearly 57 million homes and businesses in 41 states through its Spectrum brand. Over an advanced communications network, the Company offers a full range of state-of-the-art residential and business services including Spectrum Internet ®, TV, Mobile and Voice. More information about Charter can be found at About Locality: Locality is the industry's preeminent local television solutions provider, committed to addressing the evolving needs of advertisers by unlocking the power of local and driving dollars to the local video marketplace. Locality brings together the best talent in both broadcast and streaming helping brands tap into the mindset of the local consumer and precisely reach optimal markets. Having served more than 6,000 advertisers, to date, Locality offers the best premium inventory that the industry has to offer to help brands optimize their spend and target audiences at scale with direct access to over 150+ streaming publishers and 400+ local broadcast stations. Our team operates from 11 locations across the U.S. designed to strategically service 100% of DMAs. About Roku, Inc.: Roku pioneered streaming on TV. We connect users to the content they love, enable content publishers to build and monetize large audiences, and provide advertisers with unique capabilities to engage consumers. Roku TV™ models, Roku streaming players, and TV-related audio devices are available in various countries around the world through direct retail sales and/or licensing arrangements with TV OEM brands. Roku-branded TVs and Roku Smart Home products are sold exclusively in the United States. Roku also operates The Roku Channel, the home of free and premium entertainment with exclusive access to Roku Originals, and the #3 app on our platform by both reach and engagement. The Roku Channel is available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Roku is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., U.S.A. About Warner Bros. Discovery Warner Bros. Discovery is a leading global media and entertainment company that creates and distributes the world's most differentiated and complete portfolio of branded content across television, film, streaming and gaming. Available in more than 220 countries and territories and 50 languages, Warner Bros. Discovery inspires, informs and entertains audiences worldwide through its iconic brands and products including: Discovery Channel, Max, discovery+, CNN, DC, TNT Sports, Eurosport, HBO, HGTV, Food Network, OWN, Investigation Discovery, TLC, Magnolia Network, TNT, TBS, truTV, Travel Channel, MotorTrend, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, Warner Bros. Television Group, Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, Warner Bros. Games, New Line Cinema, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Turner Classic Movies, Discovery en Español, Hogar de HGTV and others. For more information, please visit
