Channel 4 has invested in a new pan-European ad sales joint venture which it says will “cater for the growing demand for multi-territory video campaigns.”
The UK broadcaster is an equal partner with ProSiebenSat.1 (Germany), TF1 (France) and Mediaset (Italy and Spain) in the European Broadcaster Exchange venture which will be based in London and is expected to start trading early next year.
At launch the new business will offer programmatically traded capacity but the partners say it will expand “to drive forward technological development in online advertising” and “kick start a deeper, strategic collaboration” between the shareholders.
Jonathan Lewis, Head of Digital & Partnership Innovation at Channel 4 said: “The demand for multi-territory digital ad campaigns in brand safe and transparent environments is increasing as the programmatic video ad market continues to grow exponentially across Europe.
“Our investment allows Channel 4 to cater for this demand exclusively in the UK market and forge closer strategic and commercially successful partnerships with key broadcasters in European markets which will in turn generate new digital revenues for Channel 4 to reinvest back into the UK creative sector.”