Publica to Provide CTV SSAI and Unified Auctions Services for Hearst Television

NEW YORK CITY, April 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Publica, a leading Connected TV (CTV) ad platform owned by Integral Ad Science (Nasdaq: IAS), today announced a technology agreement with Hearst Television, enabling Hearst Television to enhance its streamed content with a traditional TV-like viewing experience, while maximizing Hearst's CTV advertising revenue via the introduction of a programmatic unified auction.

As a demand agnostic CTV Ad Server, Publica helps global publishers deliver a seamless ad experience via the introduction of Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI), while also helping publishers maximize revenue by running a unified-auction between multiple SSPs and Ad Exchanges. 

Through this relationship with Publica, Hearst Television will provide advertisers with enhanced buying techniques similar to those of linear TV. This includes competitive separation, frequency management and the ability to purchase the first slot within ad pods – much like standard TV commercial breaks.

Key Publica technology features that Hearst Television has implemented include:

• Server Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) —  Gives Hearst Television the ability to deliver a seamless stream of CTV content and ads, with the granular controls to optimize each slot by revenue per second within the pod.
• Advanced Ad Pod Decisioning — Gives Hearst Television the ability to guarantee an advertiser first pod placement, and own a pod by brand category, helping with competitive separation and buy side frequency management.
• Unified Auction — Enables Hearst Television to run a controlled, unified auction of all demand sources to extract the highest yielding ad per slot in each streaming ad pod. Hearst Television is also using the Publica 'Live Logs' feature to enable real time transparency into each of the programmatic auctions within which the company's inventory is cleared; this permits Hearst Television to optimize yield and data strategies in real time to ensure it does not lose demand to supply path optimization (SPO).

Publica has been instrumental recently in helping the IAB Tech Lab to build out the new protocols that bring increased security and targeting to streaming ad breaks via the introduction of OpenRTB 2.6, and also ads.cert 2.0 that secures the practice of SSAI. In implementing Publica CTV ad decisioning technology, Hearst Television can ensure its CTV inventory is being targeted and served in the most secure way possible, providing its advertisers with the controls and transparency they require[TC1] .

"We're excited to be collaborating with Hearst Television and providing them with the ad decisioning technology to grow their global advertising revenues, and empowering Hearst Television with the SSAI capabilities to improve their streamers' viewing experiences on CTV," said Ben Antier, Co-Founder & CEO, Publica.

"Publica's SSAI and Unified Auction technology allows us to accomplish two critical objectives; to provide the best and most relevant experience for viewers, while enabling safe and efficient solutions for our advertisers," said Jonathan Sumber, VP Digital Sales, Hearst Television.

To learn more about Hearst, please visit https://www.hearst.com/broadcasting 

To find out more about Publica, visit https://getpublica.com/

Hearst Television owns and operates 33 television and two radio stations serving 26 media markets across 39 states reaching over 22 million U.S. television households. Through its partnership with nearly all of the major networks, Hearst Television distributes national content over nearly 70 video channels including programming from ABC, NBC, CBS, CW, MY Net, MeTV, Estrella and more. The radio stations are leaders in Baltimore news/talk and rock music listenership. Its Hearst Media Production Group unit produces original programming across linear and streaming platforms for domestic and international distribution.  Its Very Local app, free to download on household OTT devices and available across popular streaming services, offers 24/7 access to local news, weather and an array of local and regional programming.  Hearst Television is recognized as one of the industry's premier companies and has been honored with numerous awards for distinguished journalism, industry innovation, and community service. Hearst Television is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hearst.

Publica is a leading Connected TV (CTV) ad platform and works with many of the world's biggest broadcasters, TV manufacturers, and OTT apps. Headquartered in Palo Alto, Publica provides solutions for publishers to maximize their revenue across their CTV inventory through key solutions including a Unified Auction, Ad Pod Management, Audience Management, and Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI). Publica serves over 5 billion ads on CTV every month, delivering quality ad experiences for Crunchyroll, E. W. Scripps, Fox, IGN, MLB, Philo, Samsung, ViacomCBS, XUMO, and more. Publica is owned by Integral Ad Science (Nasdaq: IAS), a global leader in digital media quality. For more information, visit https://getpublica.com/  

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SOURCE Integral Ad Science, Inc.