Sky and Virgin Media join forces for TV ads

LONDON: British pay-TV rivals Sky and Liberty Global’s Virgin Media will team up to offer advertisers access to more than 30 million TV viewers in Britain and Ireland.

The partnership, which covers both broadcast and video on demand (VOD) advertising, will make use of Sky’s AdSmart targeted advertising platform as well as Liberty Global’s technology, Sky said.

AdSmart enables Sky to provide different ads for different households watching the same programme, allowing advertisers to target viewers according to factors such as age, lifestyle and location using Sky’s customer data.

TV broadcasters are fighting to preserve their share of the ad market as companies spend more on social networks such as Facebook and online platforms including Google’s YouTube.

European broadcasters TF1, ProSiebenSat.1 and Mediaset said last week they would set up a joint trading platform for digital video advertising to appeal to media agencies planning continent-wide campaigns.

Sky said the partnership with its rival would give companies access to more than 30 million “targetable” TV viewers in Britain and Ireland, an audience on par with social networks such as Facebook.

Sky’s Chief Operating Officer Andrew Griffith said thousands of leading brands were tailoring their campaigns by using AdSmart. — Reuters