• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 14, 2009

TVGuide.com has selected PubMatic to optimize its ad revenue, the companies are expected to announce on Monday.

"PubMatic has significantly decreased the operational burden of managing multiple ad networks and simultaneously helped us eliminate inefficiencies in our remnant advertising pricing," said Ian Wallin, vice president of online ad sales at TVGuide.com.

TVGuide.com, which presently reaches 21 million unique users per month, has sought to differentiate itself from the competition by offering online video, news, community and TV listings in a single location.

The content hub also recently partnered with YoungHollywood.com, which is presently creating weekly video segments for TVGuide.com, providing an inside look at the lives of stars. In addition, all celebrity profiles featured on YoungHollywood.com now highlight program listings powered by TVGuide.com. TVGuide.com, meanwhile, is syndicating its original editorial content to YoungHollywood.com.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based PubMatic, which works with publishers to monetize non-guaranteed inventory, is up against stiff competition from rivals like the Rubicon Project and AdMeld -- which for a share of earned ad revenue factor in pricing data, available inventory, and publisher guidelines to determine which ad network is sent an ad impression.

"As the economy rebounds, publishers are increasingly focused on premium sponsorship opportunities," said Rajeev Goel, PubMatic co-founder and CEO.

And Goel has reason to be optimistic. In October, The Huffington Post selected the startup to optimize its ad revenue after the site conducted a trial using the service.

PubMatic earlier this year unveiled a new system for predicting the prices of ad network inventory in "real time." The system, named Ad Price Prediction, is based on a combination of "machine-learning algorithms" and "real-time API pricing," according to Goel.

He said the system had generated a "70% lift" in the price of inventory sold by ten large publishers participating in a beta trial of the system versus the prices they generated with PubMatic's older system, which was based exclusively on algorithms.