• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 26, 2010

NBC Universal has launched the Universal Audience Platform (UAP), a new online ad network aggregating 21 NBCU owned-and-operated digital properties. NBCU claims the UAP reaches nearly 60 million unique users per month, and that the new platform will enable it to reclaim control of its own display ad inventory by "dialing down" third party ad networks.

NBCU said the UAP inventory will be sold solely by targeting audiences and not by specific Web sites, using top data providers including BlueKai, Nielsen and Quantcast. Audience profiles can include demographic composition, behavioral patterns, geographic location and purchase intenders.  That data can also be supplemented with internal NBCU and client provided data to further define the clients' desired audience.

NBCU said the UAP system has been designed to "plug into" Madison Avenue's big holding company trading desks, including Havas' Adnetik, Interpublic's Cadreon, Omnicom Trading Desk and Publicis' VivaKi.