• by Wayne Friedman , September 13, 2017

Addressable TV advertising could see a major lift at AT&T once Time Warner TV networks are added to the mix.

With the expected $85.4 billion deal for Time Warner soon to close, Randall Stephenson, chairman/CEO of AT&T, says there is big ad revenue potential, which will build on existing addressable ad efforts around DirecTV.

“We are selling the addressable advertising within AT&T at a factor of two to three times what a company like Time Warner is able to get,” says Stephenson, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference.

“So, using this data, can Time Warner begin to get yields that look like what we are seeing in DirecTV and in AT&T? That's a sizable number. And it's a very, very sizable opportunity.” For Stephenson, the potential comes down to total ad impressions.

“Within AT&T and DirecTV, we have an inventory of advertising that we sell every year, about 200 billion impressions. ... Time Warner has 750 billion impressions that they sell every year, predominantly through Turner networks. Put the two together, it's about 1 trillion impressions per year,” he says.

Stephenson says the recent hire of Brian Lesser, CEO of a new AT&T business centered on advertising, content, data and analytics. Lesser, former CEO of North America for GroupM, will help fuel this effort.

All these efforts will give AT&T greater leverage in the marketplace, Stephenson notes. “If you can get an extra $10 per subscriber of advertising revenues through this model, that's $10 of revenue you can use in the marketplace to discount to the consumer to take share and drive down churn.”