• by Wayne Friedman , September 24, 2019

Looking to expand local TV advertising programmatic activity, Videa, the Cox Media Group-owned platform for automated tv advertising, has started up what it says is the industry’s first free, transparent, open data specifications for exchanging TV data.

Backing the effort is TV station company Sinclair Broadcast Group, and Imagine Communications, a video ad management company.

Videa’s published APIs -- an application program interface that allows one party's data to work with another party's data --  will include specifications for inventory, RFPs, orders, makegoods and pre and post logs.  

Shereta Williams, president of Videa, stated that “Videa strongly believes in a platform agnostic future," and said the effort is intended to facilitate the process of video advertising dollars going to local TV stations.

This effort will automate the flow of inventory, rates, and ratings between systems, providing agencies with instant access to broadcast inventory. 

The publicly available API specifications developed by Videa are in compliance with the industry’s TV Interface Practices Initiative (TIP) Interface Framework.