• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, February 26, 2020

NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations are launching Spot On, an advanced video advertising business for local and regional CTV and OTT advertisers.

The group of 42 NBC and Telemundo stations and their digital assets can now activate complex OTT/CTV campaigns across all U.S. DMAs and NBCUniversal’s sports regional networks, and deliver real-time reporting and business results, according to NBCU.

The offering gives advertisers access to fully owned or directly purchasable long-form premium video across every regional U.S. market. It includes more local NBCU ad inventory than any other source, per NBCU, which says that the owned division as a whole reaches 38% of U.S. households and Puerto Rico.

Spot On will offer hundreds of millions of monthly impressions through streaming commercial time on NBCU’s apps and inventory purchased from other video programmers on other streaming apps, channels and services, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Spot On is being led by Shawn Makhijani, senior VP of NBC Spot On and business development and strategy for the owned stations division.

“Launching with such a large pool of owned inventory, we can instantly bring tremendous value to our clients,” says Makhijani, who notes that NBCU believes that the local advanced business will be the division’s fastest-growing. “By supplementing our owned inventory with directly acquired premium third-party inventory, clients can now, through a single buy, achieve the needed scale and efficiency for even the most complex buys.”

BIA Advisory Services estimates that local ad spending in streaming TV platforms will reach $1.06 billion this year (out of a projected $161.3 billion for all local U.S. advertising), and $2.13 billion by 2024.

Ad agencies have moved as much as 10% of client budgets (not including advertising by local businesses buying directly) out of local spot TV and into streaming TV, and Spot On is designed to enable local stations to compete in the shifting environment, Frank Comerford, the owned division’s chief revenue officer and president of commercial operations, told WSJ.

The owned division won’t sell inventory on NBCU’s upcoming Peacock streaming service in its first year because Peacock’s ad time is already sold out, according to WSJ sources.

Spot On uses Comcast and NBCU technologies, including geo-targeting and audience targeting capabilities.

The debut of the local advanced advertising initiative follows the launch of the unified, linear and digital One Platform buying, tracking and measurement tool for national and international campaigns by NBCU’s Advertising and Partnerships division.

NBCU announced more specifics about One Platform yesterday.