Looking to grab local TV stations' ever-increasing political advertising dollars, Katz Media Group -- the biggest sales representative for U.S. TV stations and MadHive, an advertising software company -- are forming an advertising partnership for local connected TV (CTV) political advertising.

This will build on Katz’s large share of political advertising business, where it says it places more than 25% of all local broadcast political advertising dollars.

The companies say the deal will create the largest local CTV marketplace for political advertising --- ad inventory from MadHive’s local broadcast clients and more than 1,300 publishers and exclusive marketplaces from the Katz Digital Video unit.

Katz says the deal will help brands to custom target consumers at scale by platform and geography -- with the latter providing access to heat maps across more than 400 congressional districts.

Katz says CTV is expected to account for $1.5 billion in political advertising spend in 2022 -- part of an overall political ad spend estimate of $9 billion. Kantar estimates local linear TV could take in $5.5 billion from political advertising in 2022 -- up from $4.5 billion in 2018.

Katz has two main digital marketplace businesses: Katz OTT, an aggregator of impressions reaching viewers at scale; and Katz Live, a live streaming marketplace for content including music, sports, e-sports and entertainment.