• by Wayne Friedman , September 12, 2022

In a move to make linear TV more like digital media, Dish Media is partnering with SeaChange, an ad-insertion company, and Beachfront, a sell-side ad server, to give advertisers the ability to buy TV commercial time seconds before the ads air.

Dish says this “first of its kind” effort, called National Linear Programmatic, will be available to advertisers across its more than seven million TV homes.

Viant will be the first demand-side platform (DSP) to use the new technology.

Dish says the service, in addition to having real-time capability, will be fully automated for linear advertisers. It will enable partners to plan linear alongside digital and over-the-top buys and will give more digital-first advertisers easy access to buying linear TV.

Jonathan Ahuna, senior vice president of operations, Viant, said, in a release, that in addition to buying advertising seconds before commercials air, it will “quickly report out on the buy, vastly reducing the traditional delay of linear reporting.”

In March, Dish Media struck a deal with Invidi, an addressable ad-tech company, for a new ad platform, Conexus, which allows programmers to more easily execute national addressable advertising campaigns across multiple pay TV providers.

Addressable TV technology allows advertisers to selectively segment TV audiences and serve different ads or advertising pods within a common program or navigation screen.

The deal with Conexus -- along with a separate DirectTV deal -- represented around 15 million U.S. TV homes.

Invidi represents 19 million “active” addressable TV homes and serves 26.5 million households overall.