TV Planning has always been “data-driven,” of course, but the emerging mountains of digital inputs around consumer media habits is fundamentally changing the planning game. Now we can find and cherry-pick shows, segments and day parts in ways never imagined from traditional ratings and demo reports. We open the TV Insider Summit exploring how bigger, deeper data fundamentally alters how buying decisions are made across both first and second screens. Does the buy side now know more about the value of the audiences and inventory than the sellers? How is the rise of so-called “data-infused linear TV buying” and used of online data poised to disrupt a decades old balance of power among buyer, seller and now a new layer of tech and partners? And are both the technologies and the media across online and traditional TV ultimately merging?

Whose data will drive more efficient buying across new and old TV platforms? Will marketers be able to extend their own first party data to find those auto intenders whether they be on CBS prime-time or A&E at 2 am? Much like Facebook and Google, the cable and sat providers have the PII, but will they assert it on TV in ways the ISPs didn’t online? Or will NBC, CBS, Fox et. al. lock their inventory behind walled gardens of incompatible segments that hamper buyers getting a holistic view of available audiences? If broader, more detailed digital data is the new oil of media buying, then who owns the pipeline to TV viewers – marketer, network or distributor?

Automated TV buying is inching along, but a media buyer’s need to aggregate audience diffused across TV, online video, social video, OTT and mobile is acute and immediate. Are the programmatic platforms pioneered online and migrating slowly to TV part of the solution? What is the state of the cross-screen video buy now? How are buyers and planners knitting together a video audience between first and second screens, across diverse performance metrics, and among a range of formats? Being “screen-agnostic” is an attractive goal, and re-aggregating fragmented viewership is a good grail to find. But what will it take to get there and how are brands making do with the patchwork that is here?

Arguably the fastest growing type of video and TV consumption, game consoles, streaming boxes and connected TVs are converting the TV grid into on demand apps. But what scalable audiences really are available here when fragmented across Xbox, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung and more? Is this the marriage of the best of TV experience s with the best of online targeting?

Digital Video and TV are fast becoming fluid, nearly indistinguishable media experiences for audiences. But for media buyers the back end reconciliation, reporting and metrics are anything but fluid between the two screens. What tools and technologies will help bring these worlds together? Is programmatic video helping buyers not only become more efficient on TV but more sophisticated in crafting KPIs? Will these technologies change what sorts of impact we can expect from video advertising and even help move the agency business itself towards more outcome-based models?  

Data-driven TV deals continue to gain promise for TV marketers and networks. But questions remain over measurement, timing and how specific deals can work within a growing necessary cross-screen environment. We drill down into data-driven deals that are actually working for both seller and buyer. Erica Schmidt, executive vp/managing director North American of Interpublic’s Cadreon will help us navigate.

Millions of households with advanced satellite and cable boxes can now be targeted by detailed household profiles that include income, ethnicity, children in house and even purchase history/CRM data from other sources. But much of the inventory is being sold by the pay Tv providers themselves across their allotted two minutes an hour. Tremendous targeting precision may be possible here but at what scale, price and purpose?