MediaTalks - a podcast series by FreeWheel

Launched in 2014 in the US, Tubi is one of the fastest growing Ad-supported Video On-Demand (AVOD) services, now reaching over 100million monthly active users. Last year Tubi announced it is coming to Europe and entered the UK market with blast. Join us in this new episode of MediaTalks as we discuss with Ross Appleton, the UK Managing Director, about the UK launch, their success thus far, and their vision for the longer term.

In this new episode of MediaTalks we spoke with Stefan Havik, the Chief Data Officer at DPG Media to cover a range of topics from measurement, data to simplification of the buy and how DPG Media is innovating to enable greater and simpler access to their premium inventory to buyers. 

TV can win - if we make it simple. TV in all its forms remains the strongest medium for advertisers in terms of the engaging ad environments it enables, the brand safety and transparency it guarantees, and the performance it delivers. But, as an industry, we don't always make it easy, and in a world where big tech is a few clicks away, that must change… Join me, Emmanuel Josserand, as I talk to James Rooke, President of Comcast Advertising, and discuss how moving toward simplicity can open TV to more advertisers and new opportunities. 

Premium video is one of those topics that keeps recurring; in an era where attention span is getting shorter and competition for audience engagement is fierce, the significance of high-quality video cannot be overstated. In our latest Media Talks conversation, we spoke to David Evans, VP, Insights, Global at NBCUniversal, to better understand what high-quality video experience means from a consumer stand point, why the concept of 'premium video' really matters for brands and how the emergence of new ad formats is bringing great excitement in CTV environments. 

There is a deep transformation taking place right now in the realm of media: Streaming. Streaming is changing the way viewers access and consume content with  instant access at their fingertips to endless library of movies, series, sports, documentaries... accessible anywhere and anytime. As the popularity of streaming continues to soar, it is raising important questions about the future of traditional media and the economics of the entertainment industry. In this episode of MediaTalks, we talked to Alex Hodge, Senior Director and Head of Digital Ad Sales & Innovations at Warner Bros. Discovery, about the recent launch of Max and uncovered what are the wider implications of streaming. 

In this new episode of MediaTalks,  we discussed with Bee Pearson CEO and CO-Founder of  PiqNiq a brand new media agency, who's been making some waves with their expert approach and deep understanding of the digital and TV landscapes. We talked about the launch of PiqNiq and asked Bee to share her views and experiences about TV, CTV, convergence and more. 

No matter how much you spend on creating an ad, if it is not being seen, or if the environment in which viewers are seeing the ad is not right, there is no impact and ultimately no ROI. The viewer experience has always been central to broadcasters who are constantly fine tuning and trying to establish an optimum ad experience. This is a very delicate balancing act at the crossroad between maintaining a positive user experience, ensuring advertisers reach their campaign goals and,  generating revenue to fuel new investments in premium content. In this new episode we spoke to Jon Lewis, Head of Commercial Innovation & Partners at Channel 4 to talk about their latest ad experiments and innovations. 

In this episode, we spoke to Cammy Cronin, SVP Global Advertising Sales Strategy at  NBCU to talk about their recent announcement bringing together leading local broadcasters and publishers across the world. Through this partnership NBCUniversal is looking to 'build a more scalable and equitable global video ecosystem'.  The aim is to create the right foundation for greater and deeper industry collaboration across data / identity, automation, ad innovation, and measurement, on a global scale. 

In this new episode of MediaTalks, we speak to Olya Diachuk, Data Driven Media Director at Heineken, about a very important topic: Sustainable Marketing.We talk sustainability from a people  as well as environmental perspectives and unpack Heineken's Brew a Better World vision to drive progress towards a greener, fairer and more balanced world. 

To kick off the first episode of our new season 2023, I wanted to continue to explore the much discussed topic of Advanced TV, and CTV in particular! There is so much going on around Advanced (AVOD, CTV, Addressable TV), with so many platforms changing models  or new ones appearing and audiences hopping between all these new services to access their favourite content. Vevo has been on this bandwagon for some years and has recently expanded its distribution models, a perfect time to  talk to Richard Brant, Director Advanced TV at Vevo, to discuss various aspects of advanced tv and how Vevo has evolved and embraced this new  paradigm. 

Measurement remains one of the major inhibitor of ad spend and is certainly one of the biggest challenge in our media industry. It is one thing to ‘reach' consumers with an ad, but critically there is a growing question on how well the ad performed? Or really if viewers have actually paid Attention to the ad?Interests around Attention has grown recently due to the inability of online measurements to provide effective reports on ad exposure and the real impact of an ad on consumers. But attention is hard to quantify and measure and is often mis-understood. In this episode, I have the pleasure to talk to Nicolas Grand, SVP Transformation at Omnicom Media Group (OMG), to uncover Attention and how OMG has taken significant steps to become one of the media agency group that is pioneering the concept of attention planning and buying.

There are today so many ways to access and watch content. But one of the newest ways consumers are now watching content is on Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television, otherwise called FAST. In this episode, celebrating one year of MediaTalks, we talked to Jan Vorndamm, VP International Advertising Business at PlutoTV. Together with Jan, we discuss what's behind the exponential growth of these FASTs and why the appetite for these services is only starting. 

In this episode, we talked to Mathijs Gilissen, Director of Digital Performance and Optimisation at Talpa Network in the Netherlands. During our discussion we touched upon various topics from the new reality of the cookieless world to automation / programmatic as well as user experience, following a recent ad load study undertaken by Talpa. 

There's a lot of talks about the rise of AdvancedTV (ATV) and, according to a survey FreeWheel's conducted at the end of last year, agencies and advertisers are very bullish about ATV platforms which are all seeing strong and continued growth across many European markets. The ability to bring data to TV-like environments is bringing a lot of excitements to buy-side players. However, to make these platforms attractive and valuable you need scale; but how does this play out in smaller territories such as The Netherlands?  To answer our questions,  this month we talked to Remon Buter, Chief Investment Officer at GroupM in The Netherlands. 

In this episode we talked to Bart Swimberghe, advertising experience and data monetization lead at Proximus, about some of the latest advancements that have taken place in Belgium on the Linear addressable front. Proximus was one of the first telco operator to embark in the linear addressable journey, starting back in 2017. A complex journey, but one with many learnings and great innovations which have led to this interesting position Proximus now is in the market... 

For this first episode of 2022, we turned to Italy and spoke with Andrea Conte, Head of Product Development and Data at Publitalia'80, Mediaset's ad sales house. We discussed some of the latest advancements that have been implemented at Mediaset from the re-positioning of their OTT services to the new developments in addressable TV and how these changes are opening the door to simpler and more effective ad campaigns.

For this festive and last episode of 2021 we talked to our own Thomas Bremond, GM, International, FreeWheel and embarked in a journey across time. We explore some of the most striking events that occurred in the premium video and media industry over the past 5 years and reflect on some of the learnings and how the TV industry is evolving and preparing itself for the challenges ahead. 

This month, we talked to Thomas Leymann, Director Digital Investments at GroupM in Germany to explore how marketers are coming out after a rough period of uncertainty. We reflect on how the return to optimism is driving investments in Advanced TV and CTV in particular and how marketers are taking advantage of the linear and digital convergence.

In this second episode of MediaTalks, we discuss with Charlie Glynn, Ad Tech Lead at Channel 4, to uncover what's behind the recent announcement of All 4 Private Marketplace. The new innovation allows brands to buy digital advertising of premium inventory via private programmatic auction, a UK's first. But what does that mean for the industry, why has it taken so long and what's next? These are some of the questions we examine with Charlie during our 15 minutes candid conversation.

In the first episode, we talked to Tim Willcox. Tim is a programmatic expert, having spent the last 15years in various buy-side commercial and programmatic ventures. Most recently Tim was the Managing Director of the centralised Programmatic Hub at Dentsu. He is now advising various buy-side media clients to help them better understand and navigate the complex universe of programmatic video.During this first session Tim and I had a candid discussion about the advent of CTV, programmatic and the ‘commodatisation' of the industry.