CTV OS wars: Should The Trade Desk have bought Roku?
With so many players entering the CTV landscape, the fight to own the largest market share is not only becoming more intense, it’s raising concerns about additional walled gardens coming in.
by Jyoti Rambhai
05 December 2024
Streaming is rapidly reshaping the TV landscape and the race to control the operating system in viewers’ living rooms – dubbed the OS wars – is heating up.
Google, Roku, Amazon, Samsung, LG and Titan are the key players in this battlefield, and now The Trade Desk has entered the fight.
The US-based adtech giant is aiming to partner with smart TV original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and other streaming aggregators to deploy its new TV OS – Ventura – with Disney, Paramount, Tubi and Sonos already onboard as content partners.
But in an already highly fragmented market, is this the right move for The Trade Desk?
While CTV is becoming a form of programmatic advertising with smart TV’s OS having the ability to measure impressions and viewership data, it is still a relatively profound departure from The Trade Desk’s core business as a demand-side platform (DSP).
With the launch of a TV OS, the company will have to create a product that appeals to a more general CTV user-base, as well as publishers and OEMs.
Ashwin Navin, co-founder and CEO of Samba TV, agrees saying that between all the major players in this space, the “TV OS market is challenging for content publishers to support and difficult to measure in a holistic manner due to fragmentation”.
“[Therefore], to take a sizable share of this market, a new OS would need to be dramatically better in both user experience as well as economic value for all stakeholders — including the consumer.”
Roku leads the pack, but for how much longer?
According to Pixalate – a global ad fraud protection platform, which ranked streaming device ecosystems by share of voice (SOV) for open programmatic CTV advertising – Roku is leading the way with 37% SOV in Q3 globally.
Samsung smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV followed with 17%, 15% and 11% of SOV, respectively.
North America’s TV OS rankings largely mirror the global one and that’s partly because the US is one of the largest markets for programmatic adspend. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Roku also has 37% of SOV in the region, followed by Samsung, also at 17%.
However, both at a global and regional level, Roku’s lead is diminishing. In Q3 2023, its SOV stood at 52%, which marks a 29% decline year-on-year (YoY), according to Pixalate.
In contrast, other players have seen their market share increase: Apple TV’s SOV increased by 61% YoY; Amazon Fire by 39%; and LG by 85%.
In EMEA, Samsung, LG and Amazon are leading the pack with 30%, 16%, and 15% of the SOV. Samsung and LG saw rapid growth, increasing their SOV YoY by 52% and 44%, respectively. The European market has also seen new entrants from Sony and TCL take a sizable chunk of the SOV; whereas Roku continues to diminish.
Pixalate data showed that Roku reached its highest CTV market share in EMEA in H2 2023 at 23%, but as of 2024, it’s been in a negative trend with its SOV dropping 80% YoY to just 5% in Q3 2024.
If Roku is seeing its SOV decline in two of the biggest markets for CTV advertising (Latin America was the only region where it saw an increase YoY), it begs the question whether a better move for The Trade Desk would’ve been to buy the platform.
Matt Wasserlauf, CEO of Blockboard, a full-funnel ad buying and management platform built for CTV, believes that would’ve been a “strategic move”.
He says: “I would argue that would have been better, because it would have given them control over that [Roku’s] inventory. Roku is struggling against the other players – there are so many of these new CTV channels – and their most recent strategic move is to create more original content.
“But that’s very expensive. It is still a small player in a very wide, growing and emerging medium. So it’s going to continue to be hard knocks for Roku.”
Fragmentation could see rise of additional walled gardens
However, CEO and founder of The Trade Desk, Jeff Green, said the launch of Ventura was about making the ad-supported streaming market more competitive.
He believes that by Google and Amazon having their own content, it adds a conflict of interest and a layer of complexity to the advertising ecosystem for everyone.
Green said at the time of the announcement: “This innovation has to come in the OS, and it has to come from a company that brings the objectivity of not owning any streaming TV content. At The Trade Desk, all we want is a fair marketplace, where supply chain costs are minimised, and advertiser trust can thrive.”
Mateusz Jedrocha, Chief Product Officer at Adlook, a media-buying platform powered by deep learning, agrees saying that as the CTV landscape continues to evolve, the “debate around transparency and openness versus proprietary control is becoming increasingly critical for advertisers and publishers”.
“The emergence of initiatives like The Trade Desk’s Ventura highlights the growing focus on transparency in CTV advertising, but also raises concerns about the potential for further fragmentation through the creation of additional walled gardens.”
Additional walled gardens will not only limit interoperability, it will confine advertisers to a closed ecosystem, increasing costs and ultimately, reducing transparency, adds Jedrocha.
While The Trade Desk’s Ventura entering the CTV market could signal a direction towards more walled gardens, Wasserlauf believes “it won’t succeed given the swing shift toward transparency”.
He says: “Google’s antitrust [trial] is the catalyst toward a more open industry and The Trade Desk will need to follow.”
While Google is somewhat (I’m sure we’re all keen to see what the outcome of that will be), if The Trade Desk can assert some leadership in this fragmented ecosystem by making it more competitive and transparent, it could help marketers cut through the noise.
CTV is certainly emerging as a hot medium for advertisers, but with so many players fighting for a share of the market, there will be winners and losers. Who they are, we’ll have to wait and see.
Original article here
CTV OS wars: Should The Trade Desk have bought Roku?
With so many players entering the CTV landscape, the fight to own the largest market share is not only becoming more intense, it’s raising concerns about additional walled gardens coming in.
by Jyoti Rambhai
05 December 2024
Streaming is rapidly reshaping the TV landscape and the race to control the operating system in viewers’ living rooms – dubbed the OS wars – is heating up.
Google, Roku, Amazon, Samsung, LG and Titan are the key players in this battlefield, and now The Trade Desk has entered the fight.
The US-based adtech giant is aiming to partner with smart TV original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and other streaming aggregators to deploy its new TV OS – Ventura – with Disney, Paramount, Tubi and Sonos already onboard as content partners.
But in an already highly fragmented market, is this the right move for The Trade Desk?
While CTV is becoming a form of programmatic advertising with smart TV’s OS having the ability to measure impressions and viewership data, it is still a relatively profound departure from The Trade Desk’s core business as a demand-side platform (DSP).
With the launch of a TV OS, the company will have to create a product that appeals to a more general CTV user-base, as well as publishers and OEMs.
Ashwin Navin, co-founder and CEO of Samba TV, agrees saying that between all the major players in this space, the “TV OS market is challenging for content publishers to support and difficult to measure in a holistic manner due to fragmentation”.
“[Therefore], to take a sizable share of this market, a new OS would need to be dramatically better in both user experience as well as economic value for all stakeholders — including the consumer.”
Roku leads the pack, but for how much longer?
According to Pixalate – a global ad fraud protection platform, which ranked streaming device ecosystems by share of voice (SOV) for open programmatic CTV advertising – Roku is leading the way with 37% SOV in Q3 globally.
Samsung smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV followed with 17%, 15% and 11% of SOV, respectively.
North America’s TV OS rankings largely mirror the global one and that’s partly because the US is one of the largest markets for programmatic adspend. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Roku also has 37% of SOV in the region, followed by Samsung, also at 17%.
However, both at a global and regional level, Roku’s lead is diminishing. In Q3 2023, its SOV stood at 52%, which marks a 29% decline year-on-year (YoY), according to Pixalate.
In contrast, other players have seen their market share increase: Apple TV’s SOV increased by 61% YoY; Amazon Fire by 39%; and LG by 85%.
In EMEA, Samsung, LG and Amazon are leading the pack with 30%, 16%, and 15% of the SOV. Samsung and LG saw rapid growth, increasing their SOV YoY by 52% and 44%, respectively. The European market has also seen new entrants from Sony and TCL take a sizable chunk of the SOV; whereas Roku continues to diminish.
Pixalate data showed that Roku reached its highest CTV market share in EMEA in H2 2023 at 23%, but as of 2024, it’s been in a negative trend with its SOV dropping 80% YoY to just 5% in Q3 2024.
If Roku is seeing its SOV decline in two of the biggest markets for CTV advertising (Latin America was the only region where it saw an increase YoY), it begs the question whether a better move for The Trade Desk would’ve been to buy the platform.
Matt Wasserlauf, CEO of Blockboard, a full-funnel ad buying and management platform built for CTV, believes that would’ve been a “strategic move”.
He says: “I would argue that would have been better, because it would have given them control over that [Roku’s] inventory. Roku is struggling against the other players – there are so many of these new CTV channels – and their most recent strategic move is to create more original content.
“But that’s very expensive. It is still a small player in a very wide, growing and emerging medium. So it’s going to continue to be hard knocks for Roku.”
Fragmentation could see rise of additional walled gardens
However, CEO and founder of The Trade Desk, Jeff Green, said the launch of Ventura was about making the ad-supported streaming market more competitive.
He believes that by Google and Amazon having their own content, it adds a conflict of interest and a layer of complexity to the advertising ecosystem for everyone.
Green said at the time of the announcement: “This innovation has to come in the OS, and it has to come from a company that brings the objectivity of not owning any streaming TV content. At The Trade Desk, all we want is a fair marketplace, where supply chain costs are minimised, and advertiser trust can thrive.”
Mateusz Jedrocha, Chief Product Officer at Adlook, a media-buying platform powered by deep learning, agrees saying that as the CTV landscape continues to evolve, the “debate around transparency and openness versus proprietary control is becoming increasingly critical for advertisers and publishers”.
“The emergence of initiatives like The Trade Desk’s Ventura highlights the growing focus on transparency in CTV advertising, but also raises concerns about the potential for further fragmentation through the creation of additional walled gardens.”
Additional walled gardens will not only limit interoperability, it will confine advertisers to a closed ecosystem, increasing costs and ultimately, reducing transparency, adds Jedrocha.
While The Trade Desk’s Ventura entering the CTV market could signal a direction towards more walled gardens, Wasserlauf believes “it won’t succeed given the swing shift toward transparency”.
He says: “Google’s antitrust [trial] is the catalyst toward a more open industry and The Trade Desk will need to follow.”
While Google is somewhat (I’m sure we’re all keen to see what the outcome of that will be), if The Trade Desk can assert some leadership in this fragmented ecosystem by making it more competitive and transparent, it could help marketers cut through the noise.
CTV is certainly emerging as a hot medium for advertisers, but with so many players fighting for a share of the market, there will be winners and losers. Who they are, we’ll have to wait and see.
Original article here
CTV OS wars: Should The Trade Desk have bought Roku?
With so many players entering the CTV landscape, the fight to own the largest market share is not only becoming more intense, it’s raising concerns about additional walled gardens coming in.
by Jyoti Rambhai
05 December 2024
Streaming is rapidly reshaping the TV landscape and the race to control the operating system in viewers’ living rooms – dubbed the OS wars – is heating up.
Google, Roku, Amazon, Samsung, LG and Titan are the key players in this battlefield, and now The Trade Desk has entered the fight.
The US-based adtech giant is aiming to partner with smart TV original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and other streaming aggregators to deploy its new TV OS – Ventura – with Disney, Paramount, Tubi and Sonos already onboard as content partners.
But in an already highly fragmented market, is this the right move for The Trade Desk?
While CTV is becoming a form of programmatic advertising with smart TV’s OS having the ability to measure impressions and viewership data, it is still a relatively profound departure from The Trade Desk’s core business as a demand-side platform (DSP).
With the launch of a TV OS, the company will have to create a product that appeals to a more general CTV user-base, as well as publishers and OEMs.
Ashwin Navin, co-founder and CEO of Samba TV, agrees saying that between all the major players in this space, the “TV OS market is challenging for content publishers to support and difficult to measure in a holistic manner due to fragmentation”.
“[Therefore], to take a sizable share of this market, a new OS would need to be dramatically better in both user experience as well as economic value for all stakeholders — including the consumer.”
Roku leads the pack, but for how much longer?
According to Pixalate – a global ad fraud protection platform, which ranked streaming device ecosystems by share of voice (SOV) for open programmatic CTV advertising – Roku is leading the way with 37% SOV in Q3 globally.
Samsung smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV followed with 17%, 15% and 11% of SOV, respectively.
North America’s TV OS rankings largely mirror the global one and that’s partly because the US is one of the largest markets for programmatic adspend. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Roku also has 37% of SOV in the region, followed by Samsung, also at 17%.
However, both at a global and regional level, Roku’s lead is diminishing. In Q3 2023, its SOV stood at 52%, which marks a 29% decline year-on-year (YoY), according to Pixalate.
In contrast, other players have seen their market share increase: Apple TV’s SOV increased by 61% YoY; Amazon Fire by 39%; and LG by 85%.
In EMEA, Samsung, LG and Amazon are leading the pack with 30%, 16%, and 15% of the SOV. Samsung and LG saw rapid growth, increasing their SOV YoY by 52% and 44%, respectively. The European market has also seen new entrants from Sony and TCL take a sizable chunk of the SOV; whereas Roku continues to diminish.
Pixalate data showed that Roku reached its highest CTV market share in EMEA in H2 2023 at 23%, but as of 2024, it’s been in a negative trend with its SOV dropping 80% YoY to just 5% in Q3 2024.
If Roku is seeing its SOV decline in two of the biggest markets for CTV advertising (Latin America was the only region where it saw an increase YoY), it begs the question whether a better move for The Trade Desk would’ve been to buy the platform.
Matt Wasserlauf, CEO of Blockboard, a full-funnel ad buying and management platform built for CTV, believes that would’ve been a “strategic move”.
He says: “I would argue that would have been better, because it would have given them control over that [Roku’s] inventory. Roku is struggling against the other players – there are so many of these new CTV channels – and their most recent strategic move is to create more original content.
“But that’s very expensive. It is still a small player in a very wide, growing and emerging medium. So it’s going to continue to be hard knocks for Roku.”
Fragmentation could see rise of additional walled gardens
However, CEO and founder of The Trade Desk, Jeff Green, said the launch of Ventura was about making the ad-supported streaming market more competitive.
He believes that by Google and Amazon having their own content, it adds a conflict of interest and a layer of complexity to the advertising ecosystem for everyone.
Green said at the time of the announcement: “This innovation has to come in the OS, and it has to come from a company that brings the objectivity of not owning any streaming TV content. At The Trade Desk, all we want is a fair marketplace, where supply chain costs are minimised, and advertiser trust can thrive.”
Mateusz Jedrocha, Chief Product Officer at Adlook, a media-buying platform powered by deep learning, agrees saying that as the CTV landscape continues to evolve, the “debate around transparency and openness versus proprietary control is becoming increasingly critical for advertisers and publishers”.
“The emergence of initiatives like The Trade Desk’s Ventura highlights the growing focus on transparency in CTV advertising, but also raises concerns about the potential for further fragmentation through the creation of additional walled gardens.”
Additional walled gardens will not only limit interoperability, it will confine advertisers to a closed ecosystem, increasing costs and ultimately, reducing transparency, adds Jedrocha.
While The Trade Desk’s Ventura entering the CTV market could signal a direction towards more walled gardens, Wasserlauf believes “it won’t succeed given the swing shift toward transparency”.
He says: “Google’s antitrust [trial] is the catalyst toward a more open industry and The Trade Desk will need to follow.”
While Google is somewhat (I’m sure we’re all keen to see what the outcome of that will be), if The Trade Desk can assert some leadership in this fragmented ecosystem by making it more competitive and transparent, it could help marketers cut through the noise.
CTV is certainly emerging as a hot medium for advertisers, but with so many players fighting for a share of the market, there will be winners and losers. Who they are, we’ll have to wait and see.
Original article here
CTV OS wars: Should The Trade Desk have bought Roku?
With so many players entering the CTV landscape, the fight to own the largest market share is not only becoming more intense, it’s raising concerns about additional walled gardens coming in.
by Jyoti Rambhai
05 December 2024
Streaming is rapidly reshaping the TV landscape and the race to control the operating system in viewers’ living rooms – dubbed the OS wars – is heating up.
Google, Roku, Amazon, Samsung, LG and Titan are the key players in this battlefield, and now The Trade Desk has entered the fight.
The US-based adtech giant is aiming to partner with smart TV original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and other streaming aggregators to deploy its new TV OS – Ventura – with Disney, Paramount, Tubi and Sonos already onboard as content partners.
But in an already highly fragmented market, is this the right move for The Trade Desk?
While CTV is becoming a form of programmatic advertising with smart TV’s OS having the ability to measure impressions and viewership data, it is still a relatively profound departure from The Trade Desk’s core business as a demand-side platform (DSP).
With the launch of a TV OS, the company will have to create a product that appeals to a more general CTV user-base, as well as publishers and OEMs.
Ashwin Navin, co-founder and CEO of Samba TV, agrees saying that between all the major players in this space, the “TV OS market is challenging for content publishers to support and difficult to measure in a holistic manner due to fragmentation”.
“[Therefore], to take a sizable share of this market, a new OS would need to be dramatically better in both user experience as well as economic value for all stakeholders — including the consumer.”
Roku leads the pack, but for how much longer?
According to Pixalate – a global ad fraud protection platform, which ranked streaming device ecosystems by share of voice (SOV) for open programmatic CTV advertising – Roku is leading the way with 37% SOV in Q3 globally.
Samsung smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV followed with 17%, 15% and 11% of SOV, respectively.
North America’s TV OS rankings largely mirror the global one and that’s partly because the US is one of the largest markets for programmatic adspend. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Roku also has 37% of SOV in the region, followed by Samsung, also at 17%.
However, both at a global and regional level, Roku’s lead is diminishing. In Q3 2023, its SOV stood at 52%, which marks a 29% decline year-on-year (YoY), according to Pixalate.
In contrast, other players have seen their market share increase: Apple TV’s SOV increased by 61% YoY; Amazon Fire by 39%; and LG by 85%.
In EMEA, Samsung, LG and Amazon are leading the pack with 30%, 16%, and 15% of the SOV. Samsung and LG saw rapid growth, increasing their SOV YoY by 52% and 44%, respectively. The European market has also seen new entrants from Sony and TCL take a sizable chunk of the SOV; whereas Roku continues to diminish.
Pixalate data showed that Roku reached its highest CTV market share in EMEA in H2 2023 at 23%, but as of 2024, it’s been in a negative trend with its SOV dropping 80% YoY to just 5% in Q3 2024.
If Roku is seeing its SOV decline in two of the biggest markets for CTV advertising (Latin America was the only region where it saw an increase YoY), it begs the question whether a better move for The Trade Desk would’ve been to buy the platform.
Matt Wasserlauf, CEO of Blockboard, a full-funnel ad buying and management platform built for CTV, believes that would’ve been a “strategic move”.
He says: “I would argue that would have been better, because it would have given them control over that [Roku’s] inventory. Roku is struggling against the other players – there are so many of these new CTV channels – and their most recent strategic move is to create more original content.
“But that’s very expensive. It is still a small player in a very wide, growing and emerging medium. So it’s going to continue to be hard knocks for Roku.”
Fragmentation could see rise of additional walled gardens
However, CEO and founder of The Trade Desk, Jeff Green, said the launch of Ventura was about making the ad-supported streaming market more competitive.
He believes that by Google and Amazon having their own content, it adds a conflict of interest and a layer of complexity to the advertising ecosystem for everyone.
Green said at the time of the announcement: “This innovation has to come in the OS, and it has to come from a company that brings the objectivity of not owning any streaming TV content. At The Trade Desk, all we want is a fair marketplace, where supply chain costs are minimised, and advertiser trust can thrive.”
Mateusz Jedrocha, Chief Product Officer at Adlook, a media-buying platform powered by deep learning, agrees saying that as the CTV landscape continues to evolve, the “debate around transparency and openness versus proprietary control is becoming increasingly critical for advertisers and publishers”.
“The emergence of initiatives like The Trade Desk’s Ventura highlights the growing focus on transparency in CTV advertising, but also raises concerns about the potential for further fragmentation through the creation of additional walled gardens.”
Additional walled gardens will not only limit interoperability, it will confine advertisers to a closed ecosystem, increasing costs and ultimately, reducing transparency, adds Jedrocha.
While The Trade Desk’s Ventura entering the CTV market could signal a direction towards more walled gardens, Wasserlauf believes “it won’t succeed given the swing shift toward transparency”.
He says: “Google’s antitrust [trial] is the catalyst toward a more open industry and The Trade Desk will need to follow.”
While Google is somewhat (I’m sure we’re all keen to see what the outcome of that will be), if The Trade Desk can assert some leadership in this fragmented ecosystem by making it more competitive and transparent, it could help marketers cut through the noise.
CTV is certainly emerging as a hot medium for advertisers, but with so many players fighting for a share of the market, there will be winners and losers. Who they are, we’ll have to wait and see.
Original article here
