Yospace, Seven take server-side ad insertion partnership into live OTT
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Joseph O'Halloran
| 30 May 2019

In what the companies say is a continuation of their ‘pioneering’ approach to monetising live content, server-side ad insertion (SSAI) provider Yospace has extended its partnership with Australia’s leading commercial TV network Seven online.

Specifically, Yospace will enable SSAI into Seven’s live OTT channels. This comes after the broadcaster using Yospace’s SSAI technology to create new, addressable ad spots during some of Seven’s largest live events, including the Winter Olympics, Rugby League World Cup, Commonwealth Games and Melbourne Cup, an event that pulls the highest concurrent streaming audiences in Australia.

Yospace says that its SSAI platform solves the technical complexities of delivering addressable advertising for streamed television while maintaining a TV-quality viewer experience, enabling to generate new revenue streams across the breadth of its enviable live sports portfolio and 24x7 Broadcast simulcast streams.

The platform is also said to be able to address successfully a critical challenge in monetising live streams at scale, that of managing the load on ad servers and programmatic platforms when they are hit by a sudden surge in simultaneous ad requests, as happens with major live events. Yospace’s “prefetch” system enables it to call ad servers and the wider programmatic ecosystem in advance, affording them the time needed to handle the spike in ad requests and deliver the highest possible fill-rate for the broadcaster.

“We’ve worked with Seven to pioneer new approaches to monetising its premium live content,” remarked Yospace CEO Tim Sewell. “Broadcasters, advertisers, and audiences are demanding more from OTT in terms of viewer experience, addressability and scale – and the extension of our partnership is testimony to our ability to deliver that. We’ll continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible with server-side ad insertion and we look forward to continuing our successful partnership with Seven for the long term.”

“Our viewers expect an engaging, high-quality viewing experience – whether they’re watching Broadcast or Internet streaming content – especially during high-profile live events,” added Darren Kerry, director digital product and technology, Seven. “Yospace has helped us elevate the OTT viewing experience while opening up whole new bodies of inventory at scale. Yospace will continue to be an important partner as we continue to maximise the value of that inventory through programmatic.”