Advancements in show-level intelligence, contextual targeting, and reporting are poised to shape the next era of streaming TV.
But a key question remains: How can the industry balance between meeting buyers’ desire for more control while upholding streaming publishers’ need to protect premium inventory and maintain pricing integrity?
Fresh off the announcement of our new partnership with Gracenote that enables show-level transparency, we brought together leaders from Dentsu, DirecTV, Gracenote, and Index to explore the role of contextual intelligence in streaming TV.
Watch the full conversation, moderated by Next in Media Founder Michael Shields, here:
Show-level intelligence is more relevant today than ever before
Contextual targeting is having a resurgence in programmatic streaming as the identity landscape evolves. Audience-based addressability isn’t going away, but it’s no longer enough on its own, especially as marketers face scale and frequency challenges.
Program-level context, meanwhile, is a privacy-safe and reliable way to reach quality supply without over-constraining delivery. Dentsu’s Kevin Weigand underscored the importance of contextual to buyers, sharing that clients want to direct brand dollars toward premium moments while keeping performance budgets anchored to audience and behavior.
“We’re going to start to see some flattening of the curve where our clients really start to look at where they [allocate] performance-based dollars, and those might be tied to person-based behavior or audience behavior. I think we’re going to start to see some of the more high-impact awareness or brand dollars go towards contextual.”
Kevin Weigand, VP, Video and Audio Lead, US Media Investment Solutions
Dentsu
Buyers also want linear-style confidence with programmatic precision. As Gracenote’s Jake Richardson explained, the goal is to make the marketer’s buying experience mirror the consumer’s streaming experience. Just as viewers choose specific shows to watch, marketers should be able to plan, activate, and verify campaigns using show-level intelligence.
“It’s getting back some of the controls that TV buyers are used to having from the era of linear. We don’t have to just go back to only dayparting and contextual alignment. We’ve got all of these tools, why don’t we use all of them?”
Jake Richardson, VP, Strategic Partnerships
Gracenote
Maintaining publisher control
Streaming publishers are working to meet rising buyer transparency expectations, but in a way that doesn’t invite cherry-picked buys, compromise the value of their inventory, or erode yield.
In addition, DirecTV’s Edmund Jules noted that contractual realities and privacy requirements stemming from the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) limit what signals can be exposed in the bidstream.
The practical path today is to curate deals based on show-level intelligence, then provide granular reporting to credibly show marketers where their ads ran. Buyers gain confidence and insight while publishers keep control of how they surface granular signals.
“Leveraging some of the powerful Gracenote data, we have solutions from a reporting and transparency standpoint [to show] we targeted these specific genres…and now here’s a third-party verified report to show the actual shows in which you ran on.”
Edmund Jules, Senior Director, Ad Sales Partnerships
DirecTV
Applying show-level data at scale
Our new partnership with Gracenote marks a milestone in making show-level intelligence practical at scale. It’s the industry’s first SSP integration of Gracenote IDs, brand safety segments, and granular do-not-air (DNA) controls.
The solution, which we’re building in partnership with publishers, delivers the holy grail of streaming TV: It enables privacy-safe, standardized, show-level context without exposing sensitive signals in the bidstream or eroding publisher control.
“Contextual is the privacy-safe and truly scalable way to make a campaign relevant. This is the reason why Index is investing in our partnership with Gracenote—to hit the balance between publishers’ need for protection of their show-level data while enabling detailed contextual targeting for buyers.”
Catherine Cho, Lead Product Manager
Index Exchange
By embedding Gracenote IDs and metadata directly into the Index platform, we can align how viewers actually watch TV with how marketers activate campaigns—and do it responsibly and at scale.
This partnership also brings much-needed standardization to contextual metadata. As Kevin asked, “How good is terabytes of data if you don’t know what to do with it?”
A shared taxonomy for genres and program titles simplifies cross-publisher planning and measurement so buyers can prove success, while publishers maintain governance over their show-level metadata.
Building the future of show-level intelligence
Unlocking show-level intelligence is only the start of where streaming metadata can go. With standardized, privacy-safe program context in place, the industry can move toward richer signals that better match how viewers actually experience content, such as those based on sentiment or mood.
Improving transparency in this way helps build a more contextually aware and responsible streaming TV ecosystem that empowers marketers while respecting the needs of publishers.
Ready to activate Gracenote-powered show-level intelligence in your streaming campaigns? Sign up to join the early testing for our contextual intelligence offering.
