Unlocking Programmatic TV in Europe: Bridging the buyer-seller divide
Introduction
The European TV advertising market is undergoing a profound shift. As audiences spread across linear TV, BVOD (Broadcaster Video-on-Demand), and CTV (Connected TV), advertisers are demanding more flexibility, sharper targeting, and greater efficiency. Programmatic TV – automated, data-driven buying and delivery of TV and video ads – has the potential to deliver on these needs. But deep structural divides between buyers and sellers continue to hold back progress.
Over the past six months, the members of the European Programmatic TV Initiative (EPTVI) – The Trade Desk, Google, OpenX, PubMatic, Equativ, Magnite, Cadent, and Adform, supported by The Project X Initiative – have been working together to evaluate the potential benefits of programmatic TV, identifying areas of misalignment and potential barriers – commercial, operational, technical, strategic – and developing practical solutions and a roadmap for moving forward.
Advised by senior executives from leading European TV companies, streamers, pay-TV platforms, trade bodies and major agency groups, the Initiative members have made considerable progress. However, while broadcasters and agencies broadly agree on many of the potential benefits, the industry is not fully aligned about how best to move forward.
In general, broadcasters have taken a measured approach, integrating programmatic within controlled environments that prioritise price stability, brand safety, and direct advertiser relationships. Private marketplaces (PMPs), programmatic guaranteed deals, and curated trading environments have been the dominant models, allowing broadcasters to introduce automation while maintaining control over pricing, inventory access, and market positioning.
Agencies and advertisers, by contrast, want more standardisation, greater interoperability, and the ability to scale programmatic campaigns seamlessly across multiple broadcasters, streaming services and platforms, leveraging the same datasets. They argue that the fragmented nature of today’s programmatic TV landscape – where most broadcasters have their own trading models, tech stacks, and rules – limits the efficiency and flexibility that programmatic is supposed to provide.
As a result, programmatic TV is growing, but not at the pace that many believe it could. The challenge is to develop a trading environment and practices that balance automation with control, scale with premium value, and efficiency with broadcaster sovereignty. Unless this can be achieved, programmatic TV risks failing to deliver on its full potential, remaining an inefficient and frustrating marketplace for both buyers and sellers.
This was the focus of the European Programmatic TV Industry Summit in London, on Wednesday March 26th, where we set out our recommendations and roadmap for programmatic TV in Europe to an audience of more than 150 senior executives from across the TV advertising ecosystem. A detailed report setting out our recommendations will be available later this month.
Key opportunities and challenges
The potential for programmatic TV in Europe is substantial, offering benefits to both broadcasters and advertisers.
For broadcasters, programmatic trading can drive incremental demand, improve yield, and enhance the value of their inventory through data-driven targeting. For advertisers, it offers greater efficiency, better targeting, and the ability to execute more dynamic, cross-platform campaigns at scale.
Unlike digital display and online video advertising – where real-time bidding, dynamic pricing, and open marketplaces are the norm – TV operates in a more controlled environment, shaped by premium inventory dynamics, long-standing direct sales relationships, and market-specific regulations. Some broadcasters see programmatic technology as a tool to enhance revenue and unlock new advertiser demand, while others are more cautious, seeking to ensure automation does not disrupt pricing power or erode TV’s value as a premium environment.
And while display and online video can typically be accessed in a standardised fashion across multiple publishers, programmatic TV remains fragmented across different broadcaster-controlled platforms, proprietary trading environments and between countries. As a result, agencies and advertisers must navigate multiple, non-interoperable systems, making cross-platform campaign execution more complex than it needs to be.
This fragmentation plays out in several ways:
Inventory access is inconsistent: Some broadcasters only offer limited access to inventory, restricting buyers’ ability to maximise TV and video spend across multiple broadcasters and premium video providers.
Pricing and trading models vary widely: Unlike digital advertising, where dynamic pricing is common, many broadcasters still favour fixed pricing structures, making it difficult to optimise spend in real time.
Data strategies are not aligned: Broadcasters have extensive first-party audience data but often limit how it can be used by buyers, whereas agencies want greater standardisation and interoperability.
Despite these challenges, the direction of travel is clear. TV advertising is moving towards greater automation and data-driven activation, and programmatic is central to this evolution.
However, for programmatic TV to scale effectively, the industry needs to find a balance between automation and control, ensuring that broadcasters can protect the value of their inventory while giving buyers the flexibility they need to plan and activate campaigns seamlessly.
If these issues can be resolved, programmatic TV has the potential to attract greater advertiser investment, improve market efficiency, and ensure that television remains a high-value, data-driven advertising channel in a rapidly evolving media and advertising landscape.
A fragmented marketplace
The evolution of programmatic TV in Europe has been shaped by both progress and persistent fragmentation. While automation and data-driven buying offer the potential to make TV advertising more efficient and scalable, deep structural misalignments between broadcasters, agencies, and technology providers continue to obstruct seamless adoption. Unlike digital advertising, which benefits from unified standards and open access, programmatic TV operates within a patchwork of trading models, technology stacks, and market-specific rules that create friction and inefficiencies.
At the core of this fragmentation is a fundamental disconnect between many broadcasters and agencies about the role of programmatic TV. Broadcasters, historically protective of their inventory and pricing structures, prioritise control, ensuring that automation does not erode the premium nature of TV advertising. Agencies, by contrast, seek standardisation and interoperability to enable the seamless planning and execution of campaigns across multiple broadcasters. While both sides acknowledge the benefits of automation, these competing priorities have resulted in a fractured ecosystem that lacks the scale and efficiency seen in other digital media channels.
This fragmentation manifests in trading models. Some broadcasters have introduced automation through private marketplaces and programmatic guaranteed deals, which allow them to maintain control over pricing and inventory access. Others have limited programmatic adoption to select inventory, keeping direct sales as their primary model. For agencies, this lack of consistency complicates media buying. A programmatic buying director observed, “Every broadcaster wants us to buy their way, through their platform, on their terms. That’s fine individually, but collectively, it’s very hard to manage.” However, as a broadcaster countered, “The fragmentation is on both sides. It’s easy to say we should adopt standard protocols, but buyers are just as fragmented in how they approach TV and video."
Country-specific differences exacerbate the issue. While the UK, Germany, and France have seen meaningful advancements in programmatic TV, broadcasters in Southern and Eastern Europe remain dependent on traditional direct sales, limiting the expansion of programmatic solutions across markets. Even in advanced regions, broadcasters have taken differing strategic approaches, leading to a lack of consistency in execution.
The need for a more standardised and efficient programmatic TV ecosystem is widely recognised. Broadcasters understand that overly rigid approaches limit advertiser investment, while agencies acknowledge that programmatic TV cannot operate under the same principles as open-market digital advertising.
The path forward requires greater collaboration to develop common standards that balance automation with broadcaster control, ensuring that both sides achieve their commercial objectives without compromising the value of TV advertising. Some broadcasters are evolving their programmatic strategies to improve accessibility, while agencies are adapting their models to work within TV’s distinct commercial dynamics. However, without more sustained progress on interoperability and efficiency, fragmentation will persist, limiting programmatic TV’s potential to drive future growth.
Pricing: The trust deficit
Pricing remains one of the most contentious issues, highlighting the trust deficit between buyers and sellers. Traditional TV advertising has long been based on stable, upfront pricing models, ensuring predictability for both broadcasters and advertisers. Programmatic disrupts this approach, introducing auction-based pricing that is inherently more dynamic.
While agencies value this flexibility, broadcasters have concerns that increased transparency will lead to price erosion and commoditisation of premium TV inventory. One broadcaster put it bluntly: “The moment buyers can see everything, they’ll push CPMs as low as possible. We can’t afford for TV to be treated like low-quality display or video.”
This fear is not unfounded. In digital display advertising, open exchanges have driven down CPMs, often at the cost of quality and brand safety. Broadcasters are therefore reluctant to embrace open auction trading, instead preferring controlled environments such as private marketplaces (PMPs) and programmatic guaranteed (PG) deals, which offer automation while maintaining pricing integrity.
However, reluctance to embrace dynamic pricing must be balanced against advertisers’ growing need for real-time flexibility. Programmatic TV buyers argue that fixed pricing limits optimisation and efficiency, making it harder to adjust spend dynamically across different inventory pools. A programmatic buying executive observed, “We don’t expect a race to the bottom, but we do need some level of flexibility. Right now, broadcasters’ rigid pricing models make programmatic far less valuable than it could be.”
Some broadcasters are testing hybrid pricing structures that introduce controlled dynamic pricing while preserving minimum floors. Sky’s AdSmart has successfully integrated targeting precision with price stability, and RTL AdAlliance is expanding its pan-European framework to provide more flexible buying options while maintaining premium positioning. If broadcasters fail to find a way to introduce greater adaptability, programmatic TV will struggle to scale, with advertisers instead shifting budgets to more flexible digital video environments where pricing is more responsive to demand.
Ultimately, the future of pricing in programmatic TV hinges on greater experimentation and collaboration between buyers and sellers. The industry must strike a balance that preserves premium inventory value while giving buyers the flexibility they need to optimise investments across multiple broadcasters and platforms. If this balance cannot be achieved, programmatic TV risks being marginalised within the broader digital advertising ecosystem.
Data and identity: Control vs. collaboration
Data ownership is another major fault line. Broadcasters, sitting on vast amounts of first-party viewing data, see it as a competitive advantage that must be controlled. As an executive at one broadcaster put it, “Agencies want us to unlock our data so they can find audiences more cheaply elsewhere,” highlighting concerns that data-sharing could erode pricing power.
Agencies counter that without standardised data, programmatic TV loses much of its advantage. “Clients don’t care about broadcasters’ policies”, according to the head of media at a major agency holding group. “They just want to know their campaigns are reaching the right audience with the right frequency. The more fragmented the data, the harder it is to do.”
While privacy-equipped solutions such as clean rooms are emerging, broadcasters are deploying them inconsistently. “We’ve made big strides with clean rooms, but every broadcaster does it slightly differently. That adds friction where there should be seamlessness,” noted a senior adtech executive.
Despite these challenges, there is progress. In France, TF1 and M6 are testing unified, privacy-compliant data-sharing models. In Germany, RTL AdAlliance is scaling its programmatic offering to provide greater interoperability while maintaining data sovereignty. In the UK, Sky, Channel 4, and ITV’s CFlight initiative gives advertisers a unified cross-platform measurement tool.
The road ahead
The European programmatic TV market stands at a pivotal moment. Broadcasters that remain overly protective risk being bypassed by advertisers looking for scalable, flexible solutions. Agencies pushing for full automation must also recognise the economic realities of TV advertising. If both sides fail to compromise, programmatic TV will never realise its full potential.
This is where the role of technology partners becomes critical. Companies like Magnite are helping bridge the gap between broadcasters and buyers by providing tools that support interoperability, transparency, and standardisation without undermining the commercial priorities of either side.
As Julie Selman, SVP and Head of EMEA at Magnite, notes: "By fostering collaboration, we can build a more transparent and effective ecosystem that empowers and accelerates the future of CTV. Working with tech partners can simplify the process, educate stakeholders and implement effective solutions to help fully realise the benefits of a programmatic TV marketplace."
If the industry can move beyond rhetoric and commit to concrete, scalable solutions, significant growth opportunities will emerge. This is about ensuring that programmatic TV can deliver sustainable long-term value for both sellers and buyers. As one industry leader put it, "This isn’t about incremental change. It’s about deciding whether we want programmatic TV to be a niche market or the future of television advertising."