Blue Ant Media has acquired Media Pulse, a Canadian market for connected TV placements.

Based in Canada, Media Pulse aggregates and curates inventory across popular and niche connected TV apps, platforms and multichannel video distributors. Media Pulse’s connected TV exchange is powered by the Column6 ad platform. In addition to Media Pulse, Blue Ant uses Column6 for connected TV ad serving and ad break management for some of its FAST channel inventory.

Media Pulse will become a standalone entity under the Blue Ant Media umbrella, with Christopher Law and Deborah Gurofsky continuing to lead the company as managing director and VP, partnerships, respectively. They will report directly to Mitch Dent, SVP, media sales and group publisher for Blue Ant.

Dent tells Playback sister publication Media in Canada that Blue Ant has already invested heavily in global FAST channel launches, so extending its capabilities in connected TV for advertisers makes strategic sense. He adds that Blue Ant believes connected TV is the most exciting space in the ad industry and an “outstanding” growth opportunity.

“The combination of effective 30-second advertising storytelling, specifically targeting ‘hard to reach’ audiences like cord cutters, is a market that has outstanding potential. Media Pulse lets advertisers use digital targeting against broadcast quality content. Even better, the non-skippable 30-second ad formats are gold, an amazing contrast to the very short skippable formats that typically count for digital video views from the large international players,” says Dent.

The number of connected TV viewers is growing rapidly in Canada, providing advertisers with a significant opportunity to reach audiences. According to eMarketer, 63% of Canadian households already own a connected device and it is estimated that connected TV households will grow to 82% globally by 2023. eMarketer further reports connected TV ad spending will surpass $1 billion in 2023, up almost sevenfold from five years ago.

To date, Media Pulse claims it has seen 2.2 billion advertising impressions per month across connected TV devices from its direct-to-publisher relationships. Media Pulse joins Blue Ant Media’s existing advertiser offering, which includes targeted and customizable advertising solutions across its broadcast, print and digital brands such as T+E, Cottage Life, MobileSyrup, and Animalogic.

This story originally appeared in Media in Canada

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