AOL Platforms, a division of AOL, and Multi Channel Network (MCN) have announced their intent to pilot the media industry’s first integrated programmatic private marketplace for television.

The world-first offering enables advertisers and agencies to perform targeted, data-driven, audience buying, and deliver real consumer led analytics and insights for dynamic campaign optimization across the 70 subscription television channels from Foxtel, FOX SPORTS, BBC, Discovery, NBCUniversal, FOX International Channels, Viacom, Sky News and many others.

The move is designed to greatly advance the $4 billion TV industry in Australia towards unified ad sales across TV and digital screens.

The announcement was made at the annual Upfront event in Sydney, Australia presented by MCN and Foxtel. “Australia is a burgeoning market that has been ahead of the programmatic trend, particularly in video,” said Dan Ackerman, head of programmatic TV, AOL Platforms. “MCN fully understands the shift occurring in our industry and, through our partnership with them, is putting a stake in the ground as a leader in moving the TV industry forward towards its inevitable converged future with digital through data-driven audience buying. We look forward to continuing to innovate alongside them and delivering on that vision through an advanced technology platform.”

MCN group sales and marketing director Mark Frain said: “Our world-first collaboration with AOL Platforms is a profoundly exciting move for MCN and will create brilliant opportunities for our agency partners and advertisers. The marketplace will fully integrate into MCN’s Landmark trading platform delivering on MCN’s broader vision to unite the power of video content, across linear TV and online and to make MCN a truly data led media company.

“More than two years of industry research and consultation tells us automation and programmatic TV are exactly what the Australian TV industry needs to stay relevant in this digitally driven environment. MCN’s market-leading Multiview data will power this exchange, allowing advertisers to plan, buy and optimise against real consumer segments,” said Frain.

MCN is making Australian television inventory available for purchase through programmatic channels, enabling their advertising clients to make more data-driven decisions in extending the value of their TV buys through highly targeted audiences. The marketplace will be powered by Adap.tv, AOL Platforms’ programmatic video platform, and will leverage MCN’s Multiview data, Australia’s largest TV audience measurement panel.  Multiview data goes beyond traditional TV age and gender metrics, to unlock comprehensive and actionable consumer insights segmented from return-path-data aggregated from 110,000 anonymous homes.

By automating this process, MCN can more effectively package highly targeted audiences across their network programming, such as regular purchasers for specific products and brands. This also aligns television ad sales closer to digital, which has traditionally employed similar targeting methods to reach connected audiences.

AOL acquired Adap.tv in September 2013, and the Adap.tv programmatic television platform will be part of ONE by AOL, which is being designed to be the first platform that empowers brands and agencies with a holistic view of the consumer’s journey through the marketing funnel, and makes that insight actionable, in real-time. According to the Australia State of Video report published in October 2014, more than one-quarter of agencies have already adopted data-driven methods for TV ad buying.