ThinkTV, on behalf of its shareholders Foxtel/MCN, Ten, Nine and Seven, has engaged Accenture’s IBB Consulting to scope the development of a media briefing portal that will help to make it simpler for advertisers and their agencies to buy TV inventory.

The portal will streamline briefing for fixed placement and automated TV spot trading by allowing buyers to log in and brief broadcasters on their campaigns once through a single dashboard.

This will standardise the process with each network, doing away with the current repetitive steps required.

IBB’s work has culminated in a detailed request for proposal that selected vendors are responding to in the third quarter of 2018.

Initial development will be tightly focused so that the first stage of the solution can be released quickly to the market with subsequent iterations expanding the portal’s capabilities.

ThinkTV CEO Kim Portrate said its shareholders were fully aligned on the project.

“ThinkTV’s mission is to help advertisers and their agencies get the best out of today’s multi-platform TV – and a core part of that is by making TV easier to trade,” she said.

“This solution will deliver scale and work flow efficiencies for advertisers, agencies and broadcasters, and work has begun in earnest to deliver it. It is a complex project and we are consulting media agencies and advertisers to ensure it meets their needs.”

ThinkTV board directors said this development showed commercial broadcasters are united in driving forward industry innovation to meet advertisers and agencies’ rapidly changing needs.

Kurt Burnette, chief revenue officer at Seven West Media, said: “Around the world, collaboration in business sectors is becoming a key factor for success, proving that whatever organisation that can help make the complex simple for customers has the highest chance of succeeding into the future.

“The ThinkTV briefing portal very much goes to that idea and highlights the real and meaningful collaboration that is happening and will continue to occur for TV and total video in this country.”

Michael Stephenson, chief sales officer at Nine, said: “Think TV has proven that today’s TV delivers the greatest return on an advertiser’s investment. We are focused as an industry on continuing to make television easier to buy.

“The briefing portal will make the process of briefing and buying TV simpler as it integrates into our systems driving greater efficiency for our clients. This is a great first step with more to come.”

Ten’s executive general manager of revenue and client partnerships, Rod Prosser, said: “The ThinkTV briefing portal is a great example of what can be achieved when an industry comes together to develop a product that makes it easier for its customers.

“It’s world-leading and one of many industry collaborations coming up. We’re looking forward to sharing with you further progress in the future.”

MCN chief executive Mark Frain said: “Collectively and individually, the networks have been listening to the market, and a key piece of feedback has been to make the process of buying TV easier.

“The new briefing portal is the first step on this journey. It will provide agencies and clients a single location for all TV briefs which will increase efficiency, save time and ease the transactional barriers for the whole TV buying marketplace.”