In this episode, we sit down with Robert Farazin (tvbeat) and Johan Liljelund (DanAds) to unpack how broadcasters can move beyond fragmented linear and digital advertising.
We explore why unifying inventory, currencies and workflows is becoming critical: not just to unlock new revenue, but to simplify operations, enable self-serve advertising and future-proof the TV advertising business.
Inside the episode
Alex Borland and Simon McGrath are joined by Robert Farazin, founder and CEO of tvbeat, and Johan Liljelund of DanAds, a Swedish company whose technology lets advertisers buy directly from media owners through self-serve. Robert starts with the history: broadcasters built their business on linear, viewing fragmented across streaming and on-demand, and each new inventory got its own ad server. Total TV brings those inventories and their currencies into one pool. Johan explains why that needs buyers as well as sellers, and why some markets move faster.
The second half is about practice: Robert’s three layers, with simple sales channels on top, a fragmented ad stack underneath and an orchestration layer between; self-serve for advertisers used to Google and Facebook; and TV4 in Sweden as a case study. It ends with where the guests expect TV advertising to be in five years.
Highlights
- 05:57 “What really Total TV means, it means that you bring all these different inventories, different currencies you operate on, into one kind of pool of inventory.” Robert Farazin
- 15:25 Advertisers of any kind can reach premium broadcast inventory through self-serve, and “they buy this easier than they buy on Google and Facebook.” Johan Liljelund
- 21:32 Robert Farazin’s test of a broadcaster: “If I give you half a million budget, how fast you can come back with the plan?” Most need weeks; tvbeat’s goal is 10 seconds.
- 27:03 “It’s not a self-playing piano.” Johan Liljelund on TV4’s work after launch.
- 34:22 In US examples, selling remnant linear inventory as CTV inventory raised its yield by 700%, says Robert Farazin.
- 38:38 “This process of unifying and disintermediation, it feels to me like gravity.” Simon McGrath
Key questions answered
What is Total TV?
In Robert Farazin’s description, a broadcaster runs several inventories side by side: linear through a trafficking system, addressable linear, streaming and on-demand through an ad server such as FreeWheel or GAM, and other digital properties, often with partner inventory on top. Reach and packaging fragment with them. Total TV unifies those inventories: one forecast, one way to plan, optimise in flight and measure. It stays multi-currency, so the same inventory can be sold as impacts to linear buyers or as audience impressions to digital buyers.
Why has it moved faster in some markets than others?
Johan Liljelund says it needs someone to push: a big broadcaster in a smaller market, or real engagement from the buy side, since buyers and sellers both have to agree. Johan has seen more traction in the Nordics and Australia than in the US. Robert sees different motives: in Scandinavia, offering audiences as one package; in the US, internal efficiency, such as making five ad servers, each with its own forecast and yield management, operate as one.
What does it gain broadcasters and buyers?
Johan’s argument is that buyers have seen what Google, Facebook and YouTube offer, and a broadcaster cannot rely only on big agency contracts; self-serve opens premium TV to advertisers of any size. Robert adds reach: digital buyers reach viewers still on linear, and linear buyers get impacts on digital too. Robert puts incremental reach at 10% to 90% depending on the segment.
What made TV4’s launch work?
According to Johan, TV4 in Sweden did its homework first: it talked to agencies and advertisers, built the case, and worked out which currency to transact in. With a mandate from the top, delivery was a fairly smooth ride, and after launch TV4 kept promoting the platform at SME events and in webinars. Robert, for whom TV4 was tvbeat’s first Scandinavian customer, credits how forward-looking the team was. Sweden, Robert notes, decided impacts would be the Total TV measurement metric across linear and digital, as Finland has.
What will TV advertising look like in five years?
One way to buy and one way to sell, in Johan’s view, with no new linear broadcasters starting up. Robert agrees: buyers will stop asking whether they are buying linear, VOD or streaming and buy the audience wherever it is, which needs inventory that is unified, simple and fast to access.
Speakers
- Robert Farazin, founder and CEO, tvbeat
- Johan Liljelund, CIO and executive vice president, DanAds
- Alex Borland, VP Strategy & Business Development, Merapar (host)
- Simon McGrath, Merapar (host)
