The developments underpin the launch of TV+, a programmatic solution that the company claims will combine the most powerful aspects of linear and programmatic buying models. “This first step in the TV+ mission to transform programmatic CTV into a high-quality marketing opportunity allows publishers to confidently place their premium inventory into biddable environments, while giving brands and agencies full transparency into what they are buying,” OpenX explains.

Setting the context for the TV+ launch, OpenX Technologies observes: “In the current CTV landscape, buyers can’t efficiently buy in biddable media environments due to an over-indexing of intermediaries. Additionally, brands and agencies often pay CTV CPMs without having full transparency into what they’re buying, instead receiving a mixed bag of television-quality content, gaming, UGC and fireplace apps.

“And when non-TV content is categorised as CTV, publishers’ premium content is devalued, and buyers cannot lean into their KPIs with confidence.”

TV+ is designed to tackle these challenges, and the first phase of the product launch is now effective, removing resellers. OpenX says this move will also reduce invalid traffic. “It also ensures that publishers get their fair cut of transactions to power the development of high-quality content for consumers,” the company declares.

OpenX works with more than 130,000 premium publisher domains and receives more than 300 billion ad requests every day via its SSP. OpenX says TV+ delivers a fair and transparent value exchange between publishers, agencies, and DSPs.

The non-TV content that is being removed in TV+ includes mobile and other OTT not classified by OpenX as connected TV inventory. “While OpenX will continue to monetise these types of inventory as online video rather than CTV, this phase of TV+ properly classifies content, providing more premium advertising experiences, a clear value for inventory, and more accurate measurement,” the company says.

Several partners/industry stakeholders are publicly supporting TV+ and its ambitions. Adam Roodman, SVP of Product Strategy and Management at Yahoo (a DSP provider), says: “CTV is a powerful channel for marketers to reach and engage with their audiences. As this happens, solutions that prioritise control and transparency will enable buyers to lean into their KPIs in biddable CTV environments, helping them further realise the full promise of programmatic CTV.”

Ashwin Navin, Co-Founder and CEO at Samba TV (which uses Smart TV ACR data as the basis for media measurement and optimisation), comments: “As more marketers choose CTV for incremental reach over linear, there is tremendous value for the ecosystem in scaling reach beyond direct buys. Solutions that provide trust and transparency empower data providers to scale audiences in CTV and digital while increasing confidence in biddable environments and optimising working media.”

Through TV+, buyers unlock direct premium publisher integrations across more than 110 million measurable “glass-on-wall” devices (televisions/displays). “This access to direct-sourced inventory improves transparency and control, while log-level data delivers visibility into impressions,” OpenX says.

"The long-term growth of biddable TV advertising requires buyers and sellers to have confidence in marketplace integrity," says Chris Kane, Founder of Jounce Media (which specialises in programmatic supply chain management. "OpenX’s TV+ creates these conditions, ensuring media buyers get the quality they expect from their TV investments and ensuring media owners, not supply chain intermediaries, are the beneficiary of those investments."

Geoff Wolinetz, SVP of Publisher and Demand Platforms at OpenX, adds: “I've spent the majority of my career in TV, and ensuring that CTV doesn't repeat the same cycles as digital is imperative to the success of programmatic TV.

“We can make programmatic TV more efficient and effective by ensuring content is fit for purpose, accessed directly, and demand and supply partners have transparency across the value chain. This will positively impact buyer confidence, enabling them to implement key strategies such as incremental reach.”