For the sports giant, the online radio and podcasting arms
of the business are surprisingly robust. According to adweek.com, the ESPN
Radio mobile app has registered over 3 million downloads while popular podcast
titles like Bill Simmons' B.S. Report have attracted tens of millions of
downloads over the years.
To take advantage of this audience, ESPN digital audio is
unveiling a dynamic cloud-based ad insertion program with the hope of targeting
listeners by device, location, age and gender in real time across live national
broadcasts.
The new technology, developed with online radio provider
Abacast, is a departure from the standard, static ad insertion platforms
available to online radio providers where ads must undergo somewhat cumbersome
coding and delivery processes.
Essentially, this means that during large radio broadcast
events like last month's BCS Championship game, during which ESPN Radio hosted
nearly 110,000 mobile audio streams, ESPN will be able to serve individual ads
to each one of those listeners during live breaks. While it may sounds obvious,
for online radio it is a first-of-its-kind technology for an industry largely
behind the times in digital ad technology.
No comments:
Post a Comment