iHeartMedia To Acquire Programmatic Radio Platform Jelli

“Buyers look for a common platform for radio advertising,” said Jelli CEO Mike Dougherty. “They want to standardize their process and workflow as they move to programmatic.”

In addition to investing in its core programmatic toolset, iHeart plans to make it easier to integrate Jelli with agencies’ demand-side platforms and explore using it in emerging areas like voice. iHeart also wants to more deeply integrate its own analytics into Jelli’s platform so self-serve buyers can access them directly without having to go through a sales rep.

For Jelli, the opportunity under iHeart to combine digital and broadcast audio buying and analytics in one interface was enticing, Dougherty said.

“It really excites our team to think through [how to bring] what we’ve built for the broadcast industry in a multiplatform world,” he said.

Buying programmatically is a big change for broadcast radio buyers and sellers, who previously transacted on Nielsen demos and syndicated research, and could wait up to three months for invoices to see if their spots ran.

Hundreds of advertisers are buying through SoundPoint, Kaminsky said. In November, Horizon Media said it would use Jelli for all of its upfront buys in addition to spot buys.

“We’ve seen pretty ubiquitous demand from the buying community to leverage data on broadcast radio so it isn’t off in a silo,” Kaminsky said. “The entire industry, almost without exception, is moving in this direction. We need to prepare ourselves to participate there.”

For iHeart, which is awaiting a hearing on a Chapter 11 bankruptcy it filed in March, Jelli is the second big purchase it has made this fall. In September, the radio giant purchased podcast network Stuff Media for $55 million.

Kaminsky said the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings will not affect future acquisition plans.

“I think we’re in a pretty good position right now,” he said. “The two acquisitions we’ve done have been relatively easy because they fit into our portfolio.”

IHeartMedia is also looking at the growing smart speaker space.

“That’s green field,” Kaminsky said. “I know it’s a place we’re going to spend some time in.”

This year has seen a flurry of programmatic audio transactions, as traditional players make land grabs for more modern ways of doing business. Pandora acquired programmatic audio platform AdsWizz in March before receiving a $3.5 billion offer from subscription radio giant Sirius XM in September.

“Audio has reached this apex moment,” Kaminsky said. “This is our opportunity, as the biggest audio company in the United States, to really stake our claim.”

This post was syndicated from Ad Exchanger.