Dish Network earns most of their income from satellite TV services. However, they also get a major share of their revenue via targeted advertising.
Targeted advertising is the latest trend in advertising and Dish knows this very well. That is why, they have entered into a joint venture with AT&T to target the political advertising market.
Charles Ergen, CEO of Dish Network said in their earnings call, that they are very much encouraged by the joint venture with AT&T as the US presidential elections are nearing. “Certainly combining advertising resources and utilizing the number of DVRs and addressable technology is certainly a place that could be growth for both companies. And the other big thing is the backhaul,” Ergen said about the agreement.
He further added, “We’re the only two companies that really have connected to all the broadcasters in the United States. And that’s a redundant network for both of us, and obviously that could be shared particularly since AT&T has a lot of backhaul resources themselves.”
AT&T also said that they have expanded targeting advertising to many of the markets over the years. Representatives from the company said that they received a good CPM (cost per thousand ad impressions) growth in these markets, proving that targeted advertising is more profitable than spot advertising. Dish also expects that more of their advertising inventory will move from spot advertising to targeted advertising, with time.
Dish Network representatives further indicated that targeted marketing is a component of ARPU (average revenue per user). According to Roger Lynch, who is the CEO of Sling TV, targeted advertising is a “small driver of incremental ARPU year-over-year.”
It is not only Dish and AT&T, who are focusing on the targeted marketing and advertisement. Viacom is another telecom giant who is focusing on advertising analytics products like Viacom Vantage. They said in their earnings call that they expect significant increase in the number of Viacom Vantage clients, and expect to have many opportunities for overall growth with the Viacom Vantage Studio Edition.