College Football on ESPN Just the Latest Example of the Mess That is Ad Streaming

Some theories as to why these problems persist in a supposedly red-hot market

This past week, ESPN went dark for DirecTV subscribers.

Maybe they are the lucky ones.

Because if recent my experience streaming a live game broadcast by the worldwide leader is any indicator, connected TV advertising is still a nightmare for many viewers.

The big question is - can the TV ad industry do anything about it - or does it even want to?

—sponsor

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We’ve all been there - streaming a favorite show and seeing the same ad over and over, or being interrupted mid show or video with a jarring ad break. It’s hardly breaking news that streaming has frequency and user experience challenges.

Still, I’d have thought things were further along - especially among the top companies in media, which have supposedly invested so much in this arena.

I was planning to watch the Notre Dame/Texas A&M game last Saturday with my sons. And rather than watch in the living room via cable, we decided to stream the game onto a projector on the back porch. A beautiful night, closing out summer with some football, what could be better?

First, it was not easy to figure out how to actually stream the game. I tried logging into my Verizon Fios app multiple times, before giving up on my third password reset. Instead I used the ESPN app on my phone to stream the game through a Chromecast (not, it should be noted, via Hulu or ESPN+)

The game was OK - a defensive battle, without much action. But the ads. Oh boy the ads.

If you watch live sports - particularly college football - you know going in that there are a lot of ad breaks. Well, we saw roughly four to five of the same ads dozens of times. One was for the USPS, and at least three others were for ESPN products - the SEC, the US Open, and college football in general. If we weren’t seeing those ads, we were getting a “commercial break” dead screen.

I get it - live streaming is challenging. But still, this is ESPN! Part of the media titan that is Disney! - which has boasted of investing in its own ad tech, ad server, ad graph, even AI.

If they can’t get it right, who can?

On that note, I had a great conversation this past week with Video Advertising Bureau CEO Sean Cunningham on my podcast.

Sean’s bosses are the big TV networks, so obviously he’s an advocate for their cause (and seemingly against the big tech platforms). Still, he made a lot of salient points about the value proposition being offered by big TV players in streaming - such as providing ad buyers with the kind of control and transparency many value.

His point - like it or not - is that there should be a distinct value in being ‘premium.’

Well, you wouldn’t know it from the streaming ad product. My experience with ESPN the other night, while maddening, wasn’t unfamiliar. It’s just that it was something out of 2014 - when streaming TV was really new. It’s not now.

What’s perhaps even more glaring/concerning is that not only was the game I watched full of the same ads - but so many of them were house ads. Meaning that not only was ESPN delivering a frequency fiasco, but also doesn’t seem to have sold many ads for a nationally televised prime time game during the opening weekend of college football. This amidst a CTV ad market that is supposedly on fire.

“Disney has more than 15 years of experience building the model that others are now trying to replicate -- a television experience for the viewer and is leading the entire industry into the next evolution of television,” said a Disney spokesperson.

“We’ve made making significant investments in unified ad platform that have improved the viewing experience for our consumers, and our advertising clients as well.”

Yet here we are. I talked to some experts in the field, and came up with a list of theories as to what gives:

1)The ad tech doesn’t work

Nearly every media company and ad tech vendor says they have built some better feature to manage things like frequency and ad break timing. In Disney’s case, the company has built its proprietary tech born out of Hulu (though one thing worth noting its sports products operate via a separate tech platform). Maybe the ad tech capabilities just aren’t there yet? Maybe no one’s are?

2) Live isn’t easy

To be fair, it is undoubtedly simpler to control the ad experience in an on demand environment than during a live game with unpredictable breaks and duration. Still, this was a national broadcast - we’re not expecting a ton of customized, uber-targeted ads here.

3)ESPN is using multiple third party sellers, and nobody’s talking to one another

This has been a longstanding issue as TV has gone more programmatic. Even if all the ad tech ‘works’ just fine, if an ESPN or another company is selling directly, through private exchanges, through third parties, and so on, it’s possible that those parties are selling to the same brands and not looping each other in. If that is the case - well, that’s a dumb excuse.

4)ESPN is still selling huge TV centric sports deals, and streaming is an afterthought

It could be that the big money in TV advertising is still in live sports, and since so much of the viewership still happens via linear (particularly for older fans) that ESPN still doesn’t care so much about its streaming ad load, etc. Yet that just seems crazy given the supposed streaming-centric direction of the company.

5)Or, ESPN has huge streaming commitments to make up

It could be that ESPN promised huge streaming viewership to some brands, and needs to make sure it delivers, even if they over do it on frequency. Yet that wouldn’t explain the large number of house ads. Plus, Disney is said to emphasize frequency capping across its properties.

6)This particular ESPN app experience is not a priority at the company

If you read The Information, Disney is making a killing in streaming ads compared to its traditional rivals, thanks in large part to Hulu. So it’s possible that what I did - authenticating through the ESPN app on my phone - isn’t indicative of the typical streaming ad experience. Yet then again, why offer this? After all, ESPN says the game was the most streamed regular season college football game ever on ABC. Surely I wasn’t the only one who logged on this way.

7)Senior leadership is pushing ESPN’s sales teams to drop prices and sell through

A lot has been written about how Disney shook up the upfronts this year with aggressive pricing. Could this be a result?

8)CTV spending isn’t moving as fast as it should be…and maybe there still aren’t enough advertisers out there

There is much hope that CTV will bring a huge long tail of advertisers to television. Yet evidence is hard to find.

9)It’s actually too early - many ‘fall season’ campaigns don’t kick off for a few weeks

That’s true. But isn’t sports sports?

10)The bosses don’t really care, as long as they get through the quarter

This one feels kind of right to me…but I’m sometimes cynical.

What do you think? Is there an answer to this challenge? One solution would seem to be the expansion of TV advertisers that CTV is banking on. More ‘bid density,’ as they say in ad tech. Of course, the risk there is that the more small to mid sized brands that come into TV, the schlockier creative we might see. Still, variety would be better than what I saw the other night.

Of course, the ad tech in CTV is ever evolving, and will surely improve over time. Or perhaps sellers, or their bosses, need to stand their ground, and push back a bit? As one ad exec put it, you never want to disrespect the viewer.

Right now, that doesn’t seem to be much of a priority. One thing I did notice the other night - very late it the game, it started getting cold on the porch, and I moved inside to watch ESPN - on cable.

The ad experience was pretty great, all things considered.