Magnite hopes to capitalise on the arrival of advertising on Disney+
The world’s largest independent SSP has gone in three years from earning nothing from connected TV to accounting for 42% of its turnover. And that figure could rise further if Magnite turns its close relationship with Disney into a stable deal to operate the soon-to-be-launched ad-supported version of Disney+. Its second quarter results show that contribution from that support grew more than twice as fast as the overall business, at 52% versus 20% over 2021, and totalled $52.1m on overall revenue of $137.8m.
Part of that figure is attributable to SpringServe, the ad server acquired last year, whose integration with the company’s SSP has led to a stream of new features such as ad tiles, the native ad units on the home screens of connected TVs. One of the legs of the bet on the support is to get part of the advertising market that has been exploited for years by manufacturers of devices to watch online or on-demand signals such as Samsung and LG, and Magnite has signed a multi-year contract with the latter.
Despite the increase in revenue, the company ended the quarter with a loss of $25 million compared to a profit of $36.8 million in 2021. This is due to the fiscal impact of the SpotX acquisition and the macroeconomic scenario, which in any case does not prevent Magnite from being moderately optimistic for the remainder of the year. Especially thanks to the progressive shift in streaming towards ad-supported options, both paid and free, but also because of the mid-term election cycle in the US.
The company is moderately optimistic for the second half of the year thanks to connected TV and political advertising in the US mid-term elections.
That period covers the months between August and November, and Magnite believes its strategic relationship with GroupM makes it a preferred partner for capturing advertising budgets around these state and Senate races. Also key in this regard is Magnite’s exclusive SSP status with the Scripps Political consortium, a group of premium media publishers that generate billions of monthly impressions on connected TV that Magnite can make available to political advertisers.