Why Turner Entertainment Dumped Third-Party Ad Networks

Agree with Walker 100%.

If we are trying to keep our brands relevant and meaningful - we need to keep the value of our ad space at a premium and sell it in such a way.

Plenty of brand-name publishers still work with networks because they realize that not all ad networks are sending them "punch the monkey" ads. Putting all networks in the same bucket is absolutely myopic and reeks of misrepresentation. In reality, the top ad networks are working with the same top-name advertisers the direct sites are, but in different ways. In reality, you are sitting on a ton of unsold (and subsequently unmonetized) inventory but you have to keep up a perception of scarcity to justify your higher cpm's. In reality, advertisers are becoming less focused on site-specific buying and realizing the powers of audience-specific buying - the ad networks are positioned for success in this arena and that idea tightens the sphincters of publishers that don't get the big picture. The chairman of 24/7 is absolutely correct when he says that the networks "don't need" the sites that don't get this. I used to work at a top video site that initially didn't work with networks. When we decided to, we started to see that we had pre-emptive control over inventory/pricing and had the ability to reject certain advertisers. We also started to get access to advertisers that were going for large reach plays and were only working with aggregators (ie that was the only way to work with them). So go ahead and "keep the value of [your] ad space at a premium and sell it in such a way." We all know that "premium" is in the eye of the beholder, and I'd rather target a USER that I already know is relevant instead of a SITE that may or may not be. Oh by the way, so would a lot of advertisers, so that "expensive decision" will get even more expensive as time goes on. Advertisers that see the audience-targeting value in premium networks will continue to work with networks, and advertisers that want deeper site integrations and sponsorships will continue to work with the sites direct. It would have been great to see more of 24/7's chairman's response in this video - I'm sure he made some similar points.