Although they compete with each other for television viewers, three of Canada’s largest broadcasters are teaming up to sell online advertising.
Rogers Communications Inc., theCanadian Broadcasting Corp. and ShawCommunications Inc. have joined forces to launch an auction-based Webadvertising venture starting May 16, the Globeand Mail reports.
The system will track information about visitors to each of the threebroadcasters’ Web sites, then allow advertisers to bid on online adspace based on that data. The idea is that giving advertisers morespecific site data will give them incentive to buy ads because they cantarget them more effectively based on what type of consumers arevisiting those Web sites and pages.
The three broadcasters hope they will be able to charge premium pricesfor such ads because advertisers will have better chances ofthose adsbeing seen by target demographics based on gender, age and contentpreferences.
Although Rogers, Shaw and CBC have announced the project they said theyare open to including other Canadian media companies in the newinitiative.