Better content metadata could boost value of CTV ad inventory, Gracenote report finds
The Gracenote 2025 Contextual Advertising Report, just published, highlights the value of descriptive programme metadata for contextual CTV advertising.
It highlights how one WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) live sports event in the US successfully differentiated itself to programmatic buyers from 25+ other live sports events played at the same time. “This opened new opportunities for advertisers seeking to align with WNBA content to buy inventory within the Indiana Fever home game vs Chicago Sky, and reach key target audiences,” the report states.
Content IDs and metadata from Gracenote are already widely used to make programming easily discoverable, giving viewers a better understanding of what they can expect. These insights help power programme guides, recommendations and search, and Gracenote video descriptors include 315 genre classifications and 300 proprietary mood descriptors such as ‘powerful’, ‘dark’ or ‘mysterious’.
The principle of making TV programming easier to interpret is now being applied for the benefit of advertisers, with Gracenote encouraging publishers to include more contextual detail in bidstreams.
“Despite the sizable budget allocation going to CTV, advertisers often lack insight into where their ads are appearing and whether they’re being seen by target audiences,” Gracenote (which is the content data business unit of Nielsen) says. “Confidence that messages are reaching intended consumers within live sports through programmatic buys has room for improvement in particular.”
According to the Gracenote report, the WNBA Indiana Fever v Chicago Sky game was carried by ABC nationally [USA] plus 859 ABC affiliates, but also on 1,043 streaming channels. There was 21% more ad inventory on CTV than on traditional TV, the report found. That demonstrates the importance of giving programmatic buyers more information where they want it.
Sports missing league or team details
A wider analysis of sports programming in the Contextual Advertising Report reveals that only around 14% of ad inventory included league information and 18% included team information. League and team are cited as basic metadata that is often missing or incomplete in CTV inventory.
Gracenote already tracks content distribution with its Gracenote Global Video Data reports and provides an illustration of how much content is competing for advertising budget. From its April tracking, there were more than 1,665 active FAST channels showing over 182,000 individual programmes or movies globally, for example.
“With more complete and standardised programme metadata available in the bidstream, advertisers benefit from contextual signals that enable better understanding of content, inform cross-platform CTV investments and facilitate granular ad targeting,” Gracenote suggests.
Gracenote has previously listed the benefits of using its TV and movie metadata and IDs to improve transparency for CTV inventory. For advertisers these include a better understanding of the content where ads appear and its brand suitability. The company believes contextually targeted ads improve campaign ROIs.
Increase demand for multi-genre content
For publishers, there is an opportunity to expand their targetable inventory. Gracenote believes premium video providers can also increase demand for content that falls into multiple genres. Its report finds that over half of CTV content has two or more genres in its classification, while one-fifth has 3-4 genres.
Better metadata and IDs also enable the creation of contextual private marketplaces (PMPs) for connected TV, the content discovery specialist says. It adds: “Publishers can increase the value of their inventory, increase fill rates and drive higher CPMs across content catalogues.”
Commenting on the report and its findings, Bill Michels, Chief Product Officer at Gracenote, says, “CTV is a strong channel for advertisers today but opportunities exist to make it even better. We are providing new insights to brands seeking to maximise the potential of CTV and have confidence that the channel is effectively delivering on their advertising objectives.”