Dish and DirecTV Combine Addressable Ad Efforts for Political Campaigns

Dish Network and DirecTV are combining their sales efforts for addressable TV advertising for political campaigns. The partnership will allow political campaigns to use both operators' addressable capabilities to target commercials at a household level, the companies said.

Combined, DirecTV and Dish reach over 20 million households. Addressable TV advertising is currently available in 37 million households, one media buyer estimated, but advertisers would have to do separate deals with multiple satellite and cable companies to actually approach that kind of reach. Stitching two pay-TV systems' addressable offerings together is meant to make it easier for advertisers to target TV commercials on a wide scale. The move now was inspired partly by the use of data of in the most recent presidential election, executives at Dish and DirecTV said. The partnership will give campaigns the ability to show their messages to a precise set of potential voters and eliminate spending waste, said Keith Kazerman, senior VP-ad sales, DirecTV.