What the AT&T and Time Warner Deal Could Mean for Advertising

As more people watch content across a variety of platforms and devices, and on an increasingly delayed basis, AT&T and Time Warner believe they can better tackle the changes in viewership behavior together. When it comes to advertising, the thinking is that combining the vast troves of data from a telecommunications giant and the TV programmer behind shows including HBO's "Game of Thrones" and TBS's "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee" will allow for greater audience targeting and ad relevance.

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said the deal would allow for "more innovation in advertising" where the ads will become "more effective and of interest to you in one house versus someone else in a different house." Bewkes went on to say that people like advertising so long as it is relevant to them. Time Warner's Turner division has been helping to lead the TV industry when it comes to audience targeting. Its portfolio of data products, while still in its infancy, allow advertisers to buy inventory based on specific consumer targets rather than on the traditional Nielsen age and gender demographics. Still, the combination of the two isn't expected to meaningfully advance addressable advertising, said Brian Wieser, senior analyst at Pivotal Research. "I think there aren't many implications on the ad sales angle in any practical way, as AT&T AdWorks is pretty small, but I can imagine they would try to establish some ad products that are similar to some that NBCU/Comcast has announced, which include some bundling of VOD and addressable units into AT&T/DirecTV inventory," he said. "Again, as a practical matter, that's not going to be very meaningful."