• by Wayne Friedman , May 11, 2020

Project OAR, the consortium promoting addressable advertising standards on smart TVs, has added two members -- ViacomCBS and E.W. Scripps.

The group -- which stands for Open Addressable Ready -- is looking to expand the use of dynamic advertising insertion on internet-connected TVs and devices.

OAR was started in February 2018, with smart TV maker Vizio, which has been pushing software/firmware technology in its footprint of over 13 million smart TVs.

Other founding members include: Disney’s Media Networks, Comcast’s FreeWheel and NBCUniversal, Xandr, WarnerMedia, Discovery, Hearst Television, AMC Networks, VIZIO and Inscape.

Viacom -- with its networks including BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network, TV Land, VH1 --  was not.

Scripps operates 60 local TV stations in 42 markets across the U.S.

Linear TV networks' addressable advertising efforts, with dynamic ad insertion, make TV advertising more targetable -- so called one-to-one marketing that is better able to compete with digital media platforms.

Proponents say the difference is that addressable/advanced targeted TV can grow to a broader scale.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this past January, Project OAR announced it has begun starting up technical integrations with major ad-delivery systems including Comcast’s FreeWheel, AT&T’s Xandr, Google Ad Manager, and Invidi.