Save 50% on a 3-month Digiday+ membership. Ends Dec 5.
If there was one group you’d think might express skepticism, even hope, that the march to ad exchanged-traded media would slow, it would be ad sellers for digital media companies. They seem mostly resigned to the idea, or even happy that it might free them up to sell more high-priced packages.
Digiday partnered with SellerCrowd, a Q&A site that’s attracted 3,500 sellers from digital media companies across the industry, to poll its users on this question: “Will the amount of inventory going to ad exchanges and networks in 2012: 1. increase; 2. decrease; 3. stay the same.” The results weren’t very close. Out of 161 votes, 73 percent said increase, 16 percent decrease and 11 percent stay the same.
That’s the general feeling across the industry on the buy side, too. The VivaKi Nerve Center, which serves as the hub of its programmatic buying capability, has mushroomed from five people in 2008 to 215 today. It now has ad-exchange buying operations in 10 markets worldwide. Digiday will run a Q&A with VivaKi Nerve Center chief Curt Hecht later today.
More in Media
What publishers are wishing for this holiday season: End AI scraping and determine AI-powered audience value
Publishers want a fair, structured, regulated AI environment and they also want to define what the next decade of audience metrics looks like.
Digiday+ Research Subscription Index 2025: Subscription strategies from Bloomberg, The New York Times, Vox and others
Digiday’s third annual Subscription Index examines and measures publishers’ subscription strategies to identify common approaches and key tactics among Bloomberg, The New York Times, Vox and others.
From lawsuits to lobbying: How publishers are fighting AI
We may be closing out 2025, but publishers aren’t retreating from the battle of AI search — some are escalating it, and they expect the fight to stretch deep into 2026.
Ad position: web_bfu