The Programmatic Paradox: How Broadcasters Can Win Without Compromise

The golden age of TV advertising isn’t over—it’s about to be reinvented

As streaming sets new expectations for advertising flexibility, broadcasters face a choice: lead the transformation, or risk being left behind in the battle for ad budgets.

In conversations, one theme emerges: broadcasters understand the benefits of automation but want to do it on their own terms. This is shaping how forward-looking players are embracing new advertising models without compromising control, content value, or the viewer experience. This isn’t just market sentiment: automation is already delivering results.

While digital platforms have reframed how advertisers think about targeting, optimisation, and buying, linear TV still delivers unmatched reach. TV advertising builds brands and shapes consumer behaviour in a trusted environment, but to stay relevant, it must evolve and embrace digital tools or risk losing ground.

Programmatic without compromise

According to Grand View Research, technology advancements will expand the global programmatic advertising market at a CAGR of 22.8% through 2030. Much of this growth is on platforms that offer programmatic access and automation at scale. This shift isn’t just about technology, it’s about frictionless buying using familiar, widely-accepted performance metrics and streamlined transactions that unlock access to digital-first budgets.

There’s a persistent myth that programmatic means loss of control, brand safety, or premium value. But now broadcasters are proving this isn’t true, especially when using Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) and Private Marketplace (PMP) models. These approaches not only give broadcasters full control over pricing, packaging, and inventory but also allow them to access programmatic-only budgets. They also make deal execution faster and more efficient.

Even more importantly, broadcasters offer advertisers something that is hard to find with digital-native players: a brand-safe environment with high production values and regulated content. This premium foundation for programmatic advertising meets advertisers’ demand for accountability and relevance and when you add the value of first-party data, it’s an even more compelling proposition.

Moving ad dollars from social media and YouTube to TV

One leader in this field is OSN, the major pay-TV operator in the Middle East. To complement its direct-sold addressable broadcast campaigns, OSN has used Synamedia Iris to integrate programmatic demand from its OTT and CTV services to extend its CTV programmatic buy into linear, initially by replacing promo inventory with targeted, incremental, high-value ads across its set-top box ecosystem.

Highlighting that programmatic doesn’t mean compromise, but instead delivers evolution and expansion, Hamid Davari, Director of Ad Sales at OSN, commented, “By making our TV product fully connected and data-driven, we’re not just selling CPMs — we’re selling a digital product with measurable outcomes. For the first time, clients who traditionally only invested in social media and YouTube are coming to TV, attracted by measurable, premium opportunities.”

The broadcasters’ advantage

Broadcasters and pay-TV operators still hold winning cards in today’s fragmented ad landscape. They own four irreplaceable assets:

1. Premium content environments with brand safety and regulated standards
2. Shared big-screen experiences
3. Established viewer relationships, built on trust and attention
4. The scale to bring audiences together for shared, live moments from must-see dramas to major cultural and sporting events.

It’s lazy to think that linear TV advertising is threatened by digital when instead the two can be complementary. When broadcasters combine linear and programmatic, they can offer advertisers the trust, data, and scale that advertisers demand—especially those who value quality over quantity. With the right partners and technologies, broadcasters can easily add automation, addressability, and efficient workflows, all while enhancing the value of their inventory.

The road ahead

This is a defining moment for the TV industry. Broadcasters no longer need to choose between traditional and digital advertising. They can deliver a unified video proposition that combines the best of both worlds, known as Total TV.

Thanks to the latest innovations, broadcasters can now activate digital levers even on broadcast streaming and set-top boxes that were previously out of reach. Ad tech solutions can even make broadcast addressable and align it with digital to create a unified, automated, and scalable ecosystem for advertisers.

The expectation is clear: advertisers want easy access to high-quality, measurable inventory. Broadcasters that move quickly can automate and optimise their ad operations without devaluing their inventory; they can attract digital-first advertisers while continuing to protect existing premium relationships; and offer advertisers relevance, accountability, and performance that can even exceed digital benchmarks.

Those who embrace this opportunity will cement their leadership in the ad ecosystem, blending digital precision with the unmatched power of TV. Talk to one of our advanced advertising experts today to see how your inventory can deliver measurable results and reach digital-first advertisers.