SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico\u2014Fully IP-based television may be inevitable, but fully programmatic buying and selling of advertising inventory isn\u2019t, according to buy- and sell-side executives who converged for a panel discussion at the recent Beet Retreat 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n Moderated by consultant Matt Prohaska, the discussion touched on the eternal reality of supply versus demand in making sales decisions, along with the prospects for the OpenAP audience targeting consortium.<\/p>\n \u201cWe still have bifurcation in linear programmatic and digital, so that\u2019s always something that we have to navigate,\u201d said FOX\u2019s Noah Levine. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a maturity begin to develop in the linear programmatic TV space, which is quite nice.\u201d<\/p>\n From the sell-side, programmatic is \u201cprimarily about automating the buy and being able to empower the agency, the buyer, to do more. That\u2019s a good thing for us as sellers,\u201d Levine added.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that we still need to look at linear programmatic as kind of a separate beast is something we should all start to want to reconcile and maybe have some degree of concern about,\u201d said Brett Hurwitz<\/a> of OATH, the Verizon unit. And if all TV inventory becomes available on an IP-based delivery platform, a major concern will be getting \u201cenough of a premium on the highly desirable target folks to make up for the fact that some of your other impressions are going to probably be going at a much lower price.\u201d<\/p>\n The issue of brand safety still holds sway and stands in the way of 100% data-driven decisions, according to Mike Law<\/a> of Dentsu Aegis Network. \u201cWe need to find the right balance of that, because some brands hold that way too close to them and some buyers hold that way too close to them,\u201d said Law. \u201cThey fear that if I don\u2019t say something then this computer will do my job for me or somebody will do it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Sellers have obvious concerns about total automation when optimizing their inventory across the multitude of buyers. \u201cIn linear, there\u2019s a lot of pressure on the inventory. There\u2019s a huge amount of demand,\u201d said Levine.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s true, the private marketplaces are really the path forward for the most part when it comes to especially linear television inventory,\u201d said Hurwitz.<\/p>\n Given some marketers\u2019 desire to cherry pick ad units versus having the ability to transact via automation, \u201cThere\u2019s a very healthy tension between those two models that we\u2019re seeing in the marketplace,\u201d Levine<\/a> noted. And while being able to leverage programmatic technology to access inventory and re-optimize plans \u201cis a very desirable state for us to reach in the future,\u201d it\u2019s tough to do for sellers that don\u2019t have lots of unsold inventory. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n