ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE said today that its sales house Seven.One Media has started the ProSiebenSat.1 AdManager, a booking platform through which smaller mid-sized companies in Germany can plan, book and start addressable TV campaigns on all of the group's channels in a few steps.

In Short

ProSiebenSat.1, one of Germany's large TV groups, put a website online today where small and mid-sized companies can set up and buy TV ads on their own. It matters mostly for German businesses that, in the company's own words, face a high entry barrier to TV advertising, and for a TV group whose income from regular television advertising has been falling. What changes is that a company can choose its audience and region, start a campaign in a few steps and adjust it while it runs, although prices, minimum budgets and start dates were not given.

What ProSiebenSat.1 said today

According to ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, in a LinkedIn post published today, Seven.One Media is starting a new self-serveplatform for the German Mittelstand, the country's broad segment of small and mid-sized businesses. The product is called the ProSiebenSat.1 AdManager. Advertisers use it to plan and book addressable TV campaigns in the SwitchInformat and to start them across all ProSiebenSat.1 channels in what the company describes as a few steps. Audiences are defined through a set of targeting criteria, campaigns can be delivered regionally, and optimisation can be changed in real time, according to the post.

Nicola Lussana, CEO of Seven.One Media, framed the start around company size. According to Lussana, the Mittelstand is "traditionally particularly strong and a real growth engine" in Germany, and larger mid-sized firms have advertised on television for years. For smaller ones, the AdManager is meant to "lower the entry barrier for advertising on the big screen decisively". Both quotations are translated from the German original. He added that the tool allows simple planning of campaigns on connected TV and opens the group's high-reach environments to an additional customer group.

The platform was developed by MFE ADVERTISING and was already in use in Italy and Spain, according to ProSiebenSat.1. The German start means the local advertising market now gets the same tool. The company presents it as an example of how far European integration inside the MFE-MediaForEurope group has progressed.

What the post leaves open

A short social media post cannot carry a rate card, and this one does not try. It names no price per campaign, no minimum budget and no fee structure. It does not say how many targeting criteria exist, which regions can be selected, or what creative formats and file specifications apply. Nothing is said about measurement or reporting, about who may open an account, or about the date from which bookings are possible.

Access is a real question. The Italian counterpart, according to Websim, lets agencies and advertisers who have been enabled for the service buy space, which is narrower than open sign-up. Whether the German version follows that model is not stated.

SwitchIn and the HbbTV layer

SwitchIn is not new. According to ProSiebenSat.1's 2015 annual report, the group became the first German broadcaster to offer addressable TV that year, combining the interactive function with the SwitchIn special format for the first time. The first placements were cut selectively into programme environments on ProSieben, SAT.1 and kabel eins for viewers aged 30 to 59. The same report says ProSiebenSat.1 had already become the first private broadcasting group in Germany to start live HbbTV operations in 2010.

HbbTV, short for Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV, is the European standard that lets an internet-connected television set load web content on top of a broadcast signal. A Warner Bros. Discovery Germany technical specification from 2025 describes addressable TV in the same terms: digital ad delivery inside traditional linear programmes, through ad server technology, based on the HbbTV standard. A Serviceplan blog post using 2017 audience data describes the SwitchIn formats as a small rectangular overlay and a larger L-shaped frame, shown when viewers change channels and, where applicable, leading to further content when they press the red button on the remote control. A Seven.One Media information document lists further variants under the names SwitchIn XXL, SwitchIn Zoom and SwitchIn Masthead. Which of these the AdManager offers has not been published.

Terminology deserves care here. The post speaks of addressable TV for the campaigns and of connected TV for the planning tool. In the United States, the Video Advertising Bureau defines addressable TV as matching a single advertiser message to an advertiser-defined audience segment, so that different households watching the same network at the same time see different commercials, and reports that 92% of US pay TV households are addressable-enabled. That lineage runs through set-top boxes and cable or satellite infrastructure. PPC Land's CTV explainer draws the same line between addressable TV and internet-delivered CTV. German SwitchIn campaigns instead depend on HbbTV-capable sets with an internet connection, which is why the two labels blur in the post.

The same infrastructure was the basis of an earlier joint effort. As PPC Land reported in August 2019, the German Federal Cartel Office approved the d-force joint venture on August 5, owned 50% each by ProSiebenSat.1 and Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland and built around the Active Agent demand-side platform, to sell addressable TV and online video. The company said at the time that around 18 million TV devices in German-speaking territories could be reached with addressable TV. That venture served buyers working through a DSP, with programmatic booking as the objective. The AdManager, by contrast, is pitched at companies without that kind of tooling.

The 2017 Serviceplan material also contains a number that explains why smaller firms might have stayed away. According to that blog post, the average gross budget of an addressable TV campaign stood at EUR 146,000. The AdManager post cites no budget floor, so how far the new platform sits below that level cannot be judged yet.

Italy first, Germany second

The tool has a traceable history. According to Websim, Publitalia '80, the sales house inside MFE Advertising, started Mediaset AdManager in Italy on September 30, 2024, as a self-service platform for small and mid-sized businesses planning campaigns on connected TV. Paola Colombo, Chief Digital Officer of MFE Advertising, said, according to Milano Finanza, that the self-service version grew out of a booking tool Publitalia '80 had adopted in 2020, and that the offer reached about 16 million connected devices and 10 million households watching Mediaset programmes every day. Stefano Sala, CEO of MFE Advertising, said, according to Corriere Comunicazioni, that the project was built to scale across countries and would expand beyond Italy.

A year after the debut, PMI.it reported on October 27, 2025 that numerous small and mid-sized companies had adopted Mediaset AdManager and that a new solution for them, covering connected TV and second screens, had been added. Spain followed, according to ProSiebenSat.1. Germany now makes three markets.

The ownership link is recent. According to ProSiebenSat.1, MFE secured 75.61% of the company through its takeover offer, a result published on September 4, 2025, with settlement expected on September 16, 2025. Roughly thirteen months later, a product built inside MFE Advertising is on sale through Seven.One Media. The post does not connect the two events beyond the group reference, and the order of events is all that can be stated.

A shrinking linear market as the setting

The post does not mention market conditions, but the figures are public. According to ProSiebenSat.1's first-quarter 2026 results, as reported by Advanced Television on May 13, 2026, group revenue fell 9% to EUR 775 million, advertising revenue in the Entertainment segment dropped 10%, and Digital & Smart advertising revenue grew 10%. For the first half, Senal News reported on August 7, 2026 that segment advertising revenue was down 9% while Digital & Smart advertising rose 6% and advertising-funded streaming revenue at Joyn increased 8%.

The wider market is flat. The JOM Group forecast, distributed in December 2025, expected German advertising spending to grow by about 0.5% in 2026 to just over EUR 28 billion, with the shift of budgets from linear TV to digital moving-image platforms described as particularly dynamic.

Distribution partners are part of the same story. According to ProSiebenSat.1, the group and Deutsche Telekom extended their cooperation on February 5, 2026, with Seven.One Media continuing to sell addressable TV across the group's channels on MagentaTV. RTL Deutschland, according to Bertelsmann, agreed on November 6, 2025 to connect its ad server to Telekom's Magenta Ad Solution platform for addressable advertising on its linear channels. Both German commercial groups are therefore building addressable inventory through the same telecom operator.

Self-serve television beyond Germany

Broadcasters elsewhere are moving toward the same buyers. On June 23, 2026, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky started Universal Ads in the UK for small and mid-sized businesses, built on technology from Sky's parent Comcast, according to VideoWeek and ITV. According to ITV, advertisers can track results through a pixel placed on their own websites. That is a measurement answer the German post does not yet offer.

In the US, Walmart agreed on June 23, 2026 to buy Vibe.co, a self-serve CTV platform with more than 10,000 advertisers; financial terms were not disclosed. The economics of such platforms are visible in the figures of MNTN, a self-serve CTV seller. PPC Land's coverage of its second-quarter 2026 results shows 4,225 active customers, up 40% year on year, while average trailing spend per customer fell 14% to about $74,200. More buyers at lower average spend is the pattern a broadcaster would see if the AdManager works as intended, and also the reason revenue per account, not account count, will decide whether it matters financially.

Why it matters for the marketing community

Three points stand out for agencies, advertisers and media owners.

First, the question of who gets to buy. PPC Land's self-serve explainer notes that self-serve decides who can advertise at all, and that television was sold for decades through negotiated relationships. The same explainer shows how minimums arise where managed service is involved, citing Amazon DSP's typical USD 50,000 threshold for its managed tier. Whether Seven.One Media attaches any threshold to the AdManager, and whether agencies can use it for client budgets, determines how much of the existing sales process it replaces and how much it merely supplements.

Second, measurement and trust. The wider CTV market has not settled how to verify delivery: according to the PPC Land explainer, IAB Spain's fifth annual CTV study, published on May 6, 2026, found 44% of professionals lacked confidence in CTV measurement, and IAB Europe's April 2026 guide flagged server-side insertion as a measurement issue. SwitchIn overlays are served differently from stitched streaming ads, yet buyers moving from search and social will still ask what was shown, to whom and with what result. The post is silent on all three.

Third, concentration. Smaller advertisers who today buy reach on social platforms are the audience every TV seller in the examples above is targeting. A German group that already controls a large share of national linear inventory now offers a direct door, which raises the question of whether the AdManager remains one channel among several or becomes the template for how the group sells addressable inventory more broadly. No answer is available today.

Timeline

  • 2010: ProSiebenSat.1 becomes the first private broadcasting group in Germany to start live HbbTV operations, according to its 2015 annual report
  • 2015: SevenOne Media combines the SwitchIn special format with an interactive addressable function for the first time, according to the same report
  • August 5, 2019: German Federal Cartel Office approves the d-force joint venture of ProSiebenSat.1 and Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland
  • 2020: Publitalia '80 adopts a booking tool for connected TV campaigns, according to Milano Finanza
  • September 30, 2024: Publitalia '80 starts Mediaset AdManager in Italy, according to Websim
  • September 4, 2025: MFE reports a 75.61% stake in ProSiebenSat.1, according to ProSiebenSat.1
  • October 27, 2025: PMI.it reports on adoption of Mediaset AdManager by small and mid-sized businesses one year after its debut
  • November 6, 2025: RTL Deutschland agrees to connect its ad server to Telekom's Magenta Ad Solution, according to Bertelsmann
  • December 2025: JOM Group forecasts German ad market growth of about 0.5% for 2026
  • February 5, 2026: ProSiebenSat.1 and Deutsche Telekom extend cooperation, including addressable TV sales on MagentaTV
  • May 13, 2026: ProSiebenSat.1 reports first-quarter 2026 revenue of EUR 775 million, according to Advanced Television
  • June 23, 2026: Walmart agrees to acquire Vibe.co; ITV, Channel 4 and Sky start Universal Ads in the UK
  • August 2026: MNTN reports 4,225 active customers for the second quarter
  • August 7, 2026: ProSiebenSat.1 first-half results show Digital & Smart advertising up 6%, according to Senal News
  • Today: ProSiebenSat.1 says Seven.One Media has started the ProSiebenSat.1 AdManager

Summary

Who: ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, through its sales house Seven.One Media and its CEO Nicola Lussana; the platform was developed by MFE ADVERTISING, part of MFE-MediaForEurope, which holds a majority of ProSiebenSat.1. The target group is smaller mid-sized companies in Germany.

What: The ProSiebenSat.1 AdManager, a platform for planning, booking and starting addressable TV campaigns in the SwitchIn format on all ProSiebenSat.1 channels, with targeting criteria, regional delivery and real-time optimisation. Prices, minimum budgets, measurement and access rules were not stated.

When: Today, October 7, 2026, according to a LinkedIn post by ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE.

Where: Germany. The tool was already in use in Italy and Spain, according to ProSiebenSat.1.

Why: According to Seven.One Media, the aim is to lower the entry barrier to big-screen advertising for smaller mid-sized firms and open the group's high-reach environments to an additional customer group. The post does not cite market conditions, although the group's linear advertising revenue fell in the first half of 2026.