SevenOne Media and IP Deutschland join forces to sell addressable TV and online video via Active Agent

ProSieben (SevenOne Media) and RTL (IP Deutschland) are creating a walled garden to sell addressable TV and online video to advertisers. The DSP from the joint venture between ProSiebenSat.1 and Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland is Active Agent. The Joint venture is d-force, and each company owns 50%.

The German Federal Cartel Office approved the project d-force on August 5. ProSieben says that the partnership between ProSiebenSat.1 and Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland will strengthen their technological independence from global tech platforms, like Google.

Thomas Wagner, Managing Director of SevenOne Media, last month said to Horizont that the goal was not to have a walled garden, but if Google wants to have access to the video and addressable tv inventory, Google also needs to give access to the YouTube inventory to Active Agent.

The basis of the new partnership is the demand-side platform Active Agent, which is part of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group’s Virtual Minds Group.

“We are delighted to get the green light from the German Federal Cartel Office and be able to press on with this project with Mediengruppe RTL. This makes booking addressable TV and video campaigns easier and much more attractive for advertising customers and opens up a new growth market for us,” said Thomas Wagner, Chairman of the Executive Board of SevenOne Media.

Why these matters? SevenOne Media and IP Deutschland are the biggest TV private groups in Germany. Both companies also launched streaming projects to compete with Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon. This month, ProSieben’s streaming platform Joyn was reaching 3.8 million monthly total active users.