DirecTV & NCC Media join forces.

DIRECTV and NCC Media announced the formation of a groundbreaking partnership that will have a wide-ranging impact on the TV advertising industry. The new agreement will allow for one-stop access to locally place ads on a wide selection of networks in the vast majority of multichannel satellite and cable homes through NCC.

The arrangement brings DIRECTV to the spot advertising market for the first time, augments NCC Media’s portfolio of offerings to marketers, and creates a golden opportunity for DIRECTV and the cable MSOs to grow ad revenues together. DIRECTV’s newly developed targeted ad system will be integrated with existing local market cable advertising platforms, called ‘interconnects,’ greatly increasing an ad’s coverage in 25 select markets.

DIRECTV’s unique addressable technology enables zone-targeted ads to be stored within DVR enabled set top boxes, allowing for the insertion of ads in local breaks across multiple cable networks. Testing efforts are underway and the platform will be operational in the second half of 2011.

“This is a powerful and exciting partnership combining DIRECTV’s technological prowess in delivering nationally targeted advanced television services with NCC’s experienced leadership in spot sales,” says Bob Riordan, Senior Vice President, DIRECTV Advertising Sales.

“Combining DIRECTV’s ad impressions with those of our cable market interconnects will deliver a tremendous advantage to advertisers – greater local reach and penetration against targeted consumers in the best programming on television,” said NCC Media President & CEO Greg Schaefer. “And this powerful ad platform will be made available to advertisers via NCC’s sales force in 16 offices across the country – and to regional and local marketers via the local interconnect sales teams of Comcast, Cox and Time Warner Cable.”

The operation will be serviced by NCC’s vaunted E-business applications, which will seamlessly integrate the new DIRECTV subscribers into the buying and stewardship systems used by virtually every US ad agency. This integration means there will be no additional effort needed for media planners and buyers to place local ads in satellite homes via NCC or their local cable interconnect partners.