Cox Television and Fox’s KTTV-TV LA and WNYW-TV NYC have signed on for TVB ePort, it was announced by the Television Bureau of Advertising, enlarging the list of committed broadcast groups to 28. Additionally, TVB announced that all of the major rep firms have now committed as well to the eBusiness platform that will enable a new wave of open-standard electronic transactions between advertisers, agencies, broadcasters and station reps. "Because of the outstanding support from the broadcast community, TVB ePort will soon be ready to roll," said TVB President Chris Rohrs. The project was announced on 2/21 with an infusion of seed money from the NAB, with the remainder of funding to come from broadcast groups and rep firms.
The rep firms now onboard are ABC National Television Sales, Blair Television, CBS Station Sales, Fox Station Sales, HRP, Katz Media Group, MMT Sales, NBC Station Sales, Petry Television and Telerep.
The 28 committed station groups are Belo Corporation, CBS Television Stations, Citadel Communications, Cox Television, the Dispatch Broadcast Group, Duhamel Broadcasting Enterprises, E.W. Scripps Company, Emmis Communications, Fisher Broadcasting Inc., Fox Television Stations, Freedom Broadcasting, Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst-Argyle Television, Journal Broadcast Group, KAZT LLC, LIN Television Corp., Media General Broadcast Group, Meredith Broadcasting, NBC Universal Television Stations, News-Press & Gazette, Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Pappas Telecasting Companies, Post-Newsweek Stations, Quincy Newspapers, Raycom Media, Sagamore Hill Broadcasting, Sarkes Tarzian Inc., and Tribune Broadcasting.
TVB ePort’s first phase will launch in November, enabling Spot TV buyers to send 1Q 2008 orders electronically. The entire suite of open standard transactions–from avail through invoice for stations’ airtime, websites, digital subchannels and other multiplatform offerings–is expected to be available through TVB ePort by March.
TVBR observation: The great success of ePort is likely the reason companies like SWMX never really made it in the space for TV transactions. On the radio side, the industry never came together quite so well with a universal system, so there are more independent players—and successful ones—in that medium.
