Fox Buying Majority Of UK Video Ad Outfit Utarget
By Robert Andrews - Tue 08 Apr 2008 12:01 AM PST
Fox’s year-old Fox Networks is buying itself more video advertising clout, taking a 56 percent stake in UK video ad platform Utarget. The eight-year-old Windsor-based outfit has a network of over 630 publisher sites to which it delivers 15-second clickable pre-rolls, contextual videos and persistent in-page videos, as well as video pop-unders and interstitials.
The acquisition price is undisclosed and is under the threshold at which News Corp (NYSE: NWS) would be compelled to give the figure, though .Fox Networks ("dot fox") president Hernan Lopez told me Utarget is getting “a reasonable multiple” based on its revenue “north of £5 million” ($9.9 million) from the last 12 months.
The purchase has a particular emphasis on the pop-unders, which Utarget calls “tvsub” and which keep the video ad paused until the user closes the overlapping window. Utarget’s software products will be rolled out to dot fox’s 17 international offices and the company will be rebranded “Utarget.Fox”, though the company itself will continue to operate only in the UK, Germany and some other European countries. CEO Phil Cooper will stay on-board and Lopez is joining the board.
Lopez on the rationale: “We want to be very closely associated with online video, where we see a huge opportunity. There is a lot of online video available but very little is advertiser-friendly and even less of it is bought and sold on planner-friendly terms. We are going to capitalise on our knowledge of how television advertising is bought and sold, but adding the unique targeting and performance capabilities of online video.”
“We believe television is the best medium to build brands because it has motion. Online video today lacks scale. I was not wowed by anyone else in video advertising networks. The video inventory wasn’t generally available.” One result of the deal: Utarget’s ads will be delivered to News Corp-owned sites like MySpace in some countries.
Dot fox was formed after the acquisition of two Latin American ad networks last year and sits in the Fox International Channels division. It works with over 500, primarily non-US advertisers and claims over 1,000 publishers in its inventory, including some of Fox’s own properties, but is otherwise secretive on their identities, citing contractual confidentiality. It rolled out quietly in the UK last week with a deal to sell unsold inventory on News International sites plus on Photobucket and MySpace.
Utarget “rain maker” Robert Black spoke on our Exploding Video panel in London last month ... video here.
Posted in: Advertising, Money, M&A
Tags: fox networks, utarget,
