Gracenote and PubMatic partner on CTV buying

The collaboration integrates Gracenote’s content intelligence and programme metadata into PubMatic’s platform

Gracenote and PubMatic have formed a strategic partnership aimed at improving the way connected TV (CTV) advertising inventory is discovered, evaluated and purchased by giving buyers greater visibility into the content behind ad impressions.

The collaboration integrates Gracenote’s content intelligence and programme metadata into PubMatic’s platform, allowing advertisers and agencies to make buying decisions based on specific programmes, episodes and live events rather than relying solely on audience signals.

Addressing the content visibility challenge

As audiences continue shifting from traditional television to streaming services, advertising investment has not moved at the same pace. According to Gracenote, one reason is the lack of detailed content-level information available to advertisers during the buying process.

Research from the company found that 86 percent of media planners view limited programme and content data as a barrier to reallocating more advertising budgets from linear television to connected TV.

The partnership is designed to address that issue by enabling PubMatic to match advertising opportunities with Gracenote’s episode-level content data in real time. This allows advertisers to target inventory associated with specific content categories, programmes and events through curated deal IDs.

Focus on live sports inventory

A key element of the partnership is the integration of Gracenote’s programme schedule data into PubMatic’s Live Sports Marketplace.

The technology allows buyers to identify and purchase inventory around live sporting events as they take place, using verified programme information rather than relying on broader contextual signals.

By combining content intelligence with PubMatic’s AI-powered curation capabilities, the companies aim to provide advertisers with greater transparency into the inventory they are purchasing and the content environments in which their ads appear.

Built for real-time decisioning

The integration operates using the IAB Tech Lab’s Agentic Real-Time Framework (ARTF), which is designed to support rapid data exchange within programmatic advertising environments.

According to the companies, the implementation adds between 0.1 and 0.5 milliseconds to transaction processing times, enabling content-based decisioning without significantly affecting bidstream performance.

The technology is also integrated into PubMatic’s AgenticOS platform, supporting both traditional deal-based buying and automated agentic advertising workflows.

Benefits for publishers and advertisers

For streaming publishers, the partnership is intended to make premium inventory easier to package and differentiate across live sports, television programmes and films.

For advertisers, the companies say the integration offers greater confidence that campaigns are being aligned with specific content and events that attract audience attention.

Jake Richardson, VP of Product Partnerships, Gracenote: "Marketers are paying more for CTV impressions and want to know their ads are running during familiar content they can verify. What’s made this difficult is the need for the data to work at the speed of the bidstream to inform what gets packaged and bought. Now, with PubMatic, our contextual segments and live sports schedules operate at that critical decision point."

Expanding programmatic sports advertising

The partnership also supports PubMatic’s broader strategy of making live sports inventory more accessible within programmatic advertising channels.

Nicole Scaglione, VP of CTV and Online Video, PubMatic: "Live sports is the most premium inventory in the industry. What Gracenote brings to our platform is the verified content intelligence that powers impression-level decisioning to be more precise and more measurable, so buyers get the performance without sacrificing transparency. Whether buying agentically or through existing workflows, there are now tens of millions of verified live sports impressions on our platform ready to deliver."

The companies said the collaboration is intended to improve planning, verification and transaction capabilities for premium streaming inventory as advertisers seek greater transparency and control over connected TV investments.

www.gracenote.com

www.pubmatic.com

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