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Discover how Cineverse is unlocking new monetization opportunities in the connected TV (CTV) space through a strategic blend of AI, direct ad tech, and multi-platform distribution. Erick Opeka, President and Chief Strategy Officer of Cineverse, shares insights on leveraging AI for content matching, audience segmentation, and real-time ad optimization; reducing inefficiencies by shortening the ad supply chain through direct integrations like The Trade Desk’s OpenPath; and building a resilient monetization strategy across FAST, AVOD, and direct-to-consumer platforms.
This session is ideal for streaming and digital media executives, ad tech professionals, brand advertisers, media buyers, content distributors, and platform operators. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of how to maximize ad revenue in a fragmented CTV ecosystem, how AI is transforming targeting and ROI, and how to align content and technology strategies for long-term growth.
Bevin Fletcher:
Hi, everyone. Welcome and thank you for joining us. I’m Bevin Fletcher, senior editor of Stream TV Insider, and I’m here with Erick Opeka, president and chief strategy officer of Cineverse.
Hey Erick, thanks for joining us.
Erick Opeka:
Hi, Bevin. Thanks for having me.
Bevin Fletcher:
So to set the stage, a little Cineverse distributes more than 71,000 premium films, series and podcasts, and I think it’s clear consumers continue to flock to streaming, but we’re here to talk about the ability to monetize that through advertising. So to kick things off, I want to ask you about how the distribution piece fits into advertising and monetization of streaming. Cineverse has dozens of streaming channels, podcasts, theatrical releases. So strategically, how do you leverage those multiple distribution endpoints and channels to more effectively capture ad dollars and monetize?
Erick Opeka:
Great question, Bevin. I think for us, we’ve always been a multi-platform company. So our focus is whether we’re operating channels within third party ecosystems like Fast on a Samsung TV platform or LG or Vizio, or whether we’re delivering content and shows to partners where they’re monetizing, like on Tubi, we’re pretty agnostic on that. We do have our own direct ad sales team and internal advertising capabilities. We own our own portfolio of direct to consumer applications where we have inventory there. So really for us, it’s across the board, we do every single model. We think that diversification protects us if there’s any channel downside or seasonality at the macro level. For example, it’s been a challenging year for open market programmatic. However, YouTube today has been a very robust and high teens to low 20%, double-digit growth for us. So by having that diversification of distribution, we can take advantage of emerging or high growth channels that will help us buck the revenue trends to smooth things out as we progress through the year.
Bevin Fletcher:
Interesting. So really taking that multi-platform approach to insulate. Makes sense. And you mentioned the ad tech. I want to get into that for a minute. I don’t think it’s any secret that both audiences and ad tech are a bit fragmented in the CTV space, and sometimes that can make targeting and reach more of a challenge. And I’ve heard before that there’s often a lack of transparency for brands in terms of where their ads are actually running against content. I saw in March you integrated the trade desks open path with Cineverse’s 360 ad platform. So could you just talk to me a little bit about why integrations with partners like that and the actual ability for brands to have more visibility into the content on streaming is important and how does that translate to better monetization?
Erick Opeka:
We’ve been seeing a big trend lately of brands trying to work as close to publishers as possible and move beyond working with intermediaries. So I think one big and important facet there is that doing those kinds of deals allows us to work directly with brands. We’ve done some research and studies and there’s been other studies that have shown 30 to 40% of every ad dollar spent is lost to any intermediary fees and other elements that ultimately leads to less dollars reaching consumers, which are ultimately what advertisers care about. So we think things like open path, operating our own ad tech stack versus relying on third parties is how we help meet that demand and need from the advertisers and agencies and brands we work with.
Bevin Fletcher:
To shortening that supply chain path, making it more efficient?
Erick Opeka:
Exactly. Exactly.
Bevin Fletcher:
I want to switch topics, but still on advertising. But Cineverse has been doing some cool AI powered initiatives. You have your content discovery with CineSearch, the real time programmatic ad optimization, and then I think you’ve been doing some audience segmentation that’s AI-driven with Matchpoint. So AI is clearly hot, but to you, what near term application do you see AI-based tools having the most impact or most legs over the next six months when it comes to advancing CTV advertising and monetization of streaming?
Erick Opeka:
Well, one thing that I think we’re finding happening a lot lately is being able to target content specifically. So for example, I want to reach somebody who watches a specific show on one of the larger streamers. I want that audience, but I don’t want to pay that rate to HBO Max or Netflix and so on. So we think using AI tools to help identify audience segments on types of shows that they’re watching and create correlations between the broader pantheon of shows versus just what’s on the big streamers will allow smart advertisers to reach very, very targeted and effective buckets of consumers for much cheaper. And sometimes you can be at almost 50% cheaper and hit the same audience watching similar shows and content. People who like certain drama shows are going to watch this list of drama shows and these shows are available for much cheaper than the big drama shows. So we think that’s a great prime example of how one might leverage AI. That kind of sophisticated content matching would simply not be available through traditional tagging or other mechanisms that are in the today.
Bevin Fletcher:
And you think we’ll see real world applications of that sooner than later?
Erick Opeka:
You will, and we’re already doing some of these things in our C360 platform. I think that’s also goes back to what we talk about when you own the stack. A lot of people don’t realize we’re as much of an engineering company as an entertainment company. We have an engineering campus in India with over 110 employees that spend all day building next generation technologies and running our platforms. So we have, I think, a distinct edge when it comes to thinking up new things that we can do for advertisers, and we do it constantly.
Bevin Fletcher:
So not only the content, but the tech too, and that whole ecosystem view?
Erick Opeka:
We think ultimately AI will be an integral part of not just the advertising, but the entire totality of content releasing.
Bevin Fletcher:
Interesting. Well, a lot of great insights there. Thank you for sharing, and a lot of exciting stuff to look forward to. So thanks so much, Erick. Appreciate it.
Erick Opeka:
Thanks, Bevin. Really appreciate it.
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