SpotXchange’s Shehan on Sale to RTL, Global Expansion and the Future of Programmatic TV

LAS VEGAS — Programmatic video ad trading platform SpotXchange sold a majority of itself to German broadcast holding group RTL because it wants a bigger slice of a legacy TV industry..

“Europe is a really big market – it’s really challenging in each and every country,” CEO Mike Shehan tells Beet.TV in this video interview.

“For us to really penetrate that and work with broadcast-type content… we need to get closer to (broadcasters). We’ve already started to get traction in each of those countries, they’ve helped us set up operations.”

Shehan says programmatic video is attractive to the incumbent broadcast industry because audience dynamics are changing: “People say linear (ad inventory) is sold out – but there’s deterioration of the currency – viewers now are not watching TV as much.”

Shehan spoke with Beet.TV at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Beet.TV coverage of CES 2015 is sponsored by Adobe Primetime. Find all our coverage here.