Programmatic is not remnant inventory. Curation and premium coexist.
Julie Selman Senior Vice President and Head of EMEA, Magnite
Interviewed by Justin Cooke
Published
Julie Selman is Senior Vice President and Head of EMEA at Magnite, one of the world's largest independent sell-side advertising platforms. Her career spans Taboola, FreeWheel, and now Magnite, with deep expertise from early digital media through to the connected-TV and streaming era. In this conversation she sets out the connected TV as a full-circle moment; the programmatic-is-not-remnant-or-cheaper myth-busting; the linear-TV-on-Christmas-Day-no-targeting versus precision data-driven CTV contrast; and the premium-event live-TV moments are still untapped in programmatic opportunity.
From film-and-TV student to head of EMEA at Magnite
The setup.
Always had a love for media: film, TV. Studied film and TV. Briefly went to law school but it was not my passion. As a student I worked on film sets. In my third year, a trip to New York to visit Madison Avenue agencies: wow, this is so glamorous and creative.
Moved to London to do a master's in media and sociology. Needed a job. Went on Gumtree and found a temp job at an ad-tech company called Vibrant Media. Energetic place, everyone young, the beginning of digital advertising. I grew up with digital advertising myself: programmatic, the year of mobile (which lasted five years), header bidding, now CTV and agentic. Never stops changing.
The new TV ecosystem
On the structure.
The converging of traditional linear broadcasting with streaming and premium video. Very overwhelming for buyers and publishers. A lot going on. Magnite's role: create structure and clarity. Help buyers make it less complex, automated, more efficient. Help publishers package and monetise inventory in the new digital way.
On the myth-busting.
I did a myth-busting panel with Channel 4 earlier. One: is programmatic or digital-buying versus linear remnant inventory, less premium, cheaper? Absolutely not the case. Two: the data you can apply and the things you can now do in the world of digital on the big screen. Not fully understood yet, or at least not fully used as it could be.
CTV versus broadcast: completely different
On the contrast.
Fundamentally different. More responsive, data-informed. Programmatic is not always the route, but the principle is targeted to key audiences, not advertising to everyone in the nation on Christmas Day with big budgets and no targeting. You can be much more precise, adjust messaging to different audiences with different creative.
Channel 4 said today that budgets used to require a minimum spend. That is gone. You can spend whatever you need to spend because the data and targeting are precise enough.
On the hyper-local example.
Using first-party data and signals: a delivery service that only advertises if it is raining in Manchester. Really specific, really data-driven. You can see the results immediately. Now what do we do next?
Big-event live TV: still untapped in programmatic
On the opportunity.
Big-event live TV has massive value because the audience is extremely leaned-in. The quality of the audience is very good. Still slightly untapped in programmatic because it is unpredictable: spikes, the break could be extra time, you do not know.
Around Super Bowl and the World Cup there is a huge spike in advertisers trying out the live event. Fast channels around F1 show old races but spike around the actual race because everyone wants to find out more about Verstappen. Massive potential.
On the viewer experience.
The viewer experience is so important in television environments. Streamers with ads when they first started disrupted the experience: a sad podcast moment followed by a happy, clappy ad. How many ads, where to put them, are they relevant, is the same ad repeating, frequency capping. Basic user-experience things matter.
Broadcasters are extremely good at this from many years of practice. If they produce content too, they know where to put the ads. Streamers are learning. Data is good for the buyer. It is also good for the viewer because it is nice to get a relevant ad.
Consolidation plus unusual partnerships
On the prediction.
Already seeing consolidation: Paramount and WBD if it is happening. Netflix-Sky-ITV moves. Plus unusual partnerships: TF1 putting content on Netflix, ITV working with Prime. A combination of consolidation and partnerships and things that seem unexpected now.
The biggest growth opportunities: broadcasters will invest more in streaming. Long-tail platforms and channels will have to consolidate. Scale is extremely important still, even though with data you can go smaller. Smaller ones will either consolidate or disappear.
On Europe.
The US is much further ahead. Within Europe, the UK is in a different place from Italy. Depends on broadcaster influence: in some countries broadcasters are still very dominant. Asia is mobile-first, a completely different world.
A campaign across multiple countries may look different in each, depending on integration. The complexity often misunderstood by US or non-European companies: GDPR, tax implications, labour law. State of the market: programmatic and CTV penetration is zero in some countries and very high in the UK. The discipline: see the nuance, but bring the global strategy in where possible.
The question for the board
If CTV brings data to the big screen and live events spike attention, what share of brand-TV spend buys data-informed precision versus the live moments that compound impact?
