2026: The Broadcaster Platform Shift

How French Advertising Sales Houses are Redefining Media Buying and Video Investment Strategy? 

The year 2026 marks a decisive turning point for media buying with the concrete advent of the "platformization of media buying on the broadcaster side." Far from being a mere evolution, this profound structural mutation promises advertisers increased video efficiency, better investment steering, as well as reinforced transparency and security of their broadcasting environments - promises whose realization and standardization remain to be proven in the face of the diversity of solutions.

Advertising sales houses are transforming into true technological hubs. This dynamic is expected to capture a growing share of digital media budgets, with projections indicating double-digit growth in investments via these proprietary platforms over the next two years.

The Revolution of Proprietary Platforms: Beyond Simple Inventory

Major players in the French audiovisual and media landscape have taken the lead, investing massively in proprietary buying ecosystems. Initiatives such as TF1 AdManager, FranceTV Publicité with AdSpace IA, M6 Unlimited, or NRJ Global are no longer content with simply selling space; they are proposing integrated and intelligent solutions built on three fundamental pillars:

• First-Party Data, the Heart of Relevance: These platforms deeply exploit proprietary data (first-party data) from their audiences. This allows for targeting of increased finesse and relevance, personalization of advertising messages, and the capacity to reach precise audience segments with unrivaled efficiency. This mastery of data allows Broadcasters to revalue their content and audiences. Premium broadcast contexts are major assets compared to more open environments. However, by focusing solely on their own audiences, this approach can generate data silos, making a holistic view more complex for advertisers and agencies.

• Automation and AI: Operational Efficiency Gains: Gone are the tedious manual buying processes. Automation streamlines the entire campaign lifecycle, from planning to optimization. Increasingly, artificial intelligence bricks are integrated for performance prediction, dynamic budget adjustment, and real-time optimization, thus maximizing ROI. However, this integration of AI raises the question of adaptability and requires new skills to master fully. The AI Academy set up at WPP Media will enable our experts to achieve this upskilling.

• Self-Serve: Autonomy and Flexibility:  Following the standards of major global digital platforms, several of these solutions integrate self-serve logic. This confers unprecedented autonomy and flexibility to manage and steer campaigns, accelerating decision-making and execution processes. This autonomy, however, implies technical mastery, underscoring the crucial importance of upskilling our teams—a need our new organization is set to answer fully.

The objective is clear: to offer structured, reliable, and high-performing entry points that meet digital standards in terms of speed, transparency, and results.

By adopting these strategies based on advanced data management, automation, and self-serve tools, local players aim to position themselves as robust and competitive alternatives, aiming to rival—or at least effectively complement—major international platforms by offering a secure framework and optimized performance specific to their audiences.

Impact on Advertisers: Increased Efficiency and Control for Video Investment

For advertisers, this transformation is excellent news, particularly for video investment. It promises increased campaign efficiency thanks to precise targeting and advanced automation, specifically on key metrics such as video completion rate, aided brand awareness, or purchase intent.

The ability to access proprietary environments allows for a better understanding of each medium's specific audience, as well as more direct control and increased transparency over investments. Nevertheless, this transparency is often limited to aggregated data shared by the Broadcaster. Strong analytical capability is therefore indispensable for a consolidated view. Budgets can be measured and optimized in real-time, offering fine visibility on attribution and performance. These platforms also guarantee a secure and high-quality broadcasting environment, an essential criterion for brands.

The New Media Agency Value Chain: From Execution to Strategic Orchestration

It is for media agencies that the evolution is most profound, redefining their role and the traditional value chain. They are moving away from pure buying execution to embrace functions with higher added value:

• Strategic Orchestration: The agency becomes the conductor, capable of navigating and harmonizing strategies across an ecosystem of diverse proprietary platforms. The major challenge lies in managing interoperability between these solutions, which is not always native, compelling agencies to develop sharp technical and strategic expertise to aggregate fragmented data and ensure campaign consistency.

• High Value-Added Consulting: Faced with the increasing complexity of tools and options, the advisory expertise of agencies is more crucial than ever. They guide advertisers in the choice of platforms, the interpretation of first-party data, and the definition of the most relevant budget allocation strategies.

• Device Architecture and Innovation: Agencies must now build intelligent media architectures, integrating the specificities of each broadcast platform while guaranteeing the overall consistency and efficiency of campaigns. They are also at the forefront of exploring innovations, such as the potential integration of generative AI to aid in advertising content creation or the experimentation of novel interactive formats.

Perspectives and Challenges: Towards a More Integrated Ecosystem

While "platformization" offers immense opportunities, it also presents major challenges.

For Broadcasters, competition with global digital giants and the need to continue innovating to propose ever more advanced features are constant stakes. Ideally, the future could see increased interoperability between these platforms, or even partnerships to create aggregated offers, further simplifying access. But the realization of this simplification will depend on complex agreements between often competing players, which is far from guaranteed.

For agencies, this implies training their teams and integrating new technical skills. It is in this philosophy that we accompany and train our broadcast team at WPP Media. Our goal is also to integrate Open Intelligence, our tech solution allowing for the native integration of partner data to feed Open Media Studio, our suite of tools deployed across the entire media process (Discover, Planning, Activation, Measure).

A New Era for Media Investment The platformization of media buying in 2026 is not a simple technological trend; it is a reaffirmation of the value of proprietary content and audiences, a powerful lever for video investment. By offering environments integrating data, automation, and self-serve, broadcasters are regaining control, offering advertisers and agencies more powerful, transparent, and secure tools. This opens a new era where strategy, fine data analysis, and expert orchestration of devices will be the keys to success for more relevant and high-performing campaigns.

At WPP Media, we position ourselves as the architects of your success. Capable of building the best strategies, we will continue to maximize the performance and transparency of your campaigns in this new ecosystem.

Our One Video approach, deployed since the summer of 2025, allows us to concretely accompany you in the progressive implementation of these new opportunities through targeted tests and a controlled ramp-up, transforming these evolutions into tangible results for your brands.