Roku and FreeWheel Announce Strategic Partnership to Bring Roku’s Leading Ad Tech to FreeWheel Customers

The collaboration fuels greater interoperability, automation, quality and results for publishers.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Roku (Nasdaq: ROKU), the No. 1 TV streaming platform in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico*, and FreeWheel today announced a new partnership that will bring forth a suite of industry solutions to unlock the full value of streaming TV for advertisers and publishers.

As part of this collaboration, the two companies will be launching new technological offerings that aim to simplify, optimize and enhance TV streaming. The effort is especially timely and noteworthy as the industry approaches a critical time in TV streaming’s evolution. Per Nielsen, time spent with streaming TV surpassed broadcast and cable for the first time since 2022. Additionally, eMarketer projects 57% of U.S. digital video users will stream an advertising-based video on demand (AVOD) service this year.

Having solutions aimed at driving greater interoperability and automation will help accelerate this growth.

Key highlights of this collaboration include:

• Streamlined Integration: Roku has now integrated its demand application programming interface (dAPI) with FreeWheel’s TV platform. Roku’s demand API gives publishers direct, automatic and real-time access to more advertiser demand. This enhanced integration allows for streamlined ad operation workflows and better inventory quality control, both of which will improve publisher yield and revenue.
• Seamless Data Targeting: Publishers can now use Roku platform signals to enable advertisers to target audiences and measure campaign performance without relying on cookies. Additionally, FreeWheel and Roku will rely on data clean room technology to enable the activation of additional data sets providing better measurement and monetization to publishers and agencies.
• Inventory Quality: FreeWheel will leverage Roku’s Watermark solution to prevent sophisticated invalid traffic (IVT)/fraud in TV streaming in partnership with cybersecurity company HUMAN Security, through its robust MediaGuard solution that ensures ad inventory is reaching real humans. Roku’s Advertising Watermark is the industry’s first authentication solution built for TV streaming and gives marketers the confidence that their advertising spend is reaching real streamers. The technology helps marketers and publishers prevent device spoofing and app spoofing by validating ad measurement signals.

“Our goal is to create a better TV experience for our partners and consumers,” said Youssef Ben-Youssef, Senior Director, Technology Partnerships, Roku. “This new collaboration brings together an industry-leading blend of data, tech and reporting to accelerate the shift from traditional TV to streaming TV.”

“There is a lot of synergy, energy and a shared sense of purpose behind our work with Roku,” said FreeWheel Chief Strategy Officer Soo Jin Oh. “At FreeWheel, we believe the industry is stronger and better when we collectively help solve today’s problems while creating future innovation. And so, it’s our hope that this new initiative will help pave the way for greater simplicity, optimization and an even more improved experience for the TV advertising ecosystem.”

To learn more about Roku and FreeWheel, visit our blog.

*based on hours streamed, Dec 2022, Hypothesis Group

About FreeWheel

FreeWheel empowers all segments of The New TV Ecosystem. We are structured to provide the full breadth of solutions the advertising industry needs to achieve their goals. We provide the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types, and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers. With offices in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, London, Paris, Beijing, and across the globe, FreeWheel, A Comcast Company, stands to advocate for the entire industry through the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more information, please visit freewheel.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About Roku, Inc.

Roku pioneered streaming on TV. We connect users to the content they love, enable content publishers to build and monetize large audiences, and provide advertisers with unique capabilities to engage consumers. Roku TV™ models, Roku streaming players, and TV-related audio devices are available in various countries around the world through direct retail sales and/or licensing arrangements with TV OEM brands. Roku-branded TVs and Roku Smart Home products are sold exclusively in the United States. Roku also operates The Roku Channel, the home of free and premium entertainment with exclusive access to Roku Originals. The Roku Channel is available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Roku is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., U.S.A.

This press release contains “forward-looking” statements that are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to us on the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These statements include but are not limited to trends related to TV streaming and advertising; the parties’ entry into a partnership; and the features, benefits, growth and reach of the Roku platform. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially are detailed from time to time in the reports Roku, Inc. files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 and our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 2023. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on Roku’s website and are available from Roku without charge.

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