Disney is putting its video ad tech up for grabs, and it may ditch Comcast for Google. Disney is asking for pitches from Google and other ad-tech companies to potentially take over its video advertising infrastructure and replace FreeWheel, the incumbent tech firm owned by Comcast, people familiar with the matter said. Google has been looking to make inroads into the TV ad industry for roughly a decade. And it seems to have found an opening with providing software designed to make sure ads find the right audience as people increasingly stream TV content via the internet. The search giant has been quietly racking up some noteworthy partnerships on this front, including CBS for its direct-to-consumer All Access service, as Business Insider reported. Still, Comcast's FreeWheel, which has long worked with the likes of Disney and Turner, has been seen as tough to unseat. First off, switching out such vital software is cumbersome. Plus, many have long doubted that TV networks want to get in bed with Google, which is also viewed as a threat to their overall ad business. But as The Wall Street Journal reported in 2014, TV networks have never been wild about Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, having so much access to their viewership data. And things are changing quickly in the media industry, with new once unthinkable alliances now on the table. Disney is trying to acquire a pile of Fox assets and potentially the British satellite company Sky. It's also preparing to launch multiple direct-to-consumer streaming services such as ESPN Plusand a Netflix competitor. Interestingly, even though Disney spent $1.58 billion to acquire the streaming-technology company BAMTech last summer, that company doesn't appear to be in the mix to handle Disney's video ads. BAMTech's strength is in helping deliver video content over the web. Comcast is still in the mix, as Disney is also seeking a pitch from FreeWheel to hold on to its contract. Among the other companies Disney has reached out to is Hulu, a joint venture between Disney, 21st Century Fox, Time Warner, and Comcast — which Disney may soon control a majority stake in. Hulu, which has built its own advertising technology to support its consumer streaming, has yet to outsource this tech to other market participants. It did not participate in the Disney tech pitch, a person familiar with the matter said. It's also possible that Disney could elect to work with a smaller video ad-tech startup and avoid working with Google or Comcast. Still, landing Disney, and theoretically powering the delivery of ads for networks like ABC and ESPN, would represent a solid win for Google. Becoming a TV company's ad-tech vendor wouldn't mean Google would get its hands on that company's ad-sales operations. At least not yet. Yet the more a company like Google can prove that its service, its ad algorithms, and its data are both reliable and beneficial to a TV company navigating an increasingly digital world, the stronger its partnerships theoretically become. That could open up the tech giant to other kinds of deals in the TV industry down the road. "It's a shake-up for sure — this space is wide open right now," said Brian Rifkin, a cofounder of the web video tech firm JW Player. "Google wants in on the TV business, and this is a way to get in there. It's a real long-term play."
