TV companies long bet on the promise of addressable advertising to save their $70 billion industry amid the rise of cord cutters and streaming video giants.
Advertisers have used addressable to target people who don't see national TV ads, but have only treated it as an experimental part of their budgets. Scale and a lack of measurement standards are still challenges.
Cision and Meltwater are software-as-a-service companies that PR agencies like Edelman and giant companies like Google use to distribute press releases, create email lists of journalists and influencers, and monitor media coverage for their clients.
Some sources expressed concern that a merger of the two companies would staunch competition and effectively create a monopoly. "What I see as harmful is they keep high-level prices and enforce longer term contracts and make them harder to get out of," said an executive at a Cision competitor who was contacted by the Justice Department.
