What radio really needs today is more advertisers and we know just the place to find them. Here, in this brief interview between our Dee McVicker and Triton Digital’s Jean-Luc Wasmer, we talk about streaming and advertising. We explain programmatic ad exchanges, why we added the Triton protocol to our streaming products, and what it all means to Wheatstone customers who want to increase on-air and streaming ad revenue.

DM: Many of our customers know Triton Digital as a CDN company that makes a really good streaming protocol, which is why we now include it in Wheatstone streaming appliances and software. What they might not know is how that streaming protocol plays a part in getting more ad revenue. Can you explain? 

JLW: Right! First, let me start by saying that, yes, we are a CDN. But more important, Triton Digital is also a programmatic ad exchange known as the “Triton Audio Marketplace,” where broadcasters can offer ad inventory to advertisers. So, when companies like Starbucks, Geico and Ikea buy web display ads, they can buy radio as well within the same environment. And the MRV2 (Media Relay version 2) protocol you implemented in your streaming software is critical because ads transacted on our exchange (along with publisher direct-sold ads) can be precisely inserted into streams. We created MRV2 to be able to transition between ad insertions and programming cleanly and very precisely, down to the millisecond.

DM: How does the Triton Audio Marketplace work? 

JLW: As an exchange or SSP (Supply-Side Platform), we integrate with almost 40 DSPs (Demand-Side Platforms) like Google DV360, TheTradeDesk and Xandr, where buyers working for digital advertisers go to buy and run their campaigns. It’s almost like the stock exchange, only for ads. Traders work on behalf of the advertiser to get so many qualified impressions. It’s an auction system and what Triton does is give broadcasters like Beasley, Bell Media, iHeart and other Wheatstone customers the tools to be able to offer available inventory on these digital ad platforms; our exchange lets broadcasters make their inventory available to anyone interested in buying. We specialize in audio only. There are “omnichannel” platforms that do video, audio, and display ads but only a very few like us that specialize in audio. Our marketplace offers access to more than 100 billion audio impressions per month, and we’re growing fast. We just announced our acquisition of Manadge, which will allow us to provide rich audience intelligence for programmatic and direct sell advertising campaigns.

DM: Up until now, we’ve been talking about mainly streaming inventory, but do I understand correctly that Jelli is now part of Triton and this adds an OTA piece to your marketplace ad exchange?  

JLW: Correct. Jelli was owned by the same company as Triton (iHeartMedia) and we merged together last year, which accelerated the integration of the Jelli system to our programmatic exchange. As you know, originally Jelli was a system where people could vote for songs online. Eventually, they created this ecosystem where people could go to their website and buy ads that would run on stations that used the Jelli system. It turned into an advertising platform rather than a strictly content platform, but it was a closed system. You had to go onto their portal to buy ads. Now, with that underlying technology from Jelli as part of the Triton Audio Marketplace, advertisers can buy on-air ad inventory from broadcasters. This brings the broadcast inventory, not just the streaming ad inventory, to those digital platforms that advertisers use. The first over-the-air programmatic ads were heard on KLAC in Los Angeles in March. 

DM: Wait, are you saying that we can now sell on-air ad inventory on digital exchange platforms like Google? 

JLW: Yes, a small change is required by our DSP partners to support OTA but 95% of the integration is unchanged so we expect fast adoption. This could make all the difference for radio because as of now, radio is missing out on advertisers. We’re seeing more and more that the people who work in advertising don’t buy radio because they can’t access it easily on the digital platforms they’re now using. They are more interested in getting exposure for advertising campaigns across a number of media and that old way of buying radio on these old legacy systems is too inconvenient. Advertisers are looking to buy on-air and streaming inventory and this is a great way for them to do that. 

By the way, smaller station groups that don’t necessarily have a large digital advertising department can now take advantage of large brokerage agencies to represent them on the exchange. Katz, DAX and TargetSpot, for example, can act like brokers and buy inventory from broadcasters and when they sell it, they make a commission. We now build that type of transaction into our platform so these agencies can represent stations as an extended sales team for them. 

DM: So what you’re telling me is that our streaming customers can offer advertising time on your open exchange and be able to accept ads via the MRV2 protocol, which we now include in our Streamblade/Wheatstream appliances and Layers Stream software?  

JLW: Yes. We created the MRV2 protocol because we needed a precisely timed, clean transition between ads and content, and the protocol that was widely in use at the time (and still is) wasn’t cutting it. We need to be able to detect to the millisecond where the break for the ad starts so the transition is very clean without any overlap. In other words, [we developed it] to make sure the ad insertion isn’t botched. It guarantees that everything is timed perfectly so the sound quality of ad insertion is great. The protocol is part of the foundation of everything else, and it’s good that we’re able to include that as standard in Wheatstone audio streaming products.  

DM: Thanks for taking the time to explain this, Jean-Luc. We’ll see you at IBC in September! 

Jean-Luc Wasmer is the VP, Partnership Integration & Architecture, for Triton Digital. Wheatstone sales engineers will be at IBC, stand 8.C91, and will be available to answer any questions on MRV2 and Wheatstone streaming software and appliances for provisioning and processing streams. 

Should you move your studio operation to AWS or another cloud provider? Even if you’re not thinking about it just yet, management certainly is. One very good option is to contain Layers Stream software locally on your server or stack of servers now and, if or when the time comes, move this and other functions offsite to a cloud provider.

One server running Layers Stream at your facility can host the provisioning, audio processing and metadata support for most, if not all, of your streams out to a CDN provider.

Eventually, that same server or stack of servers can also serve instances of FM audio processing with MPX out to your transmitters and/or serve mixing instances for all your LXE consoles throughout your facility, saving the cost and space for each mixing engine that would otherwise sit in racks. Not having a mix engine in every single studio or a rackful of them drawing electricity or heating up the room reduces the cost of cooling and electrical and it might even free up some room for another work area, like a voiceover booth. 

Adding Layers software suite to an existing server in your facility checks off that cloud box with all the benefits management wants, but doesn’t require you to hand over the keys to a third party. For background information on containerization, cloud, and servers, read How Future Cloud Is Changing Studio Buildouts Now or watch Servers as the Gateway to Cloud, presented by our head of R&D Dominic Giambo.

And they don’t get much better than this new power supply made right here at our factory in New Bern, NC. 

We know, we’ve tested them all.

Off-the-shelf power supplies just don’t cut it for Wheatstone products, and Audioarts consoles either. We made this new power supply for our Audioarts IP-12, DMX, Air 1 and Air 4 consoles as well as Wheatstone TS-4 and TS-22 talent stations. (We also make our own power supplies for LXE audio consoles and our WheatNet IP audio network line of products.)

We roll our own power supplies so our products can start with clean power, which, as we all know, is the first rule of great audio performance and component longevity. Everything down the line depends on steady, clean power free from spikes and voltage drops, which is why we designed and build this new supply in-house at the Wheatstone factory.

We manufacture all our products under one roof in New Bern, NC, handling everything from machining, fabrication, and screening to printed circuit board surface-mount. Raw materials arrive in the back door and wind through the factory to be pressed, molded, wired and tested, retested, and tested again before making their way out into the world as Wheatstone products. 

Manufacturing in house lets us respond more quickly to changes and gives us much better control over a volatile supply chain.

It also lets us start with clean power that makes all the difference down the line.