James Rooke on how can TV compete and win against the platforms

Justin sits down with James Rooke, president of Comcast Advertising — the group behind FreeWheel, Universal Ads and Comcast's media sales business — to tackle the question dominating TV: can the industry realistically compete with the dominance of the major platforms? Rooke's core case is that premium video is "performative" across the whole funnel, and that TV can win dollars back if it fixes two things — making inventory easy to buy and easy to prove. The conversation ranges across the "curse of incumbency," the bloated programmatic value chain, and Universal Ads' fresh UK launch with ITV, Sky and Channel 4. Highlights: - Why 90% of new media spend flowing to a handful of players is bad for brands, effectiveness and a balanced ecosystem. - The twofold problem with premium video TV: it's too hard to buy and too hard to prove. - Why the industry should not compromise on transparency — and why expecting "black box" players to become transparent is a fool's errand. - Incrementality as the level playing field: when four players share a $10 lift, only $10 of credit exists — and premium video is outperforming on that basis. - The "curse of incumbency": stitching scaled linear onto growing streaming across different tech stacks and measurement standards, and why AI could be a tailwind rather than a headwind. - FreeWheel's open-API approach so media companies build differentiation on top of shared "core plumbing" rather than re-solving solved problems — plus the case for collaboration and consolidation. - Universal Ads: 22+ publishers in the US, a zero-fee-to-marketer model built on FreeWheel, and a formal UK launch (test campaigns done, "the pipes are working") with ITV, Sky and Channel 4. - Getting root demand to root supply "as the crow flies" — fewer intermediaries, less latency, more working media. ## Key takeaways - Rooke frames premium video as inherently performative across all funnel stages — the basis for winning share back from the platforms. - TV's twin problems: it's too difficult to buy and too difficult to prove, both of which the big media companies can out-execute on a level playing field. - Incrementality is pitched as the apples-to-apples metric; with a fixed pool of credit, premium video is said to outperform social players. - The 'curse of incumbency' means stitching scaled linear onto streaming across different infrastructures, tech stacks and measurement standards. - FreeWheel's strategy is to provide open-API 'core plumbing' so companies focus scarce engineering on differentiation, enabled by collaboration and consolidation. - Universal Ads has 22+ US publishers and a zero-fee-to-marketer model, and is now live in the UK with ITV, Sky and Channel 4.